Feb 19 2009
The Eee PC is Awesome
Kara’s laptop computer has been on its last legs for a long time now. Of course, I’m not actually sure that it ever had any first legs. I helped her pick it out, and I think there have been maybe three days since then that the laptop has actually functioned as intended. Kara has apparently infinite patience with things that would cause me to shout very bad words at a computer, such as the left mouse button providing no tactile feedback, or the battery holding no charge at all, or the power connector making loose contact with the power plug (which is really interesting in combination with the dead battery), but I finally decided that enough is enough.
We’re replacing the evil laptop with one of these, which arrived yesterday:
It’s named after the noise Kara made when she saw it. It’s only a little larger than a hardcover book, weighs about 3 pounds, and is just generally adorable. The best part is that all of the currently available models are sub-$400.
I’m not the first person to say this, but I will echo the sentiment: The Eee PC 1000 is an awesome machine. There are different models, but they all share an extremely low-power design that provides for amazing battery life. Ours looks like it will deliver just shy of 6 hours of typical desktop use on a charge, which is stunning for something so small.
The 1000 we bought is the Linux model, which contains an 8GB and a 32GB SSD (one “fast” and one “slow”) instead of a hard drive. This is my first experience with solid-state storage and it is impressive. Writing to the disk is much slower than with a hard drive, but read speeds are about the same and seeking is practically instant, so many common tasks are significantly faster than I’m used to. The SSD also means the Eee PC is shockproof and virtually silent, and is partly responsible for the amazing battery life of this model.
Aesthetically, the screen is great, the keyboard is surprisingly large and easy to use, and the machine is pleasantly non-hostile to the advanced user. The first thing I did was to replace the 1GB RAM module with a 2GB SODIMM, a $20 upgrade that makes a big difference in usability. This involved removing 2 screws from a panel and took about 30 seconds. Behind the panel I found all the “user-serviceable” parts–the RAM, the SSD, and the wifi adapter–neatly presented. Much friendlier than other laptops I have seen.
The included Linux OS may be fine for some users, but I installed Ubuntu. It’s a little tricky to install a new OS without a CD drive, but fortunately there are easy tools to transfer bootable CD images onto USB flash drives. Ubuntu works great, and the only customization I had to make was to switch to a special kernel that includes support for all of the Eee PC’s hardware. This enabled the wifi and enhanced support for the Eee’s power management features. I’ve haven’t run a generic Linux distro on a laptop in recent years, and it was a really pleasant surprise to see how perfectly things like power management were integrated with the OS. Once you install the eeepc kernel, every piece of hardware in the Eee PC just works.
I was somewhat surprised by the performance of the machine. The CPU is a 1.6GHz Intel Atom, a peculiar low-power architecture that’s supposedly equivalent to a Pentium M running at about 50% of the clock speed, but it never feels slow. I think some credit is due to Ubuntu and to Linux in general here, but it also demonstrates how little CPU power you really need for most purposes. For some tasks that involve reading lots of small files (booting up, starting some applications) the Eee PC actually feels faster than my much more powerful desktop PC, thanks to the solid-state disk.
So if you need a new laptop, I’d recommend considering an Eee PC. They’re well-built and reasonably powerful, you can buy two of them for the price of a nice laptop, and–most importantly–they’re actually small enough that you’ll want to take them places. The Windows XP version of the Eee PC 1000 (the 1000H) contains a mechanical hard drive because Windows constantly performs disk I/O for no reason, so it will be noisier and slower for some tasks, but that should only diminish the cool factor a little. If all you want is to surf the internet, chat and e-mail, then get the Linux version and use the included OS, because it’s just fine for those purposes and much faster than Windows.
I’m not patient, just lazy. Using a new machine requires me to transfer all my pictures, porn, schoolwork and music onto something else, a task I’d just rather not deal with. Looks like I’ll have to this weekend, though. *sigh* Or bribe you into doing it for me.
It sounds really cool! What would the Windows version be good for then? I know I have trouble getting used to the idea of an OS other than Windows.
I wish grandma had looked at an Eee Pc before buying her laptop. It would have suited her needs just fine.
I really don’t think there is a compelling case for Windows XP on the Eee PC, except that a lot of people need Windows software, or are too afraid of anything that says “Linux” to buy a Linux computer. Running Windows on these things removes so much of what makes them amazing.
The Linux OS that ASUS chose to put on the Eee PC would really be great for someone like … (grandma? grand-mom-in-law? Is there a word for this?). It doesn’t say “Linux” anywhere, there are no confusing messages, it just comes right up with a screen full of big friendly icons offering to let you browse the web, do email, do instant messenger, write documents and so on. For someone who isn’t tied to a particular piece of Windows-specific software and just wants to get online, it’s definitely a better experience than Windows. The security updates happen automatically and never require you to restart your computer or answer any complex questions.
I think the key is that you have to not need any Windows-only software, or at least not need to run any on the Eee PC. For some people, that requires a major technological lifestyle change, and they’d probably be better served by staying away from the netbook category entirely.
yea they pretty cool alright. I got the 702 last year before everyone else had one. The battery dont last too long on mine but i got a car charger for it for a few dolla on ebay. Mine cost $500 but i might get a slightly bigger one in a few years. I dont use it all that much. The kernel on mine wouldnt support my nokia e51 or bluetooth dongle so i installed eeexubuntu although that distro is no longer maintained i think