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

With several new laptops in the office running Vista and XP, and the road warriors that shlep them from city to city just to perform death-by-powerpoint and check email, they all want an eeepc!
It boots in less than half the time, shuts down in seconds, and lasts from Orlando to San Francisco. It plays movies ripped with Handbrake. It plays MP3's. It IM's. It runs Firefox and Thunderbird, speaks IMAP. What's not to like?

I've loaded up eeeXbuntu on mine and have all the 3D Compaz Graphics turned on and it does the full 3D Cube and desktop switching *better* than all the Vista machines! The AC adapter is the same size as the one for my Treo 650.

Only a couple of very, very minor gripes:
-The mouse buttons can be a little cantankerous to click
-it needs a keyboard light

Would I buy another? Heck yes! My kids are going to get one each when they are a little older. Couldn't recommend it enough. 6 stars.

Ever since the first digital organizers came out, I have been looking fro the perfect gadget. Palm Pilot's didn't cut it. Pocket PC/Windows Mobile never cut it. Smartphones were too limited. The Nokia Internet tablets were ALMOST there, but the DIY stuff got a little old.

Then I bought this little gem for my wife. My wife who knows nothing about computers, let alone linux. She loves it! I love it!

It's smaller than a hardcover book and weighs about the same.

This is no desktop replacement. You're not going to edit video on it or house your entire MP3 collection (though you could w/ aded memory cards). It's perfect for what is being deemed "The Walkaround Web". It picks up wifi hotspots w/ no conenctivity issues.

It small, but it is solid. You might expect it to be more toy like due to it's size, but this is a little tank.

The keyboard does take a little getting used to, but I am a big guy, and I have no issue typing on it after a little warm up.

The oeprating system is great. You can tell Xandros put a lot of thought into making it user friendly. It's simple to zip through the menus and find what you need. Power users can even turn on the classic KDE interface as well.

All in all, this was way more than I expected. I am envious of my wife now. I need one!

This is a purchase you'll love as long as you get by a few glitches. First, make SURE you buy on amazon, not a VAR. A few reviewers are complaining that they can't upgrade the RAM with the "better together" 2 gig card Amazon is offering. Here's how it's done: unscrew the two screws on the back of the ASUS (small panel). Older editions have a sticky tab you have to take off to expose the second screw: this was before ASUS recent decision to allow upgrades. Find the identical 512K RAM card you are replacing (some reviewers incorrectly said there was "no port" --all the units from Amazon have the 512, and the SODIMM is an UPGRADE, NOT an add! THERE IS NO SECOND PORT in this unit, you just unplug the 512 and plug in the 2 gig. Pull the two little white arms holding the original card to each side (right to right, left to left) and the original card will POP UP when freed. DO NOT try to unplug the old card with the arms holding it in, you'll break the little spring tensioned arms. It is very SIMPLE to unplug the 512, and plug in the 2 gig. On next boot, you'll see the system immediately recognized the new card (click the system icon). THESE INSTRUCTIONS DO NOT come with either the card OR the ASUS, so copy and paste them into a word document.
Second bitch/glitch: some reviewers are saying the can't access the web over a router. They are partly right. The built in wireless receiver requires reinitialization with each power up for some routers, like LinkSys. This is easy, just click the wireless icon, highlight, and click connect, and you're ready to go. WINDOWS IS A WASTE on this machine, as the Linux interface takes 4 minutes for a high school kid to learn, 10 minutes for an over 60 like me, but it is incredibly INTUITIVE AND EASY. Just click and go!
Everything else is AWESOME, and once you tire of the ooohs and aaahs, you can even check out the stars in your neighborhood with the built in planetarium. YES it does take broadband Verizon cards, and YES you need to use the USB, as there is no PC port. Just make sure Verizon is available in your area before committing to 60 bucks a month. It is also seamless with WIFI and every other protocol, and instantly presents a list of everything it's seeing.
IF YOUVE MESSED WITH POCKET PC'S BEFORE AND BEEN UNPLEASED, YOU WON'T BE WITH THIS LITTLE MONSTER. I play a lot of chess, and it crushes even the toughest algorithms. You will say "what?" on first boot, because the flash disk is so fast, it's ready before you put your coffee cup down.
AGAIN: BE SURE TO BUY ON AMAZON. Amazon won't like this but: this is a great little competitor for the Kindle, as it's got Wiki links on it, and with Sony's book software makes a great little reader, surfer, emailer... you name it...

I bought this computer as a truly portable laptop. I already have three other computers, all of which are laptops made by apple. 1 macbook pro, 2 macbooks. The apple computers are too much computer for my day use when all I will be doing is checking email, some word processing and surfing. I really have never had to edit video etc in the field. This EEE PC is fantastic. First it weighs trully nothing and is extremly portable, even compared to my macs which weigh 5lbs, who would have thought the extra 3 lbs would be that big of a deal, but they are! The EEE links with my network at home, easily tranfers files back and forth, can open word and power point documents, has what I would call a plug and play ease of hooking up keyboards, mice, wireless presenters etc... I plan on purchasing eee for my family as our laptops die out, and will then go back to having a mac desktop at home and these eee as the portable laptops I carry arround. much more economical, i can but two eee for about the price of one low end apple laptop. I repeat, I have rarely if ever found that I needed the capabilities of my apple laptops, outside my home. Don't get me wrong, I love apple, own stock in it and have been an enthusiast since the apple ii. But really I love the eee, it works as advertised and I could not be happier!

Design & Portability
This is by far the best valued ultraportable notebook on the market for the price. It has a compact design and weighs about 2 pounds. Its screen real estate could have been few inches larger and I would suggest placing the speakers under the screen rather than the sides. It's actually a portable notebook because I take it everywhere I go and not break my back.

(While there are notebooks which qualify as ultraportables because they are under 4 lbs, the EEE is so small and light that it can also be considered as an ultramobile pc because it weights just about 2 lbs. This product blurs the line between an ultramobile pc and a ultraportable pc. It is basically a UMPC in the form factor of a UPPC.)

Even though the black piece looks better according to most folks, the white body stands out from the black and grey laptops. However the white plastic tends to look cheap. But I really dont care about that, I just like go for the contrary.

The keyboard actually feels cheap, and this can be noticed in the left side. When a key is pressed, the keys surrounding it, tends to act like a sponge. But this is no big deal, because it can hardly be noticed when in regular use.

The EEE PC also skimps on the optical drive, to accommodate its current size and weight. Who needs an optical drive anyway... how many times have you used an optical drive while in class or during commute. I dont need these features, I have a full blown desktop at the dorm and at my workplace.

(It is technically wrong to call it a laptop .... it's so small that it cant even sit steadily on your lap because of its small size =P {another reason why it can be a UMPC} if you really want to feel the relative size of the laptop, i have about 10 images on amazon you can look at)

Out of the box
As I have mentioned in my title, it is aimed at the non-regular crowd, even though its low price seems to attract any consumer in the market. It ships with Linux Xandros, which is the easiest operating system I have ever used till today. There is an "advanced mode" which gives you the classic windows look but you have to work your way through. It took me less than 5 minutes to assemble and connect to the internet. It was that easy... Out of the box> pop in the battery > connect to the wireless network

Performance & Features
It does what it supposed to do, browse the internet and edit basic office files like documents, spreadsheets and powerpoint slideshows. I take notes with it in class all the time and the 2/3rd size of a regular keyboard, takes few days to get used to. Its boot time is fantastic.. 25 seconds from pressing the power button to the desktop. When I browse the internet, the refresh time is so seamless that I cant even tell the difference in speed between that and my gaming pc. Its wireless range can beat most laptops on the market today.

It specs might mislead you to thinking that it is a slow piece of junk but its is more than capable of handling any application you throw at it, even games like warcraft 3, age of empires 2 or photo editing GIMP, and even the most widely used operating system Windows XP!

Its solid state drive may be small but it gives you better battery life and a more durable hardware. It has 3 usb ports and SD card reader, the possibilities for expansion are endless. But let me tell you that I dont need any of that either, all my media is streamed online (Imeem for music and youtube for videos) and i even have unlimited storage from Carbonite ($50/yr cant beat that).

Some of the other notable features webcam and mic for VOIP(Skype pre-installed). There is also a Learn and Play tab for kids, the games are actually pretty addictive and they have been derived from great console games.

One negative feature I am forced to reckon with is the heat, even 10 mins on the EEE PC can generate a lot of heat. The heat is so exothermic that you can feel it when your bottom flesh of your palm hovers over the 'palm rest'. It wont burn you or anything like that but it can distract your attention to it for few seconds.

Price
Coming out of the One Laptop Per Child genre, this $400 beast can kill any competitor in its class (Everex Cloudbook). There is this rule.. the smaller you and lighter you go .. the higher the price brackets. The Asus EEE PC has broken all boundaries and made a significant mark in the UltraPortable PC field.

The 4G offers great bang for buck but if you have an extra $100, I would highly recommend upgrading to the 8G which has twice the RAM and SSD SIZE. The 4G/8G models are considered higher end of the Asus EEE series of their longer battery life and a webcam. If you dont need any of these, and dont worry about upgrading.. I would recommend looking into the 2G surf which is about $100 less. But like most products the marginal value decreases as you go down.

If you have any constructive arguments, suggestions or comments that may pose from this review, you are welcome to comment below... thanks for reading.