Asus Eee Laptop (windows Xp Edition)

The Age

Thursday April 24, 2008

David Flynn

Asus Eee laptop (Windows XP edition)

$579

4/5

www.asus.com.au

Asus intended its little Eee PC laptop for classrooms and children at home, but it's become a surprise hit with grown-ups. No one expects this super-compact sub-notebook to replace a full-blown laptop, but the tiny footprint (the screen is a mere 18cm) and weight (900g) makes it hard to resist as a second PC for use when you're travelling or just out and about.

This mainstream appeal is certain to grow now that the Eee PC is available running Windows XP instead of the Linux operating system. This gives you the familiar face of Windows and the ability to run most of the Windows software you would use on your regular desktop or laptop.

There are a few catches, of course. The XP version of the Eee PC costs $80 more than the Linux model because Asus must pay a licence fee to Microsoft.

Windows also swallows up half of this little laptop's 4 GB solid-state drive, leaving you with barely 2 GB to install other programs such as Microsoft Office as well as adding music tracks, movies or other downloads. On the bright side, that solid-state drive - which uses fast flash memory rather than a spinning mechanical disk - sees Windows runs quicker than you would expect. It starts up in 25 seconds, while taking just three seconds to drop into, or wake from, low-power standby mode.

You will need to customise the XP interface (or have a tech-savvy friend do this) because the screen is simply too small for running Microsoft's default settings: XP's big blue Start menu runs almost to the top of the screen and a quarter of the way across. Further, performance drags once you load Office and the mandatory security software because the notebook comes with a mere 512 MB of memory. When buying the Eee PC, get the dealer to boost this to 1 GB. -- DAVID FLYNN