Asus Eee 4G Surf

Customer Reviews:

ASUS 4G SURF [Posted on 2008-05-04]
A great mini computer. Just don`t get the white one because: My son purchased a black one and I went for the white one. All was well until he said let,s put in a Gig of memory for optimal performance so lo and behold the black model has A handy door for this purpose but the white one must be disassembled to insert memory. If you turn your Asus into a brick in the process you,ll be sorry. Don,t attempt unless you are computer savy. Linux works very well and very fast. Get yours today!

docjim

if only I had smaller fingers [Posted on 2008-05-04]
The eee does live up to the hype. It's cheap. The screen is small but sharp and definitely usable. The factory Xandros, on the internal solid state drive (SSD) usually boots faster than my XP laptop comes out of standby. Xandros is a fairly restricted fork of Debian, but I was able to put Ubuntu on a USB stick (with the help of the fine folks [...]) and can boot that when I need it. (I might put it on the SSD, but I dunno if I wanna give up that very-fast-boot option).

The only real problem I have is with the keyboard. One problem is the layout: e.g. Home and End are keychords (using the Fn key). The bigger problem is the keyboard's (small) size. I touchtype and have fairly big (aka normal-sized North American?) fingers. When I touchtype on my ThinkPad, I do so with a fairly low error rate. When I touchtype on my eee, I get a lot of errors. Solutions are

* external keyboard. I bought a $[...] USB keyboard with touchpad which pretty much solves the problem.

* hunt'n'peck. This works fine for when I'm out-and-about and just wanna check email or view some webpages.

* wait for the eee 900, which is 9" wide and has a correspondingly larger keyboard (and screen, with higher resolution). By comparison, this eee (aka the "eee 700") is 7" wide. Unfortunately this wasn't an option when I got this eee, and the 9" is also $[...] more.

Quick Review [Posted on 2008-05-05]
If you just need the basics... Do NOT be afraid to switch to linux and the ASUS Eee PC. This thing is the bomb for the money. It's perfect for beginners and seniors. My mother has never used a computer and had it figured out within an hour without touching the manual. Yes the screen is small but it's sharp. Plug this thing into a fullsize monitor and it's even more fun. I love it! This was the best money I EVER spent on a linux box. I have an 8G SD card on board and a Western Digital USB hard drive for backups... and it's the perfect solution. My old computer is on it's way to the garage... WOW! Look at all this desk space I now have!

Love it!! [Posted on 2008-05-07]
I've had mine for just over 24 hours; suffice it to say...I love it. I got a little USB mouse for mine because I hate touchpads,and I've just been having a ball -- surfing and doing other little tasks.

I had tested this PC at a local Micro Center, and for a while I considered not getting it because of the keyboard being small and very hard to type on with 10 fingers without making errors. I even practiced for about 10 or 15 minutes in the store, and still kept making errors.

But I was hard-pressed to give up on the thing because I just loved its portability. So I went back the next day and started typing on it again, and strangely, I was improved. And I keep getting better and better on it (I'm typing this review on it with absolutely no problem).

I agree with other reviews that people shouldn't try to make it their main computer; (I myself have a desktop that is my main computer). Yet...you really can make this an acceptable substitute in lots of ways.

I absolutely love it. I've been playing with it constantly. I plan to use it to take notes in class.

Even with No Ram Door this is a good machine [Posted on 2008-05-07]
My girlfriend bought a white 4G surf for me recently and for those who have done the research, this case does not have a RAM door.
I ordered a 2G Ram chip and went through the process of taking apart the case (voiding the warranty) and removing the 512mb chip and replacing it with the 2GB chip. Everything worked fine.
Although I am an experienced Linux user and can upgrade the Kernel to see the full 2G I am leaving my machine in easy mode and as is I am only able to use 1G of the 2G. Since the chip was so cheap $34, there was no use to buy a lesser chip.
I do not see a reason to upgrade the kernel at this time. In fact I cannot see any performance difference between the 512MB and the 1G I am using now.

Since my girlfriend has the 4G Black with the new battery, I do notice the difference in battery life. It is easy to connect this to DSL and Wifi and this is the easiest version of Unix I have ever used. In fact its easier than XP or Vista as well.

So if you are a regular user, there is no reason to spend the extra $50 for the RAM door unless you can really find a need to use it (Upgrade to Kubuntu for example).

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