Pretty slick device!




So I finally got my hands on one of those Asus Eee PC's today. Weighing in at a whopping 2lbs, with a 6" screen, a solid-state flash drive, low-voltage Celeron processor and 512MB Ram, this thing is a bargain at $299. And did I mention that it runs Linux? I have to admit that I was skeptical about the Eee after watching the Linux fanboy stampede. You could install Linux on a microwave and those guys would go nuts. I figured that with a weak processor and limited memory, it would only be an exercise in frustration.

Was I ever wrong! I got to play with the Eee for three hours today and I was really impressed. It's designed to be sort of a small web browsing appliance, not an all-purpose PC. Thus the UI is very basic and task-oriented. You just click a button to "browse the web" or "make a call with Skype". The built-in wi-fi works reliably, the system boots lightning fast, and if you really want to use it as a true linux system with a full KDE experience, it's only a few apt-get commands away. Yes, the Eee is running Debian under the hood! Or rather a very polished variant. What really surprised me was the overall responsiveness of the system. Just goes to show you that you don't really NEED a muscle-computer to get the job done. Anybody else have any experience with this little gem?

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