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

Two things the eee PC is NOT: 1) It is not a desktop replacement. Silly to even consider it. 2) It is not a replacement for your personal laptop. (You'll never watch DVD's or load your iTunes library on it.)

OK, what good is it? I travel quite a bit on business and always have to lug my business laptop around and you know what a pain that is. But when I travel all I really need is: 1) Internet access to check-in for my flight. 2) Need access to the web for my email. 3) Need to do some lite editing on Excel, WORD, and Powerpoint. 4) Need to be able to read PDF documents. 5) Need an external video port and USB connection to run my Powerpoint presentations.

Given those requirements, this little guy is great! Plus, it supports my air card, and the preformance of my Slingbox player is really good.

Now that I have it, I wish I had spent the extra $150 and got the eee PC 900, but for what I need, it's awesome. To be fair, I've only had it a week, and haven't loaded MS Office (need to buy a USB CD/DVD drive), but I'm not anticipating any issues. (I'll update if my opinion changes after this.)

The 4G-XP (there is also a linux version) has:
512K Memory
4Gb solidstate flash drive
XP Home Edition
External video port
3 USB connections
Ethernet connection
Builtin webcam
Mic & earphone jack
Also, can be upgraded with a SD storage card.

The only cons are that the keyboard is a little small (that's why I say only "lite" document editing, but you could add an external full size keyboard.) Battery life is probably not stellar, and keyboard "sounds" a little fragile.

So, as the title says, "it is what it is". Nice little package for traveling around. It weighs next to nothing and not much bigger than a paperback novel. Just manage your expectations, and you'll probably be very happy.

I bought this for my wife as a companion to her desktop and work full-sized laptop. She found the laptop just too much of a pain to haul around for email and office doc access while on the road. The Eee PC was attractive for its low cost (since she already has 2 computers)and portability. I chose the XP version, since I am not experienced with Linux, and wanted to ensure some ability to do maintainence myself.

The computer comes with quite a bit of junk preloaded that I simply don't need, but it was easily removed, and some people might find it useful. The main weakness of the software bundle is that it includes Microsoft Works which, let's face it, is almost useless if you need to interact with grown-up office apps very much. I quickly downloaded Openoffice.org, a powerful... and free... office suite that offers good compatibility with MS Office (I use the Novell version that supports office 2007 formats).

Both XP and Openoffice.org run quite well on this mini-laptop.

The only other "complaint" I have is the very small screen. It would be difficult to use for a long time, but given the price point, it works reasonably well. I'd have gotten the bigger screen, if it were available, even if it cost a hundred bucks or so. I'll definitely look into a bigger, thinner LCD version in the replacement in a few years though.

All in all, this is a pretty impressive product, expecially considering the price.

I purchased this product in March and have used it only on weekends when I travel. 2 weeks ago when I tried to open it, all I got was a black screen and and error messages. I have tried to get support from the company it came from and have never received a response. All the computer repair services want to charge $200.00 or more to reload it. So if anyone has a suggestion, I would appreciate it.

I ordered the Asus Eee-PC to try out for our engineering department, which travels a lot. Having lugged 'huge' laptops around the planet, we're all looking for something a little less cumbersome to go through airport security and to lighten our load.

This little computer is amazing. It's very fast, boots up within a few seconds, and is no different than any other PC-based computer. The solid-state (ie: flash) hard drive is small and only has about 1/2 the 4G space open because of WinXP and the pre-installed programs, like Internet Explorer, MS Works and Acrobat Reader. But for $40 you can pick up an 8G SD card and have plenty more space to add programs and files. In fact, you can carry a few SD or USB Flash sticks and have as much storage as you could ever want!

The Pros:
Tiny - almost a "palm-top". Fits anywhere; about the size of a book
Beautiful screen, very readable
Very fast for a Celeron with 512M RAM
Hooks up to WiFi very easily and without hassle
Built in Speakers and Webcam... sweet!
3 USB ports, an RJ45 LAN port, external monitor port and SD card slot
Charges quickly, and battery lasts for a couple of hours
Great for checking email on the go; web surfing and listening to music.

The Cons:
The keyboard is tiny and you have to hunt-and-peck to type.
Gets a little warm after a few hours of use
A little straining to use for long periods because of the screen size and tiny keys, but that is to be expected of something this small.

All in all, for the price, you cannot go wrong!! I really love this little guy and will happily be toting it through the airports not having to worry about a big, heavy laptop bag as my carry-on any longer!

I have been looking for a small laptop with Wi-Fi and Windows XP, that will fit inside the small safe in the staterooms on Carnival cruise ships. The Asus eee PC with XP is it! The Carnival safe measures about 10W x 9H x 8D inches; good for passports, medications, cash, PDA and other small items.

I did a lot of research on the Web, read reviews, and found some units for sale on Amazon, Best Buy, and other online stores. BestBuy.com led me to believe that the units were only available online, with no store pickup.

A few days ago, I was at the local Best Buy, looking for a part, when I discovered that they had some Asus eee PCs in stock. I bought the black eee PC 4G with pre-installed Windows XP. Their return policy was 14 days with a 15% restocking charge, if it was returned because I didn't like it. Seemed like a safe bet to me, so I bought it.

It was set up in minutes, most of the time performing the Windows XP user setup. The Asus functions as well as my other laptops, just with a smaller screen and no optical drive. Out of the box, the pre-loaded programs (Windows XP Home, Adobe Reader, Microsoft Works, Windows Media Player)use up about one-half the 4Gb space.

I wanted to download Motorola Phone Tools, so I copied the CD-Rom to a jump drive using another laptop. Then I plugged the jump drive into the Asus and installed Motorola phone tools. I can now use my Motorola Alltel phone as a modem.

The WI-Fi is so sensitive, that it sometimes detects a dozen networks while I am stopped at a traffic light.

I picked up a Toshiba SDHC 4Gb card at Sam's Club, and plugged it into the accessory SD slot. Works just fine.

I am very pleased with this unit. It is small, lightweight, highly portable, and does almost everything I could expect in a laptop.