ASUS Eee Adds Two Letters: XP
Late last year, ASUS broke open the mini-notebook category with the slight, light, and affordable Eee PC 4G. Who wouldn't want a machine that weighs two pounds and measures about 8.9 by 6.5 by 1.4 inches deep? And at $399, the Linux-based box became a viable solution for cost-conscious road warriors and students. While we await review units of the pending Eee PC 900, we do have some news about its little brother currently on the market: As of this week, the Eee line can now come pre-loaded with XP as well for those who fear open-source OSes.
The price of Eee PC XP we looked at costs $469, because it comes with a bundled SD card. Another version without the SD card costs $399 (it will sell on Bestbuy.com today and in retail stores starting April 21), according Asus spokesperson Charlton Ho. [UPDATE: After posting this story, we learned that the $469 version with the extra SD card will only be offered for a couple months before getting phased out. Future models of the Eee PC XP 4G will lack the extra pack-in card altogether.]
Back when reviewing the Eee 4G, we gave the road warrior's apprentice a thumbs up despite its meager system specs. After all, a 900-MHz Intel Celeron M processor, 512MB RAM, and a 4GB hard disk hardly qualifies as "beefy." However, it was enough to let Linux run right. After getting a chance to drive another 4G with XP pre-installed, though, I have to say that the machine motors along at a reasonably brisk pace. It's no speed demon, of course, but it went from powered down to the Windows XP desktop in 60 seconds. It didn't slam into any major performance hiccups that we wouldn't expect. This is an e-mail/word processing system, not a multimedia powerhouse. And with the oddball 800-by-480-pixel resolution, it's hard to squeeze much onto the 7-inch screen. That said, we would've loved to run PC WorldBench on this machine to see how it'd score, but there wasn't enough space to load the benchmarking software.
By far the biggest problem you'll run into is the lack of proper headroom with the installed 4GB hard disk. After the preinstalled Windows XP Pro and Microsoft Works, you're left with about 700MB of clearance. That's enough for your documents, an overloaded browser cache, and maybe a couple albums-worth of MP3s. On the bright side, thanks to the SD card slot in the side you've got a quick upgrade path. I just wouldn't recommend installing programs to external flash cards, as tempting as that may seem.
A personal gripe: As much as I like the design and where the machine is going, I need to emphasize something that my colleague Melissa Perenson touched upon in her review. The keyboard is tiny. No, I mean really tiny. If you're even a remotely goony adult male, you'll have problems with the Eee. You have to rest this thing on a flat surface--or lap--and pray you don't hit the wrong keys. I can't tell you how many times I'd have to type, backspace, and redo just to get my words across. But I digress. This is still a good, affordable machine whether you want to plug numbers into a spreadsheet or take notes in class. And, really, that's what most mini-notes strive to do. I just happen to require a little more keyboard real estate to operate.
Warning: off-topic rant:
One other point that bears mentioning is that as all the hoopla hits about these affordable micro-sized solutions, we're also seeing plenty of affordable notebooks hitting the market. Heck, look in the Sunday fliers for electronics stores and you regularly see barebones notebooks with sizeable hard disks (and optical drives, for that matter) all going for roughly $400. You can't help but wonder what the big deal is until you place one of these PCs in the palm of your hand.
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Many utilities are now portable enough to place on a disk key, such s OpenOffice and Gimp. So, the installation to the OS will soon be history thus allowing for less used HD space.