I Bought Myself an Eee
Posted on 01 June 2008, at 7:31 am, by Mitchell Oke
I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to test a number of ultra portable machines recently, including MacBook Air, Fujitsu P8010, Toshiba R500, HTC Shift and Fujitsu U1010. Since all these machines have gone back, I’ve realised how nice it was to carry a compact and light laptop, as opposed to my MacBook Pro.
Looking around, I came across the good old 7” Eee PC for the unbelievable price of AU$341, so with not much to lose I picked one up this weekend. This is the first time I’ve actually used one of these things, and I have to say for the price it is pretty impressive. The build quality is good, the screen is nice and bright (although low res), and I can touch type rather well on the keyboard.
I wasn’t really interested in running Linux on it, so I immediately loaded up Windows XP, which was smooth and painless. The included driver CD installs all the drivers automatically which is handy, no fussing around installing each separately. I had a 1GB stick of RAM lying around from when I upgraded my MacBook Pro to 3GB so I swapped out the original 512MB stick.
As it stands now, it is quite nippy, and handles multitasking very well. I loaded up Office 2003 and it too works flawlessly.
Since I bought the 4GB model I picked up an SD card to augment the internal storage, which is now pretty cramped with the XP install (I need to tweak that a bit more). I was stunned to find an A-DATA 16GB SDHC card for only AU$75, bringing the total cost of purchase for machine and card to AU$416, not bad considering most stores here sell the Eee for over $450 without any extra storage!
I have my USB HSDPA modem setup ready to test this machine out this week on the train, at the coffee shop and at uni, I’m hoping that it will satisfy my needs until I have the dollars to get something with a better screen. I’ve loaded a hack that bumps the screen res up to 1000×600, similar to how the HTC Shift faked it’s resolution, which makes the 7” screen a bit more passable.
Wish me luck!
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June 1st, 2008 at 8:06 am
Not bad! Very cool way to do the mobile computing thing.. Nice cuz it will do what you need and nothing more, and even better that you have low bucks sunk into it! Heck, an HTC TyTN II costs almost 3 times that! Good on ya mate! “-P
June 1st, 2008 at 8:23 am
Great deal, Mitchell! I wanted to buy one too for myself as I am a big fan of cut-down ultraportable laptops. They make a lot of sense these days.
I work at home on a huge Dell XPS M170 that has been rock solid so far and I carry a Toshiba R400. Unfortunately, I have not been very happy with that one. A MacAir or a cut-down ultraportable will replace it eventually.
I’m amazed at the deal you got. Devices are so expensive in Australia it’s not funny.
June 1st, 2008 at 2:37 pm
I’m glad you finally figured out what to get! I guess that money was just burning a hole in your pocket, huh.
Like I am one to talk. 
I’m looking forward to hearing about how things go for you with it…
June 1st, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Hey congrats Mitchell. I love mine to death! I just got a 200 GB Portable USB drive to run with my Eee. Next up for it is a 16 GB SDHC. The Eee is capable of powering the drive, although I lose 2 USB ports to use it.
You should have gave Linux a chance on it Mitchell especially since you could always load Windows later. I say if you give it a week, you just might like it.
I myself am looking forward to the version of Ubuntu customized for the small screen: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tech.....t.software
June 1st, 2008 at 4:02 pm
You can get the processor running at 900Mhz if you install EeeCtl. It is available from the forums at http://www.eeeuser.com.
June 2nd, 2008 at 2:58 am
Drew: Yeah I figured I’d give it a shot and see if it would work for me, I mean if it doesn’t work out there’s always eBay!
Bjenk: I have no idea how this place is selling them so cheap. It’s one of those little computer stores that has a massive range of parts for unbelievable prices. I don’t know how they can make money on them at this price.
Judie: Yeah I realised I wouldn’t be happy until I’d tried it, and it’s just so cheap!
Joel: It really irritates me that this tiny cheap laptop has more USB ports than my MacBook Pro, GAHHH!! I’ll have to try my drive as see if it will port with just one port.
I recommend the 16GB SDHC card, makes for a whole lot more space without having things hanging off. Again, the pricing was amazing!
I may give Linux a go in a few weeks, but I don’t really have the time atm to be messing around with it. I just wanted to be able to get Office apps going, my USB HSDPA modem installed and be able to run a couple of the apps I use for uni, all which I know how to get done in Windows. I’m impressed with how speedy XP is on this machine, it’s fabulous!
Mark: Was wondering about that, only found a util to overclock in Linux, will give it a go and report back, thanks!!