Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Extreme value alert on the Asus eee


As the priest of the "Value-for-money-cult" would whisper reverently: "this is a good value." The Asus eee is a modern day computer appliance. Simple, effective and best of all: you can sneak one into a braai if, say, some emergency image manipulation and Facebook upload would be required to put some or other idjit in his place.

Because of my previous sins, I bought mine about a month ago and paid almost R 600 more than what they are going for now - R 2 099.00 Vat Inclusive.

Yes, gentle reader. A full on notebook computer for R 2000 (give or take an hamburger or two).

The eee runs Linux, and includes software like OpenOffice - spreadsheet, word processor, presentation tool, a web browser, email, a few games and so on.

It works right out of the box, but if you prefer Windows XP, you can install it on the machine - although that requires a bit of technical work. (I plan to publish a guide on how to do this shortly)

The computer includes a single 2Gb "hard disk" (actually a flash drive), but I added 4GB SD ram (same little memory cards you slot into digital cameras) for R 150 for it - extending it's capacity to 6Gb. Since the eee have 3 USB slots, you can add more thumb drives or any other USB based device.

It is PERFECT for a first computer for a child (I'd say from 9 years onwards) and PERFECT for the person who needs to take his work on the road, but where a full-on high tec computer is an overkill or too cumbersome to lug around. (The eee weights about 1Kg)

You can buy the gadget of the year online here...

You will find more reviews and more opinions on the eee on google, like so:

Googling...

I use mine as a productivity enhancer. I even bought a book on productivity to help me get...er...more productive. It's lying on my shelf at eye level: staring at me. Another thing to do.

3 comments: Read or post...:

  1. but is it suitable for everyday office use? not just mobile office use
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  2. You can use it for everyday use, if you don't have sophisticated requirements: other words, just a little word processing, checking emails and so on.

    The eee's advantage is firstly cost and secondly size. Because it is so small (about the size of an paperback book) it can be uncomfortable to work with the small keyboard and monitor...so you'd have to add these to the ports supplied on the eee.

    If you spend a lot of time (4 hrs) a day in front of a PC, I would buy a bigger machine.

    If this is the very first computer you ever buy (for work - not games), I'd say it's a good starting point.
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  3. I carted mine all thru Europe, for 6 days aboard a yacht, logging into wifi hotspots in restaurants in Oslo and the greatest feature (because of it's Linux OS) was speed of booting up. A friend installed XP on his, and tho booting does take longer, I think I will go this route. I would like more compatibility with my other computers. Get a nice big memory stick, and ur away. It's primarily a communicator. I have written spreadsheets on it, but I'd classify it more as a machine that will read mails effectively, and browse 100x better than a phone. But it would never replace my laptop.
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