Hands-on with Asus's £100 laptop

 

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By David Bayon in San Francisco

Posted on 19 Sep 2007 at 03:33

The Eee PC is notebook manufacturer Asustek's interpretation of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative. More of an ultra-mobile PC than a notebook, PC Pro took the opportunity for some hands-on time with the device at the Intel Developer Forum.

With a 7in, 800 x 480 screen and a tiny but surprisingly usable keyboard, the Eee PC is amazingly portable. It weighs only 0.89kg and uses a solid-state disc (SSD) to make it as robust as possible.

Based on an Intel chipset and mobile CPU, the $199 700-C model comes with 2GB of storage and 256MB of DDR2 RAM, but there are configurations up to 6GB and 512MB.

Despite its diminutive size the lid is sturdy and the overall build quality certainly didn't feel cheap or flimsy. We're a little concerned about the battery life of the cheapest model; dearer configurations with four-cell batteries are quoted as lasting a decent three hours, so it remains to be seen how the 700-C's two-cell battery might fare.

Models come with either a standard modem or 802.11g wireless modules, and all versions have 10/100 Ethernet. Cameras are integrated onto the higher models, and all configurations have a built-in speaker and microphone.

With three USB ports and an SD card slot it's actually not the bare my-first-laptop that the price may suggest. It supports either Windows XP or Linux, boots in less than 15 seconds and even has a VGA port on the side for hooking up to larger displays in the classroom.

Given the affordable price, the Eee PC could be a huge success in schools, particularly in emerging markets abroad. However, Asus admits that most of the initial shipments are likely to be the "mainstream" $369 configuration. The Eee PC is expected to be available in October.

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