- Extremely Portable
- Very Low Cost
- Easy to Use Operating System
- Lacks Optical Drive
- Operating System Too Restricted
- Small Keyboard Can Be Difficult For Extended Use
- Intel Celeron M 900MHz Ultra Low Voltage Mobile Processor
- 512MB PC2-5300 DDR2 Memory
- 4GB Solid State Disk Storage
- 7" WVGA (800x480) Widescreen LCD Display and Intel GMA 900 Integrated Graphics with VGA Webcam
- 10/100 Ethernet, 802.11b/g Wireless
- Three USB 2.0, 3-in-1 Card Reader
- 8.9" x 6.3" x 1.3" @ 2 lbs.
- Custom Linux OS, OpenOffice, FireFox, Skype
1/3/08 – The ASUS Eee PC is a very unique laptop computer in a very crowded market. The system is extremely affordable and highly portable. It weighs only two pounds thanks to its extremely small design that does away with many traditional PC components.
Rather than relying on traditional hard drive and CD or DVD, the ASUS Eee PC 4G comes equipped with a 4GB solid state drive. This is very limited in space but provides the benefits of being shock resistant and extremely quick. In fact, the system boots in in a matter of seconds into its operating system. Of course, the lack of a CD or DVD drive limits the ability to listen to music or movies on the go.
The system is very easy to use thanks to its specially designed Linux operating system. It comes preloaded with a large number of applications including word processing, spreadsheets, web browser, e-mail and even Skype to name a few. They are broken up into a series of categories such as Internet, Work and Play. Performance is limited because of the hardware but this isn't too much of a problem for those wanting to just do a few things while on the go.
While the overall system is great for those who just need to do a few things on the go or as a secondary PC, there are still a few things that people will want to be aware of. First, the installed Linux OS is very restrictive and requires a large amount of work to do tasks that aren't already designed into the OS. Users can configure it with Windows XP, but installing this requires extra hardware and software purchases and the limited storage space prevents much from being installed. Finally, it's small size makes the keyboard difficult to use over time.
