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Journal jawtheshark's Journal: Asus EEE PC 701 Review 11

Journal by jawtheshark

I got my Asus EEE PC 701 4G about a week ago. I had ordered a 2Gig RAM stick alongside and a 4Gig SD Card alongside for increased storage. I did, however, decide to keep it in the original configuration for a while to write a review. I'm typing the review on it right now.

It is indeed a nice and interesting machine, but it quite doesn't live up to the hype.

The Good

It is indeed tiny. Very very tiny.... It goes into my man-pouch without a problem. I bought a man-pouch because my wife was sick and tired seeing me sweating in my coat just because I want my wallet and key in it. I don't like my wallet in my trousers. Yes, you may now laugh. A man-pouch is indeed silly, but immensely practical.

Everyone I have shown it loved it. They couldn't believe the price. My wife finds it cute, a friend of mine who is a single geek dad wanted one at once for his daughter. My father in law wanted to buy three (He had a glass of two too much) for his children and his wife. His kids loved it and were fighting over it. Tuxpaint really has something more than MS Paint ;-)

So, as positives I will most certainly allow: appealing to the masses/children, small, and cheap.

Opening up a terminal was easy. On howtos you'll find that you have to type Ctrl-Alt-T. Nice, but just opening a file manager and select the extra menu, you'll have one too. On top of that it's a full KDE Console.

3D was astonishingly good. Planetracer (a fork of tuxracer) works lovely and even gets a menu entry in Xandros. Temoulous works great, but there is no menu entry, The same counts for Stellarium. Not a game but quite 3D intensive. It works just fine....

That is alas where it ends.

The Bad

Where do I start? Perhaps best there where I am struggling most right now: The keyboard. Even for a laptop dweller like myself, the keyboard is too small. It is hard to type. It's fine for a small chat or a Troll comment on slashdot, but not for writing reviews.

Then comes the screen.... Yes, for slashdot (which is oddly enough a well-behaved website), it's not a problem. Go on any other website and the 800x480 screen does feel cramped. That's not the only problem. I configured gmail in thunderbird. Some options were simply not visible. Okay, for gmail those options were not necessary, but still... Xandros has not been modified enough to fit the small screen. Same thing for Firefox and a few other programs I tried.

Battery.... I would have loved to tell you that this device is the best laptop I ever have. It's not. This morning, I did some tests, put it in sleep and didn't use it for a full day. Tonight I wanted to write the review.... Guess who didn't want to wake up? Yup.... You got it: the ASUS EEE PC. It sucks battery for breakfast while operating, and sips margerita-battery while sleeping. It really is better to shut it down and save power.

Space left: I do not want to know how the 2G model owners survive.... More than half of the 4G I have is used! That's okay, I understand why. A common user? I don't think he'll understand... But hey, he may not notice ;-)

The Ugly

The interface mimics Windows XP in some areas. Alas, I was astonished to see my SD card to be mounted as D:. An USB stick I used got mounted as E:. Ooooookay... I understand for familiarity reasons, but there is no C:. Why just not mount it on /mnt/sdcard and the flashdrives on /mnt/flash0.

Then there is wireless.... It is in the ugly section for a reason. First of all there are no profiles. That's a bummer. Type in your password everytime please, oh, and was that WPA or WEP and which key index was it? Fuck it! Sure, I understand the EEE PC isn't thought to go on a secured network and only on open starbucks networks. Well, no, I have two WPA networks and I'd like to use them if I can. (Note: you can avoid typing in your password, if you have connected to the network before and just click "Ok" without specifying anything).

Wireless has another problem: even if you did type in your key, your wireless doesn't always come up. The reason is that wpa_supplicant simply isn't running. Why? I have no idea. The only way I found to force the wireless to work was creating the following script, run as root:

#!/bin/bash
wpa_supplicant -Dmadwifi -B -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf.ath0 -iath0

If only that were the only problem! Ha, consider the update procedure. You can launch an update program if you want, and have to update every package manually.... That's okay considering the space you have, but not okay considering the audience you have. Also, the last update I did just said "Broken Packages". Nice. I even did a full system restore (Which is nice, just press F9 on reboot) in order to try to avoid that. No avail. The 1.05 update still claims broken packages.

So, yes, the Asus EEE PC is nice.... It's just not for auntie Mildred. I would have loved to say: yes this is the Linux that will be accepted by the masses. I'm pessimistic. Mine will surely keep on running a Linux. Will it be Xandros? I don't know yet....

Updated 2008-06-11@12:30CET

I noticed that I wasn't quite clear what problems there are with the Wifi. Fixed that.

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Asus EEE PC 701 Review More

Asus EEE PC 701 Review

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  • Still, it's a lot more portable than the average laptop. And perhaps the battery and wireless issues can be ameliorated with a little config work?

    Should have my review up soon, once I'm done jailbreaking it.

    • Yes, yes, it is indeed more portable. I planned to make pictures of it next to my 15.4" Fujitsu Siemens laptop which is exactly double the size of the EEE. I also wanted to make a picture of it next to a Nintendo DS. I'll do that in one of the next days. It is very tiny, and that's really one of the best features.

      I think the battery issue cannot really be solved, unless they start including better batteries. (Apparently Europeans got the crappy ones :-( ) Perhaps the machine can do a bit more powersa

  • Then there is wireless.... It is in the ugly section for a reason. First of all there are no profiles. That's a bummer. Type in your password everytime please, oh, and was that WPA or WEP and which key index was it?

    Sorry, but you're wrong here. There *are* profiles - they're in the "Network" icon. The "Wireless Networks" utility is for connecting to/exploring a wireless network for the first time.

    Also, I've had my 701 since December, and have never seen the wpa_supplicant problem you mention. (I use wireless almost exclusively.)

    • Okay, I might be wrong about the profiles. I can't check now, I'm at work and I don't have it with me (and there are no wireless networks here anyway). I'll take your word for it that there are profiles, but in that case I still have a big criticism about it: if I didn't find it and expected the small icon saying "Hey, dude, there is wireless here!" to control the wireless, how can you expect someone less computer literate to know that they have to go to the Network icon. That's a real usability problem

    • Just as a small update. You're right. The profiles are there and it does solve my wpa problem. Thank you for pointing it out.
  • does it have a camera and can it handle skype videocalls?
  • I don't know that I'll get one, but my main thing was something uber-portable that i could take and use for writing. The keyboard and battery issues would seem to preclude that for the time being tho. Of course by the time I have the disposable income they may have fixed it a bit better, too;-)

    • Well, I did write the whole review on it, so typing something "longer" is possible. You just hit the backspace waaaaay more often than on a regular laptop keyboard ;-)

      The Asus EEE PC 900 has a larger keyboard I heard.
      • Indeed. I did some googling and I think the 900 would work perfectly for me: once I get that disposable income thing again;-)

        • I too, did some googling, but the pictures I have seen do indicate that the 900 has the same keyboard as the 701. Of course those pictures may just be photoshopped.

          Try borrowing a 701 from someone you know and test it yourself. I'm getting used to it. My typo-rate is going down ;-)

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