ASUS Eee PC: Laptop, UMPC, or Something Else?
by Jarred Walton on November 30, 2007 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
The User Experience
Okay, so ASUS created this svelte little laptop that's available at a reasonable price - assuming you can find it in stock, which is currently difficult. What's it like to use the Eee PC on a regular basis? This is where things can get a little difficult to quantify, as we're dealing with the user experience and a subjective evaluation. Let's start with some quick benchmark numbers, for the interested.
| ASUS Eee PC 4G Performance Testing | |
| General Performance | |
| Battery Life - Web Surfing (minutes) | 162 |
| Operating System (seconds) | |
| Startup | 24 |
| Shutdown | 8 |
| Suspend (Hibernate) | 7 |
| Resume | 8 |
| Restart and WiFi | 49 |
| Application Load Times (seconds) | |
| Open Office Documents | 6 |
| Open Office Calc | 8 |
| Open Office Presentations | 6 |
| Web Browser (Firefox) | 5 |
| Dictionary | 14 |
Start/shutdown, suspend/resume, and application load times are all reasonable. This definitely isn't a superfast laptop, but for casual use it's more than sufficient. Of course, if you start loading more than one application, things might get a little less snappy in terms of performance. Upgrading the memory to 1GB addresses that problem, but that would of course increase the price and void your warranty. (Yes, we are aware that it may not be possible for ASUS to void the warranty for memory upgrade; how that plays out remains to be seen.) We should also mention that Open Office load times increase by around five seconds the first time you run on OOo program. Open Office uses Java, so there's an additional delay the first time while the OS loads Java into memory. Why the dictionary application takes so long to load is something of a mystery, but most people will probably never use it anyway. (Most other applications load in a second or two.)
Battery life is decent but not great, coming in at just under three hours. However, note that we are running the display at maximum brightness (as we usually do with any laptop that we're using), and we are generating near constant traffic over the wireless adapter. If you want to turn down the brightness level and you're not surfing the net, it should not be difficult to reach the 3.5 hours of battery life that ASUS lists in their specifications. That's the good news; the bad news is that it seems to take almost as long to recharge the battery.
While performance is generally sufficient for the intended use, where things can get difficult is when you actually start trying to use the Eee PC on a regular basis. For one, the keyboard is tiny - really tiny. Maybe this is great for kids, but after using the keyboard for several hours I personally found it extremely uncomfortable to use. My hands aren't large, but neither are they small - pretty average I would say - but while I can adapt to using the keyboard on a 12" laptop, the diminutive keyboard on the Eee PC really won't work for me as anything more than a temporary solution while I'm away from the office. Other people likely aren't as picky about keyboards - Blackberry devices, iPhones, and SMS messaging are all things that I try to avoid typing on - so this is definitely an area where personal opinion matters - a lot!. If you're like Anand and can type like a demon on your iPhone, the keyboard almost certainly isn't going to be a sticking point.
On a similar note, the touchpad isn't the best that we've encountered. Double-tapping in order to execute a click, or a double-tap followed by a drag, just didn't work as well as we're used to. The buttons below the touchpad also have a mushy feel. Trying to adjust the properties of the touchpad and the settings screen didn't help matters. It's not that the touchpad is unusable, but it's just not as precise as we would like. Again, personal opinion will likely play a role in terms of how important this is. When you aren't on the road, you can of course plug in a keyboard and mouse and eliminate the input device as a point of contention, but that's not really the point of an ultraportable.
We are full of criticisms right now, but let's get them all out of the way at once. The display is plenty bright and not too hard on the eyes, but the native resolution (800x480) is low. We like widescreen displays as much as the next person does, but mostly when we're already talking about larger displays and higher resolutions. An 800x600 display would have been better; there are times when a dialog box will open and you can't see the "OK" button on the bottom because of the lack of vertical screen size. Most operating systems (Windows XP and Vista for sure) are designed for 800x600 or higher resolutions. Plugging the Eee PC into a separate display gets around this problem, but that's not something most people will do.
Another issue is with the wireless support: WPA encryption works, but only if the passphrase doesn't contain spaces. This is something that ASUS can easily fix with a driver update, but so far they have not done so. In fact, they have taken a different approach, as ASUS now states that WPA support is "unofficial" and that the end-user is on their own. For our own network this wasn't a problem, but if you're frequently on the road or trying to use the Eee PC on corporate/school networks this is almost certainly unacceptable. We also had frequent occurrences where the Eee PC would disconnect from our wireless network, particularly after a suspend/resume. We could then manually reconnect without trouble, but why the auto-connect setting would fail at times isn't clear.
All of the above probably makes it sound like we hate - or at least dislike - the Eee PC. Remember how we said evaluating the Eee PC is one of the more challenging reviews we've done? This is part of the problem; the Eee PC doesn't really target the computer enthusiast, and it's difficult to place ourselves in the role of the target market. For us, the Eee PC is not a great choice as a primary computer, but it can work well in a secondary role. Many of the above concerns also deserve a rebuttal, so that's what we'll do.
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JarredWalton - Sunday, December 2, 2007 - link
As others have pointed out, this isn't competing in the same market as 15" notebooks, or even 12" models. That's both good and bad - I'd personally take a 12" laptop, but then those start at about 3x the cost of the Eee PC 4G. :|Also, you're correct that 800x480 is not a standard AR. It really doesn't matter too much outside of running certain applications, but 16:10 would really be a 768x480 resolution. You're talking about 16:9, when you say 854x480, which is in some ways just as non-standard. I'd still like something higher, though... 1024x640 would be a lot better. It's amazing what 160 extra pixels in height can do. But then it would be more difficult for vision-impaired people to read the screen.
shadghost - Sunday, December 2, 2007 - link
it is a solid state storage device onto the mb, not any standard form factor, non removabletmx220 - Friday, November 30, 2007 - link
I thought the name for these are subnotebooksor is that not standard yet?
nubie - Friday, November 30, 2007 - link
I don't know where Anand got such WRONG data, this clearly shows upgradeable memory: http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=3626">http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=3626The 700 is the version that has been showing up without a so-dimm, that is the "$200" version, AFAIK even the 2GB Surf model with 256MB ram is going to be $300 and have the upgradeable RAM.
As far as the "Voided warranty" bit, the only way the designers/engineers were able to get this put on the market is by convincing those in charge that it isn't a computer, the entire company seems to believe it too.
As far as how small it is and how much money and performance, it is much much smaller than a Vostro (like less than half the size), so it isn't really the same thing, do some price-searching on a laptop this size and you will soon see that the price is less than half as expensive as similarly sized models with equal horsepower.
I think we will continue to see ignorant comments comparing it to laptops for a long time (if not forever), simply because these people have never used something as small as a Toshiba Libretto, let me tell you it is a big step up from a Libretto 110CT (233mmx 32/64MB RAM)
I am just really hoping that we get some competition and have more of these for around $300.
WINDOWS CE!!! Screw that, if you don't understand the difference, STFU!!!.
I have struggled to get a CE device to update its OS, you can't do it, you need the MFR to give you the bootloader and the OS restore, and if it gets FUBAR'd, there is nothing you can do. XP/Linux is infinitely better.
Not to mention the ability to use apps/games/utilities, UGH, CE should curl up and die.
psychobriggsy - Saturday, December 1, 2007 - link
It's clear that the costs on this thing can come down a lot once Intel creates an x86 SoC that incorporates the CPU (like this 900MHz Dothan), the northbridge, a GPU, and a southbridge onto the same package, or even the same die. That's three large footprint chips down to one, plus hopefully fewer support chips.It would also allow the footprint to be reduced so that the 7" screen doesn't need a massive border - making it far more portable. That, or allow the speakers to be placed into the base (like on most laptops), and allow a bigger display to be put in - maybe even a 10" 1024x600.
Don't rule out ARM coming up from below either with competitive SoCs. Look at what the iPhone/iPod Touch can do interface-wise, and Linux runs on ARM without any issues.
JarredWalton - Saturday, December 1, 2007 - link
I have made some edits since the first release of this article, addressing many of the items you mention. However, the comparison to a laptop is not without merit. Yes, this is much smaller - I mention that fact several times - but smaller isn't always better. I can type fine on laptops; the Eee PC keyboard isn't quite at the level of a Blackberry, but as a touch typist I find it nearly impossible to type at anything approaching normal speed. So, from ~70-80 WPM down to around 20-25 WPM. Yay!In regards to the warranty, ASUS has a very good policy on all of their other products. The Eee policy by comparison has been castrated. Zero bright dot? Nope! Two year manufacturer warranty? Nope. I haven't spent much time trying to contact the public ASUS groups for support on the Eee, but others are again reporting less than stellar response times. Top that off with a voided warranty if you upgrade the RAM (I smell a class action suit or at least a change to this policy), and you can see the ways in which ASUS has managed to keep costs down.
Again, that doesn't mean the Eee PC doesn't fill a market niche. I've heard PDA wireless can be terribly painful/sporadic, and other than a few minor glitches I experienced no difficult with the Eee. The screen size is also much larger than any PDA, even if it's still a far cry from a "normal" laptop.
Fox5 - Friday, November 30, 2007 - link
As a PDA user of several years who was sold on their "versatility", I'd say PDAs are nearly useless, same as the tablet PC. Both are devices limited by their performance, stability, size, and battery life.My tablet pc didn't get long enough battery life to use for long lectures, was still too heavy/bulky to make it reasonable to carry around, the screen was hard to write on especially near the edges, and program lag and random crashes killed it for me. Replaced it with a notebook and found it far superior.
The PDA was similar, but it was replaced with a memo pad. My PDA now only sees occasional use as a calculator and often as a gps.
Something that had full pc functionality and performance, even if on the bottom end of it like this eee pc, would be a huge step up. A real, high-performance web browser, real office suite, and what not are far beyond what a PDA can offer, and no other device is this light and this cheap. Sure, there are other $400 laptops, but they're not ultraportable, not even portable enough to wear it'd be no bother to just throw them in a bag and bring them along.
Omega215D - Friday, November 30, 2007 - link
I have the Palm T|X and found that using it to finish off papers I was working on was not a good idea. The keyboard is fine but the screen is a bit too small for that. Then there's using the T|X to access the internet. I hate the browser that comes with the device which takes a bit to load web pages.I find that the Asus Eee PC is what I was looking for. Buying a regular laptop for that kind of price would be a pretty big clunker and the other laptops the size of the Eee cost anywhere from $1100 to $2400. I say the Asus has a pretty clear purpose.
walmartshopper - Friday, November 30, 2007 - link
I just got a Vostro 1400 from the Dell outlet for only $600. It has a C2D, 2GB, 120GB, and a Geforce 8400GS. It's still small and light, and the battery lasts up to 7 hours. It can even run Crysis at 800x600 at low quality and get 30fps. I know I'm comparing laptops that have different purposes, but still it just doesn't seem like a good deal to pay $400 for something so crippled.Plus, I would probably get frustrated trying to type on that thing with my big ol' sausage fingers.
johnsonx - Friday, November 30, 2007 - link
If you can get to a console, is rpm available? If so then it should be possible to install any packages you want from the command line.