The Asus EeePC - My first impressions...

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Permalink Reply by Richard on February 13, 2008 at 1:59pm

We have started to pilot it in some areas of the UK, when I first picked it up I was impressed by

1. The tabs across the top...encouraging its use for work, play etc
2. The fact it accessed our wireless network easily
3. The layout of icons...eg for immediate access to 'google docs' for collaborative work

There is a really good, honest writeup by a UK celebrity/actor via their blog (Stephen Fry)

http://stephenfry.com/blog/?p=39

best wishes

Richard (Telford-UK)

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Permalink Reply by John Hegarty on February 13, 2008 at 7:17pm

Hi Lucas,

I bought one of them for my own use before Christmas - an early Christmas present to myself. I have been very impressed with it and find I use it for nearly everything when working from home. I have a pretty decent 14" HP laptop but find myself using this one (I'm using it now) for most things instead. In the morning I can boot it up check my email and close it down again in under a minute.

I gave it to a student in my school to use for about a week. He has a 15" laptop running Vista which he uses during class and study. He was impressed with the eeepc. The battery life was better, it booted up and was ready for work faster, sleep/wakeup times were better, it was easier to carry around. The only criticism he has was that he found the screen a bit small if he was working on it for a couple of hours in the evening.

There is much talk of a 9" or 10" version coming out later in the year. If they can get a bigger screen into the same chassis then I reckon I would be happy to buy another one.

At the CESI (Computer Education Society of Ireland) conference last week http://www.cesiblogs.eu/blog/ we had an internet cafe hosted by the Irish Linux Users Group. We had the eeepc laptop available for teachers to try out and If someone had been selling them at the conference they would have done a roaring trade.

jh

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Permalink Reply by Kelley Irish on February 15, 2008 at 9:08am

I have one of the little XO's from OLPC and I just love the little thing. My Ld kids who use it are doing so well. It has already been dropped-and spilled on-and it keeps working. It hooks right up my to wirless at home and it uses SD card for memory updates. Is Asus EeePC the same size? Does it run on Linux?

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Permalink Reply by Kelley Irish on February 15, 2008 at 9:23am

Do you know what the price point is? Right now you get get any more XO's here so I am interested in finding something similar. Does it Mesh?

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Permalink Reply by Lucas Gillispie on February 15, 2008 at 10:51am

The 2G Surf (2 Gig Solid-state Hard Drive) lists for $299. The ones we bought to try out list for $399 (4G - 4 Gig Solid-state Hard Drive). There's already an 8G out, though I've not researched the price. I'm uncertain whether they will "Mesh" or not. I have only a nominal understanding of mesh networking as it relates to the XO.

I've been toting mine about to the schools and both teachers and administrators are simply amazed at what they can do for the size and price. The reception has been really good.

I'm currently working as part of research project with UNC Wilmington that's using Squeak to encourage students to model science and math concepts with programming (http://www.useitproject.org) and we've tossed about the idea of a small, highly-portable laptop for the project which is partly why I looked into the EeePC in the first place. Yesterday, we managed to get our Squeak image running smoothly on the EeePC. How cool is that?

-Lucas

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Permalink Reply by John Hegarty on February 15, 2008 at 10:57am

It runs a modified version of Xandros linux. Others prefer to run ubuntu and if you try eeeubuntu or eeexubuntu in google you can see what is available. Asus provides drivers and advice for folk who prefer to run XP and there are even people who have managed to get Vista and OS X onto it. The price in Ireland was about €350. It does wireless but I don't know about mesh.

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Permalink Reply by Kelley Irish on February 15, 2008 at 10:18pm

So far I am really happy with the XO. I brought it home from school this weekend so I can put a SD memory card in. It runs very cool and is virtually silent. I love the way it pivots so you ca you it for reading. I can get one if myboys to actuallky read out loud when the book page is on the laptop screen. Unfortuntely I believe they are only going to sell them over here in large lots, and with their shipping issues who knows how even that will work. It is a same because it is a really neat little machine.

My princiapl fell in love with the XO so I am thinking that the Asus EeePC may be a good alternative. I like the idea of linux and using Open source software. One of the best improvments I've seen is the more stripped dpwn OS code. As the processor speed got faster it seems like windows dumped more stuff into t he start up and the darn computers didn't end up starting any faster. Plus Mr. Gates has liekly made enough money for this lifetime.

Robust computers are long overdue for kids. It is good to see the recent changes.

Congrat's on your Eee.

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Permalink Reply by Richard on February 17, 2008 at 11:01am

Just seen this in the Times newspaper (UK)

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/personal_...

As with the Eee...it uses Linux...the battery life quoted is 3 hours

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Permalink Reply by Gavin on February 22, 2008 at 6:32am

Don't touch it with a bargepole. My experience of Elonex as manufacturers and support technicians is apalling. The build looks incredibly cheap and flimsy since they've fallen into the trap of marketing to education - for most businesses this seems to mean making a substandard product since, hey, they're just kids.

I wonder how it will turn into a tablet PC without a touchscreen??

So far, nothing I've seen has the potential to top the Asus for out-the-box awesomeness. The Everex Cloudbook has a great spec, but gOS is a clunky mess of an operating system.

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Stucke on February 21, 2008 at 2:22pm

I have ordered 6 for use in my secondary maths classroom in the uk, i'm eagerly waiting their delivery :)

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Permalink Reply by Gavin on February 22, 2008 at 12:20pm

Out of interest, are you buying them from RM?

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Permalink Reply by Gavin on February 22, 2008 at 6:28am

We are attempting to buy £20,000 worth of them for schools in our Local Authority. They are wonderful little machines and have blown the roof off the mobile computing market. It's our vision that every learner in our schools will have a device like this to access the wireless networks in conjunction with Glow.

The issue we have with them here in the UK is that RM are re-branding them as the RM Minibook (even though it is EXACTLY the same product - even still comes in an Asus box) and they are the only people who can supply them - at an inflated price. Very, very frustrating and shame on Asus for allowing this to happen.

I have been blogging about it here - this will be updated more frequently once our pilot projects start.

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