Home > Consumer Reviews > ASUS Eee PC 4G (7-Inch Display, Intel Mobile Processor, 512 MB RAM, 4 GB Hard Drive, Linux Preloaded) Pearl White

I had problems out the box and I'm never happy with problems out the box. I couldn't get the wireless to work. Apparently Xandro's network protocols does not like spaces in its passphrase. I've used Xandros before and this enforced why Xandros is my least favorite Linux distro. So ok that's easily fixed by adjusting my passphrase. At least it supports WPA2 so no worries.

After connecting the wifi I started looking for the full desktop. This actually isn't for me it's a Valentines Day gift for my wife but I'll be the one doing maintenance on it if something goes wrong, so I wanted to work out of the full desktop mode, which isn't initially available. I can only guess that #1: Xandros is very "Windows-like" and they wanted to avoid the confusion of noobies navigating it and/or #2: Asus wanted to prevent the customer service calls of people complaining they installed something and in the process, broke something, and that anyone interested in jumping the hurdle to enable it should be savvy enough to know what they're doing. That said, it comes with 2 repositories installed and I'd be cautious about what other repositories you add. I stuck with adding a Xandros specific repository and one debian repository. So a quick internet search found the commands to enable the full desktop and switching back and forth is as easy as two-three clicks. Ok problem #2 out the way.

Problem (well, not really a problem) #3 is the Asus EEE does not read inserted media correctly. If you mouse over the card icon on the task bar you get the correct size. But if you use the file manager, instead of getting the total size of the SD card, etc. you only get the amount of space that's actually used. So if you have a 16GB MMC-SD with a just a 600MB movie file on it, Asus will read the size of the card as 600MB. Not a biggie though you do have write access to the total amount of GB the card has and all the files on the card.

It's actually bigger than I was led to believe from video and photos on the net. Nonetheless I cursed at every misspelling as I fought the tiny size of the keyboard. But after a few hours I got used to it and the overpriced tech flavor of the month slowly began to grow on me.

Despite my preference for the desktop mode, the sorta PDA mode appeals more. The Asus really is well designed and well laid out with big eye pleasing icons. All your major internet and computer functions are a couple clicks away. I threw several multimedia file formats at it and it handled them all with the exception of VOB. I didn't try that because I convert them to a mpeg format anyway. The screen really is to die for. At seven inches it looks better than the 15.1 inch screen on my Thinkpad. Some complain about the speakers taking up space for the screen; that the screen could've been a little bigger if the speakers were moved say to the bottom of the keyboard. The trade off is, you get really excellent sound from those speakers. I was really surprised at the fidelity. My Thinkpad has the speaks on the bottom and they sound like crap.

I will not be switching to Windows. I casually asked my wife (as not to give away the gift) what she thought about Linux and all she said was, "it's ok. I would just want access to Yahoo and Chikka." Both are easily done through Pidgin. One thing I love about Pidgin is the tabbed message windows, so you don't eat up your screen real estate with several windows open at once. So there's little reason for me to switch it to Windows for her, although a dual boot would be nice which is what I do with my Thinkpad and Opensuse.

The lack of an optical drive isn't really a huge issue as there are ways around that, but for me it's still an issue nonetheless as is the limited storage space. I'd stop short of calling this a full fledged laptop. It's not. I don't think that's quite the market Asus was aiming for. But it's worth mentioning because for close to the same price I paid [...] you can get a full fledged laptop with 60GB of space, a DVD drive and Vista (which I'm not crazy about) or XP and you can still install Linux for a dualboot if you love Linux like I do. So basically, it's overpriced. Very cool, but overpriced.

But hey Valentine's Day is coming. I know the wife wants a laptop and I know size is of the utmost concern for her. She wants to put it in her purse and there is no other laptop she can do that with. So I plunked down almost $[...]for it being so cool and because love makes you do crazy things. Now I just need to hide it 'til Valentines Day, which noting the size, should not be a problem.

There's just one problem with the asus eee.
It's almost impossible to install additional software.

Asus Eee PC 4G Surf (7" Screen, 800 MHz Intel Celeron Processor, 512 MB RAM, 4 GB Hard Drive, Linux Preloaded) Galaxy Black]]


Have a simple password, no characters, spaces, etc.

Even older PC'c run great on this net, confused. Any suggestions, tried every permutation.

I tried to like it. I really did. I tried to enjoy how small it was. I tried to appreciate how light it was. I adored the fact that it had an SD Card slot built right in.
All those things are great, but I had just come off a 6.4year love affair with a 600MHz G3 iBook. That machine was my baby and it died. I'm poor and can't really afford much, so I tried to tell myself that it doesn't matter what tools you use, it's more of what you're using those tools for. Not the case. The standard OS that the Eee comes with can get annoying fast. The Advanced Desktop is slightly less annoying than the Easy Mode, and Ubunto was more attractive, but more buggy than Xandros.

To put it in simple terms. This is not a computer I would recommend to my mother, or anyone else.

I'm seriously, and not lying, going to buy a macbook after finishing this review. They're only $1024 right here on Amazon.

If you're an artist, buy the correct tools. Follow your heart, not your wallet.


What's that? You want some more specifics? The battery in Sleep mode stinks. After Sleeping or rebooting you have to always manually reconnect to the wifi (As in ever single time). Linux just seems like a complicated way of doing easy things.

I have my Asus Eeepc 4gb for 6 weeks now, what a nightmare! Customer, technical support not at all helpful or friendly. Stay with a windows based system, Linux for those without extensive prior experience is impossible to be comfortable with. User forums are filled with customer problems & frustrations this is clearly a "Heads up". I will be selling this unit ASAP! Theodore Kramer.