Asus EEE

Our friend Brady was nice enough to bring back an Asus EEE subnotebook for us from Taiwan. Our siblings were surprised why we wanted such a low-powered device. Two words: portability/price.

Both Kitty and I travel from time to time, going to conferences and visiting families. While on the road, we need two things from our computer: powerpoint and internet. Obviously, powerpoint for presentation in our conferences, and internet so we can stay connected. EEE does just that.

I've already upgraded the RAM from 512MB to 2GB and added a class-6 8GB SDHC card.

It weights just 2lb and is smaller than an ordinary university text-book. The AC adapter is about the same size, just tad bigger, than a cell-phone charger. This is a truly ultra-portable machine. So it is slow with small screen, but for our intended use it is just perfect.

My complains so far: small key and the pre-installed OS (linux). The keyboard is too small even for me (and I cannot imagine anyone average french-fry fingers to use EEE), and the default Xandros OS detected only 1 out of the 2GB RAM. I plan to install XP on the SSD and Ubuntu on the SDHC anyway, so it doesn't really bother me.

And, of course, I'm writing this blog from EEE :)

Total cost: CDN$360 for the Asus EEE (tax included, compared to $399 before tax if bought from Canada). 2GB RAM was CDN$30 and 8GB SDHC was $40.