For her birthday, I bought Leslee an Asus Eee (pronounced E).  I've had my eye out for an ultraportable laptop for her for a while.  So far, I'd only found very expensive ultraportables.  When this came out, and was available in the $350-400 range, I jumped at it.  For some, the fact that it runs Linux might be a deterrent, but definitely not for me.

Leslee's homework on her Asus Eee in Open Office

It's a really nice machine.  The interface is simple and easy to use, as best you can expect in such a confined space.  I'm not a huge fan of Qt widgets.  I think they look a bit 1990, but its not too bad.  The device starts really, really fast.  The first boot, including the "setup" process took about a minute.  A typical boot seems to be about 17 seconds.  Shutdown in less than 5.

Despite the device being fairly underpowered by today's standards, most apps start up as fast as they do on my very high-powered desktop.  Apps also run very smoothly, and are responsive.  I suspect the solid-state hard drive (the device has only flash-memory) has something to do with the speed of the apps, and the speed of the startup/shutdown.

There have been no hangs or crashes at this point for any apps or the device itself.  It just flat-out works.

The Eee comes stocked with software -- lots of it.  This is one of the big advantages of a laptop that depends on open source software.  It has pretty much everything you need out of the box.  For a typical user, he/she will not need to install much that isn't already there.  For the most part, Asus chose best-of-breed software.  Because the device is running primarily Qt-based apps, they aren't all my favorite choices, but overall they've made good decisions on which apps to provide.

One glaring exception is the lack of Gimp.  I know this laptop is trying to be easy to use, and Gimp isn't the easiest thing to use.  But Asus chose Amarok as the music manager, which is my favorite Music app on Linux, but it's far from the simplest.  So why leave out the Gimp?  They include mtPaint and TuxPaint.  Both are simple, but I still would like to see Gimp included.

The keyboard is simply too small for someone with big hands like me.  I can use the device, but I don't particularly enjoy typing.  For most women, it's probably going to be fine.  For Leslee, who is failry tiny with tiny hands, the keyboard is fine. The device is small enough to fit in Leslee's purse. Because it's so convenient, she's been taking it to work and to her night classes, and just loves that.  The built-in wifi connects easily for her at school.

The display is fairly good.  My only complaint is that it could be wider.  On each side of the screen is inch-wide speakers.  While the speakers sound nice, I would gladly trade those two inches for a wider screen, since the device is used for display more than for sound.  But this isn't enough of a problem that I wouldn't recommend the device to anyone.  Some will find it confining, but this is what you have to expect with an ultraportable.

One big shortcoming is the Add/Remove Software function.  First, there's no software to add, at least today.  A typical Linux distribution would have thousands of available titles, so using a distribution might have been a better choice for Asus than using a customized Xandros that doesn't even use the Xandros repositories.  The second problem is that when you update software, you must update each piece of software that has an update one by one.  After each thing you update, the device warns that you need to reboot!  That's just rediculous.  You don't need to reboot Linux unless you install a new kernel.  Also, most Linux distributions can update all packages with a single click.

The device has no 3D support at all.  I installed Google Earth just for kicks, and as I expected, the performance was abysmal.  The device is also lacking a CD/DVD.  You can use a USB drive, and the device has a built-in SD card reader, which for me is an adequate source of removeable media, though it would've been nice to use this device as a portable DVD player.

If you know alot about Linux, you can connect this device to other apt repositories (Debian, Xandros).  But you run the risk of messing things up if you aren't careful.  Also, things you add won't show as a launcher, so you'll have to run them from the terminal, or edit the launcher config (I'll explain how to do this in a later post).  The favorites area has a Asus link that cannot be removed.  How stupid is that?  That really flies in the face of what "Favorites" means.

The desktop isn't terribly pretty.  But, this is part of what makes it run so smoothly on lesser hardware.

To get the wifi to connect automatically is a bit convoluted.  To connect to wifi, you use the "Wireless Networks" launcher.  Once you've connected, switch to the "Network" launcher.  Open the Properties for your connection, and on the General tab change the Start Mode to On Boot.  If instead you open Wirless Networks, or the icon in the tool tray (which is actually launching the same thing) you have to enter your encryption key every time you connect to a secure wifi.

But, despite a few detractions, it really is a nice device, especially for a very reasonable price.  Most of the issues that I've mentioned, Leslee doesn't even notice or care about.  It has everything she needs, and it had everything from the very minute we booted it up.  Leslee tells me every day how much she loves it.  I bought it for her, so that's what matters.  The fact that it exposes her to Linux and open source software is a nice bonus.