Home > Consumer Reviews > ASUS Eee Top 15.6-Inch Touchscreen PC - White

I just received my ASUS eee top. I have read the reviews of the ASUS eee line over the past year with some amusement as most of the reviewers miss the point of a device like the eee line. I have an eee netbook, two eee boxes and now an eee top. If you are judging these device in some kind of CPU horsepower contest than you are missing out. These devices do some things extremely well and with their low power consumption they do it in environmentally friendly ways. I use an eee box as a poor womens server. I connect my external hard drives to it, share them on the network and I have four terabytes of data ready whenever I want it. I have a hardwired gigabit network in my house and wireless N for portable devices. I use another eee box as a media player for an LCD television. Sure they are not stars at H-Def but they are killer at DiVx compressed videos or movies downloaded with BitTorrent. My new eee Top is proudly sitting on my kitchen counter connected over the network to my mp3 library and flawlessly streaming to my stereo wirelessly with an apple airport express. I loaded iTunes onto the eee top and it effortlessly detected the airport express and connected with little intervention. I tested it last night by playing music across the WiFi network to the airport express, while watching a movie with VLC being streamed across the network and surfing the web all at the same time. The CPU utilization never went over 79% That places it in the powerful enough for most uses category. Put that together with the nice looks, the touchpad and the low price and this is one fine mom-puter as this mother testifies. My eee netbook is the 1000HE in blue and gives up to 9.5 hours of use time. I seldom need anything like that much time but it is nice to have a netbook that works that well and not have to worry about the power running out during the day. It has proven to be a life changer for my times on the road.
In short, I now have four ASUS devices and I plan on buying one or two more for specific device applications. I have been able to retire several older power sucking beast and lower my electric bill and these devices are so low power and so quiet I can leave them on all the time and not be concerned. I would recommend that you give the eee top a try if you want to listen to music, watch cooking videos, or surf the web in your kitchen. It works well, looks great and is whisper quiet.

These are not real time 3D game machines, but lets face it not everyone is driven by testosterone and what these devices do, they do real well.

I bought mine the day they went on sale in Thailand and love it. I use it to display my mp3 collection on WiMP and for playing media files. It can be kept out of sight in the sitting room and brought out to show vacation photos/ videos. I like the: low power draw, portability, quick startup, ease of use (rarely use the keyboard), plenty of usb ports, SD card slot. I haven't noticed a fingerprint problem but then again, I don't eat and compute at the same time. I could do without the glowing, blue base light. If you wait, the price will drop; I paid $580 US after VAT refund in Bangkok.
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I bought one of these to serve as a sign-up computer for the non-profit that I work for. We wanted a computer that was wall mountable, touch screen, and sleek. The ASUS Eee all-in-one met all our requirements, and as a bonus had built in N-band wireless. We've been using this Eee for two weeks and I have virtually no complaints. I have the piano black model, and it's very nicely made, and reminds me in design quite a bit to Samasung's 'touch of color' monitors.

The computer comes preloaded with XP service pack 3, which is stable and fast and uses the computers somewhat limited resources sparingly. (The atom 1.6ghz processor and 1gb of ram don't make this computer suitable for gaming or HD video, so if you plan to do either, this is NOT a good option for you). I had it up and running with no fuss in about 30 minutes.

The computer also comes pre-loaded with Set Point, a touch screen program that includes a touch keypad that works well enough. My only complaint is that it can't be 'locked' so that it doesn't close down. For the application that I'm using it for, it's pretty common that someone shuts it down and can't figure out how to get it back up. This won't be an issue for anyone that is using the computer at home.

PROS:

1) Bright, high quality screen. The resolution of 1366×768 is fine for most applications, but as I said earlier, it's not ideal for HD video formats. However, it can stream DVDs and other smaller sized video just fine, and the picture is quite good for a touch screen (or any LCD for that matter).

2) Touch screen works well. I was able to do almost everything you need a mouse and keyboard for with only a few exceptions. You can surf the net, type, open programs, sort through the Start menu, etc, all very easily. Where the screen is less useful is in selecting small portions of files to move them, or accessing a right-click function. You can set the screen to recognize certain things as a right-click, but it's a lot more cumbersome than a mouse. For a non-techy, this won't really be an issue.

3) The design is slick, sexy, and very visually appealing. Enough so that I'm considering getting one of these for my kitchen to serve as a TV and secondary work station. The fact that they're easily wall mounted and have show no wires once hung properly makes this a very attractive option! I love the way these guys look; compared to their first gen Eee netbook cousins, they're so sleek and awesome looking that if you buy the white one, don't be surprised if someone asks you if it's an Apple!

4) The internal hardware is quite adequate for everything that a netbook will do. I wouldn't think of this computer as a true desktop replacement; its hardware isn't quite up to some processor hungry applications. However, for using as a web portal, it's perfect.

Cons:

1) The provided mouse and keyboard, while slick and matching the computer perfectly, are not very well made and have very short cables. They're almost silly short, probably no more than 30 inches or so. This is an issue if you like to put the keyboard in your lap or sit farther than a foot from the screen. I recommend getting a nice wireless keyboard and mouse, especially if you want to take advantage of the wall mounting option.

2) The speakers are low quality. Sound is not great, and there's no way around it except getting an external 2.1 set up. I didn't expect the computer to have amazing speakers, but these will NOT work for watching movies if you care at all about audio levels.

3) There is no CD/DVD drive. This means you have to load programs either over the wireless or through a USB drive. You could also potentially buy an external drive, but this is a minor hurdle in my opinion, especially if you have more than one computer and a USB drive.

Conclusions:

For the price this is a fantastic little touch screen computer. It's very nicely designed, wall mountable, is up to date with N-band wireless, and runs XP

*****UPDATE 10-10-2009*****

I was so pleased with this computer in the application of a sign-in/sign-up kiosk that I ended up buying 3 more of them for our church. They work exceptionally well and I am more than pleased with them. We're now running 4 of them in our welcome center and all work flawlessly.

I first saw this product @ CES 2009 in Vegas and I was simply just amazed!!! Let's not mention its easy user friendly interface and does everything in a touch, i especially love playing with the e-Opera and e-Memo the most. I hung this unit at the hallway of the house entry and sometimes i remove it and put at the kitchen counter top when i need to watch cooking channels while i cook. Keyboard and mouse really aren't necessary, but they look really nice. It's ATOM powered machine so is very energy efficient which I'd leave it on all day. The images taken from the 1.3mp web cam are super clear and def. nice when I skype with my friends and sound is very clear too. It has many USB ports but no optical drive, but i suppose i can just buy a Asus external slim ODD to match it. It's quite cheap and pretty design.
http://www.amazon.com/Asus-SDRW-08D1S-U-WHT-External-Odd/dp/B001U04NKC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1236882634&sr=8-2

Overall, I think Asus is still the leader in innnovation, and this is by far the best Asus purchase i've made, i love it!!! I thought it would cost a vicinity of a grand, but only $599 street price?? unbelivable

My partner absolutely hates computers. I could never get him anywhere near one until the Eee PC Top. The touch interface and sleek design made it approachable for someone new to the idea of "computer as friend." The large, friendly icons on the Top's easy screen are non-threatening and allow him to locate exactly what he wants with ease. Now he's streaming international radio, Skyping with his daughter and grandchildren, and sending email with abandon. I think this would be a great computer for a lot of people, but it is especially good as a first computer for someone who has resisted the electronic age.