Ubuntucat

If you read as many reviews of the Eee PC as I’ve read, you’ll know that many of the negative reviews come from people who mistake the Eee for a notebook or laptop. Granted, it looks like a laptop (albeit one hit by a shrink-ray) and does a lot of things a laptop does, but it is not a laptop. People are calling it a subnotebook, a netbook, or UMPC (ultra-mobile PC) replacement. Who knows what name will stick? But this isn’t a total computer replacement any more than your cell phone is (think iPhone and not Macbook).

I was able to replace my desktop computer with an Eee, because I also happen to share a household with my wife, who has a regular laptop (a Macbook Pro), so when I wanted to give a CD mix to a friend, I burned it on my wife’s Macbook Pro (the Eee has no optical drive). The screen on the Eee is tiny—you won’t be doing any heavy graphics editing on it.

The Eee is an internet appliance that also happens to do a few non-internet-related things as well (it has a word processor, a spreadsheet program, a sound recording program, and a music organizer). Mainly, though, it’s great for browsing the internet, emailing friends, and Skyping (I just yesterday tried out video Skype on it, and the webcam and microphone work quite well). There is the occasional website I have to do some side-scrolling with (using the Right arrow key), and if you want to watch YouTube videos, you may want to use Firefox in fullscreen mode (press F11 to toggle back and forth), but it’s a nifty little appliance I’ll think nothing of toting around.

It’s actually made doing laundry bearable (I love reading books in the bathroom or on the bus, but for some reason not while doing the wash), and I’m looking forward to taking it on the plane with me when I visit my parents for Christmas—I won’t have to worry about it weighing down my backpack or being too much trouble to take out for the security check at the airport.

If you find yourself in coffee shops using wireless to blog or check out the latest news feeds and are tired of hauling your 15″ or 17″ laptop around, you may want to check out Asus’ Eee PC (or its upcoming rivals from HP, Dell, and Acer in the upcoming months).

It’s not difficult to get overexcited about a new product when you first buy it, especially if it’s been one you’ve been eyeing for months. Now that it’s been a week, and I’ve had time to use the Eee extensively and tweak it some, I can honestly say I’m happy with my purchase.

Are there things that still annoy me? Hell, yes! But for a product relatively new to the market (think iPods of 2003 or cell phones in 1999), it’s pretty solid. I have finally gotten used to the placement of the right Shift key, but the numeral 1 being so far to the left still throws me off. And, yes, the keys on the keyboard feel as cheap in construction as they did last week, but I’ve noticed that the Eee’s keyboard isn’t as susceptible to cat fur infestation as my old desktop computer’s keyboard was. Plus, for the non-keyboard part of the Eee, since our cat is mostly white and the Eee I bought is black, it’s very easy to notice right away any fur that drifts on to the screen or casing, and I can blow it away immediately.

Through extensive web browsing, I have finally come across some websites that require horizontal scrolling, which has prompted me to install Opera (which allows you to scale pages to fit the width of the screen). I may end up doing a little back and forth switching between Opera and Firefox.

I’ve also realized that I really don’t go out that much to coffee shops and such. It was handy having the Eee with me while I did laundry; but when I’m hanging out with friends, I don’t really need an internet appliance. Mainly, I just use it at home on the couch while watching TV, and it’s nice to have a computer that doesn’t take up so much space (my old desktop had a tower, separate speakers that needed to be plugged in, an external monitor, an external keyboard, and an external mouse). When we do end up traveling (if airlines’ flight prices go down), it will be nice not having to haul a huge 5″ laptop around.

This Eee will serve me well for a while, though it’ll be interesting to see what’s on the horizon for subnotebooks / “netbooks.” HP is supposed to have one coming out soon with a slightly bigger keyboard (with spill-proof keys) and a much bigger hard drive. I think Dell and Acer are supposed to have things in the works, too, to compete with the Eee. And Asus itself will be releasing a new version of the Eee soon, too (larger screen, higher resolution webcam, larger hard drive, more memory, higher price).

Since the Linux model isn’t sold in stores, and the Windows model is supposed to arrive about now but reports are mixed about its actual availability at Best Buy (brick and mortar, anyway), I’m starting up a little section here devoted especially to the Eee, because I feel this is where computers are headed.

If you’ve been reading technology news the past two years, you know that the One Laptop Per Child XO Laptop, the Intel Classmate PC, and the Macbook Air have been a lot of the exciting developments in the area of home computing and/or education. Computer use recently has grown more and more dependent on the internet. These days, with Firefox (or another web browser), you can do your taxes, organize photos, listen to music, share documents, shop, connect with friends and family, get directions, buy concert tickets… you get the point (and so do computer manufacturers). The traveling internet appliance has arrived and are even starting to earn the nickname netbook.

Well, I’ve been eyeing these “netbooks” for a while now, and the Macbook Air is just too far out of my price range, and I’d been hearing good things about the Eee for months (the fact that it has Linux preinstalled on it didn’t hurt for me either as a selling point). After reading literally hundreds of reviews of it (blogs, videos, user comments, tech news articles), I took the plunge and got myself a Xandros-preloaded Eee PC, and I don’t regret it. More details later, but for now just know that it is cute, visually stunning, and does what it’s supposed to (email, web browsing, web camming, Skype, IM, word processing, time-wasting games, music management, photo editing) and in a very, very small package.