It's So Cute We Just Want To Bite It!

Halcyon, at my urging, bought an Asus Eee, the first wave of new "subnotebooks" or as I prefer, "microbooks".

They are half the size and half the price of a budget laptop (read: cheap), a touch weak on processing power and markedly weak on memory (this model is the mid-range 4 gig option and most of that 4 gigs is taking up by the operating sysyem). However, since the device is not intended for use with memory-hogging programs like such as Photoshop, this is not a big deal. It has USB and SD slots for when you need to dump memory.

There are two major selling points, and the reason that Hal will use this device a lot: the first is that it's tiny, really tiny, and weighs accordingly. It is literally like carrying a small hardback book around. The keyboard is cramped and will take getting used to, but as Hal and I quickly agreed, this happens whenever we switch keyboards anyway (moving back and forth between my full size desktop and my laptop inevitably results in horrific typos for a few hours).

The second great plus is that it comes preloaded with Linux and a good cache of programs, including Open Office (which makes documents easily read by both Macs and PCs). Hal literally turned on the computer, answered a few questions when prompted (along the lines of "What is your name?") and then bam. Computer. All done. It took less than 2 minutes to connect to our wifi, and most of that two minutes was spent trying to remember our password.

It came preloaded with Skype as well, and this model has a pinhole webcam (you can get one without for $50 cheaper). There is a voice recording program that we played with to test the speakers, and the speakers are quite literally WAY BETTER than the ones on my big year-old laptop.

In summary: as a portable writing/surfing/emailing device, the Eee is fucking rad. And basically, Hal had been thinking about buying a laptop as a secondary writing device for some time now and instead got this Eee, saving himself something in the ballpark of $1500. For serious.

Oh, and it came with a neoprene laptop sleeve. Because the Eee rolls like that.

And so that I don't sound like some mindless agreeable review drone, I will say this: it could be cheaper. Yes, I just said it was cheap, but it could be cheaper, and I say that not as a grumpy miser. On a critical level, I think it's about $100 overpriced.