Asus Eee PC 4G

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Asus Eee PC 4G

Rohan Naravane, Mar 03, 2008 1443 hrs IST

The affordable sub-notebook that took the world by storm is here... and we've got our hands on it

Ultra-portable and ultra-light, attractive looks, good performance, near-perfect customized OS, good battery life, well-priced

Cramped keyboard, mediocre touchpad tap response, low usable storage space

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There's Mozilla Firefox for Web browsing; as you know, it has a tabbed interface and performs nicely. It's generally considered faster than Internet Explorer. One problem while browsing: due to the small screen size and resolution, and the fact that most pages are designed for bigger screens, there is the unwanted -- and dreaded -- side-scrolling. What's worse is that the touch-pad doesn't have horizontal touch-scrolling, and it was irritating to drag the sidebar every time I wanted to see the cut-off portion of a Web page.

See what I mean?

Streaming a YouTube video

One thing I wasn't able to try out was video-chatting, because the inbuilt multi-protocol messenger (which supports Yahoo!, MSN, Gtalk, and more) doesn't have support for video-chat. I do hope they update the messenger to one that supports it.

The OpenOffice.org suite is a very good alternative to Microsoft Office. Check out a review (from long ago) here.

The interface in Writer is similar to that of MS Word

Calc is the MS Excel alternative in OpenOffice.org

Overall, I think the Eee PC's OS is one of the best iterations of Linux I've ever seen. Everything is simplified, and can be easily understood even by people used to Windows. Installing third-party applications may not be as simple as it is on Windows, but the OS comes with a sufficient number of applications required for everyday use.

One prominent disadvantage of the Eee PC is its low usable disk space. The use of the SSD gives only a measly 1.4 GB for the user to play with; that kind of space would barely fit one DVD movie rip along with a couple of music albums. If you're considering it only for regular office use, though, 1.4 GB should be more than sufficient for word processing documents and spreadsheets, for example.

The problem can be somewhat countered: a 4 GB SD card or pen drive (which retails for a little more than 1,000 rupees nowadays) can be used along with the laptop to boost storage space.

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Discussion Board

(32) Comments

akash joshi

,malkapur, on Aug 08, 2008 02:53 PM

increase ur hardisk capacity

Amjith

,Kollam, on Jul 10, 2008 04:06 PM

pls let me know the price of above laptop

vignesh

,chennai, on May 10, 2008 11:12 AM

What I am worried is the price! Still in india, it is not become famous. This laptop is not available in ritchi street. Once it get into ritchi st, then I am sure the price may go down tremendously. Now at present this laptop is selling at 17,000 in show room. I am sure that the price may come down to 12000 within 3 to 4 months. what say?

Anand

,Chennai, on Jun 16, 2008 04:59 PM

Hi, This laptop is very much availble in chennai for Rs.13500 and 16000 for 2GB and 4 GB respectively. Moreover i saw it for 15000 in ebay.

Puneet

,Mumbai, on Mar 04, 2008 01:51 PM

no windows no thanks

Viru

,New Delhi, on Mar 04, 2008 02:38 PM

I wish India implemented the strict rules about software piracy and then it would be fun seeing the expression on your face.

vignesh

,chennai, on May 10, 2008 10:58 AM

u can install windows if u want. Its supported.

Sam

,Pune, on Mar 18, 2008 03:46 PM

Eee pc has horizontal scrolling, You have to enable it.

vignesh

,chennai, on May 10, 2008 10:26 AM

is it visible??? when i see this eee pc, i cudnt see any horizontal scroll.

Pramod

,Cherthala, on Apr 25, 2008 07:00 AM

Gr8 agreed. But how dou compensate the lack of cd drive. Do we have cheap external drives here. Well until then....

Baiju Mehta

,Vadodara, on Mar 12, 2008 06:00 PM

If other brand like ACER is around 20,000/- with full feature notebook with Celeron, is it worth to buy Asus at 18,000/- with this spec.?

vijayshimla

,Shimla 171001, on Mar 04, 2008 08:43 PM

While this is a great ultra portable- i would much rather wait for the 9inch screen version with 8 GB SSD- which is going to hit the market in 2 months. Incidentally this is available on compare India- for 16k.

Rakesh

,Bhopal, on Mar 07, 2008 10:48 AM

there is nothing as such on compare india,As per company, it will take more time & even at higher prices to hit the market with in 2 Months

sathish sampath

,chennai, on Mar 05, 2008 02:06 PM

This looks pretty impressive.. i am reading about this just now.. well written article. also i would like to know more info on this on the price and where its available for me to go and check it out etc... i am writing from chennai

Pradeep

,chennai, on Mar 06, 2008 11:13 AM

We are Authorized for ASUS products In TN, SETHIA INFOTECH .Ph.32982159/42149599/98841-20789

ushant

,mumbai, on Mar 05, 2008 11:45 AM

wat abt cd write. can we upgrade it with 2gb ram n process. ORrrrr how can we run photoshop coreldraw max cad maya software on this is this capable to run this software if not so can we upgrade it.

Pat

,Mumbai, on Mar 06, 2008 10:30 AM

you can connect external USB-based cd/dvd writers! Also you can upgrade to 2 GB if you can tweak the inbuilt OS a bit! The default OS only supports 1 GB but adding support for 2 GB is not a big deal! Although you *might* be able to run 3DMax etc. but please do not buy this machine for that purpose! Its in a different league althogether!

madjack

,mumbai, on Mar 05, 2008 01:06 PM

Hey Rohan, thanks for a most informative test review. I think you can improve on it if you can tell us of a few hacks that you have tried on it. Like running win xp off a usb drive. An 8gb flash drive is avaliable for 1500rs. With Xp running off a usb drive, the machine would become a killer app. This is very very imp to check out. how soon can you tell us about this? also how much will the slow transfer rate of the usb drive affect the performance in that case?

scorpio

,new delhi, on Mar 05, 2008 12:48 AM

Xandros has sold itself to microsoft

Jagadish

,Trivandrum, on Mar 04, 2008 05:13 PM

Can anyone tell me its power consumption? What is the wattage? A standard laptop, say the Dell Inspiron, uses about 70 watts. Also, anyone knows how it compares with the OLPC? Thanks

iGamer

,calicut, on Mar 04, 2008 04:09 PM

The Poll question "Do you agree with this review?" is logically incorrect. To agree or disagree with a review, I should have used the product myself and formed an opinion. I think the question should be "Did you find this article informative?". My answer: Yes. But, has the HCL laptop with similar features and a 1400 price tag been covered .

Pradeep

,chennai, on Mar 04, 2008 02:12 PM

Call SETHIA INFOTECH , ASUS Royal Partner, and for DEMO. Ph.32982159/42149599/98841-20789.

Viru

,New Delhi, on Mar 03, 2008 06:08 PM

As you have mentioned in the screenshots, it shows Skype already installed, you could have tested video and audio conferencing by that, I wonder if you tried to install some packages?

Rohan Naravane

,TechTree TechLabs, on Mar 03, 2008 10:45 PM

Yes, skype 1.4 was pre-installed but unfortunately it did not have the video chat facility, thus couldn't try it out. The 2.0 beta version (released recently) has started support for video though.

Viru

,New Delhi, on Mar 04, 2008 01:12 PM

Thanks for your reply Rohan, you have my vote for one of the most interesting reviews, do post again when you test the webcam quality, I would love to gift one of these to my close ones. Also please provide a feedback if you install any linux packages as how they worked and if you are satisfied with their performance.

Pradeep

,chennai, on Mar 04, 2008 12:15 PM

Call SETHIA INFOTECH , ASUS Royal Partner, and for DEMO. Ph.32982159/42149599/98841-20789.

Sajeesh

,Bangalore, on Mar 04, 2008 10:22 AM

Can a external 80GB usd hard drive can be used ???

Amit

,Hyderabad, on Mar 04, 2008 11:20 AM

yes, definitely. As easy as using a pen drive would be.It will drain the battery, though.

swapnil

,pune, on Mar 03, 2008 06:10 PM

Please let me know how this is in comparison with HCL's 7 inch laptop

Rakesh

,Bhopal, on Mar 04, 2008 10:19 AM

There are 3 basic differences, 1.it carries weight of 0.92 KG, where as HCL carries 1.5 KG 2. HCL has 2 GB SSD Drive, while Asus Has 4 GB SSD Drive 3. HCL does not carry any VGA Port, while Asus does. It is important for presentaion over LCD Projectors & this feature very much important for Manages, Executives, Students who usally go for power point presantaion regularly. 4. HCL does not carry any Webcam, Asus has 0.3 meagapixel cameraof good quality.

sudhir aggarwal

,delhi, on Mar 04, 2008 03:48 AM

does it have a connector for an external screen, keyboard

Rakesh

,Bhopal, on Mar 04, 2008 10:09 AM

Yes, U can attach LCD, Projectors through VGA port.

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