New Hands On Review of Eee PC
September 12th, 2007 by antArne at unicap-imaging just forwarded the address to his Eee PC hands on review to me. It’s a great look at the device and he is one of the lucky few to already have a pre-production model as the webcam software uses the unicap toolkit. His system is the 900mhz, 512MB, 4GB storage space variant.
Most interesting in the review:
- On his 4GB model, 1.3 GB left to the user [does this mean for those who opt for the 2gb variant, less software will be installed?]
- SDHC card reader
- Replaceable RAM up to 1GB (See this picture, solid proof for those doubting yesterday’s news)
- 5200 mAh battery, 3-4 hours
- much, much more including lsusb output and installed applications information
Thanks, Arne!
article: http://unicap-imaging.org/unicap_eeepc.htm
more discussion: http://www.eeeuser.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=223Â
September 12th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
cool news!!!
September 12th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
What is that empty area above the RAM?
September 12th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Eeek!! No bluetooth!!! So much for wireless DUN.
September 12th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
26 SECOND BOOT?!?! What happened to the 15 second boot they were advertising?!?
September 12th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
Only 1.3 GB?!? Usually formatting takes 10-15% of the total space so that would mean the OS and other software is taking up 2.2GB. Ridiculous. And how about those who want to use Windows XP? I don’t want my EEE PC to be completely dependent on external storage. The EEE PC is becoming very unappealing to me.
September 12th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
I suspect (hope) that the OS on his machine is not the optimized final version that will ship on the Eee. Leaving the user with only 1.3GB out of the total 4GB does not sound like something that will ship on the machine once released. Unless the 2GB and 4GB machines are going to come with entirely different software configurations (not liikely), having the OS occupy that much space won’t even fit on the 2GB model at all.
September 13th, 2007 at 12:39 am
It would be interesting to see a “df” and “mount” output to find the actual usage as well as what sort of file system they are using with the flash “hard drive”.
The disk usage sounds a little high. A fully graphical ubuntu install only takes about 2GB including swap space. Perhaps this is a test install with various extra things included. It should be trivial to install the machine on 1GB with 512MB swap as a worst case. In reality the OS and swap will probably be less than 1GB.
September 13th, 2007 at 12:40 am
2gb is plenty for a basic distro.
Put /home on a SD card and you’ll be fine.
September 13th, 2007 at 1:00 am
Great news on the upgradeable memory and battery life. Now I’m for sure going to buy one.
September 13th, 2007 at 4:43 am
I would buy one… But it will cost €299 (7″) and €499 (10″) …
that is making me angry.
September 13th, 2007 at 4:45 am
I dont get the 1.3 GB free. For comparison. My 4GB harddisk (dont laugh) Has still 2.1 GB free (alt. install). I have openoffice, netbeans, the JDK (java), most dev packages (headers etc.) and the whole KDE shebang (kmplayer, kopete etc.) installed, plus a 100MB boot partition and 512MB swap partition.
So Arne, you might want to apt-get clean sometime soon (or whatever package mgt program the EEE uses).
September 13th, 2007 at 4:47 am
Sorry, I am the same poster as #10 above. Forgot to mention I am running Dapper Drake.
September 13th, 2007 at 5:27 am
yada: Remember that it is the size of the home partition that is 1.3GB. I clarified that in the article today.
The system partition has 2.4 GB, regardless of the actual size of the OS.
September 13th, 2007 at 6:37 am
arne: thanks for the update
)
(I will now resume drooling over my keyboard waiting for the EEE to come to France
September 13th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
The sticker on the bottom shows the FCC approval- I heard they had yet to even submit. WTF?
September 13th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
So it looks like an SATA driver is being used, is there any confirmation of whether the hard drive is replaceable?
September 13th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
>>>26 SECOND BOOT?!?! What happened to the 15 second boot they were advertising?!?
The Nokia 770 takes over a minute to boot. My LifeDrive about *three* minutes. I’ll take the 26 seconds, if I have to.
September 14th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Any news about delivery date? I am starting to hear October . . .
September 14th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
FCC sticker, they wouldn’t make two stickers, one FCC and one not, even if they don’t have the FCC yet they need to make the stickers, that is why it is a pre-release. And I am sure they are keeping tabs on it.
Boo-friggity-hoo about the FCC anyway, half the cars that drive down my road ruin the TV reception a quarter mile away with their crap ignition systems.
And the instant I solder extra functionality onto the board it needs re-certing ???
The lack of Wifi card is very sad, but the possibility of upgradeability with a Mini-PCI to PCI adaptor has my hardware hacking juices flowing, I want to jam an nVidia mx4000 or 6200 PCI into a bottom extension.
So it comes with a Single memory module and it requires replacement?? Better than nothing, but I need a 512MB chip.
September 14th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Whoa, PCI-EXPRESS?????
I can put an 8800GTS in this thing!! (Never mind that it costs as much as the laptop). If I can integrate the slot for it (Or a 6600GT) and get some cooling on the processor for OC’ing I want to game on this thing!!
There are PCI-E external video boxes for laptops you know, even a 6 series card should get this thing screaming. I am most looking for this as a cheap integrated TV solution for HTPC usage, or a wireless TV/media center for around the house.
September 14th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Who said no wifi?
September 14th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
It does have WiFi. It is not an add on card, it is integrated.
September 14th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
it’s a mini-pci-e slot, like what you find in i945/i965 laptops (napa/santa rosa aka centrino). it’s pretty much exclusively for wifi cards. you can’t hook up a video card because afaik it’s a mix of usb 2.0 and pci-e 1x, but it DOES mean you can throw in an intel 4965 for 802.11n goodness…
September 14th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
it sounds like the video upgradability isn’t possible, but it’s funny that the weight and dimensions of a 8800gts are actually bigger than the laptop itself. i used to have an 8800gts 320MB but sold it for now and bought one of these. I’m gonna look at pictures and videos of the geforce card i used to own on this laptop, lol.
September 15th, 2007 at 10:41 am
Do you think unpgrading memory to 1GB will have a significant and noticeable impact on the performance of the system, assuming I am using the default OS and application? I’m thinking of upgrading memory, but maybe 512MB is more than enough. Any thoughts?
September 15th, 2007 at 11:19 am
upgrading the memory is always good, perhaps if one only uses a word processing application and a web browser might notice almost nothing but there quite a few people that might work on something that needs a lot of memory. I am a programmer and most of my applications do take a lot of memory
September 15th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Nikolaos, I have to disagree with you. The cases were you want lots and lots of RAM (e.g. compiling, photoshopping, games) are really not practical on such a simple computer. In my experience, the upgrade from .5 to 1 GB is not noticeable if you stick to KDE and OpenOffice. Even with Firefox (a notorious memoryhog on Linux) running at the same time my swap is hardly (if ever) used.
On the other hand, the difference between 256MB and 512MB is big.
Disclaimer: I have no experience with running an OS from SSD, so caveat yadayada.
September 15th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
900Mhz celeron, the holdup will likely be the processor. I’ll be going 512MB. U might lose a little battery life too w/ 1GB. I’d only go 1GB on this system if u wanna use a linux distro that loads completely into RAM.
September 15th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
How can anyone have this thing in their hands - and not provide some results like:
- does it make noise (fan)?
- does it run hot?
- Etc. etc.
I am highly surprised (positively) that it appears now, that the mem can be swapped (but is it just a SODIMM slot or what - again, not impressed with this “hands on” test). Why on earth did Asus say earlier, that the mem was NOT upgradeable?
Anyways, they still lost me as a customer with the price increase, later delivery, and cut in specs.
Too bad really.
September 16th, 2007 at 9:02 am
@JDK: I can because this was not meant to be a review but mostly a description of the hardware.
But to answer your questions:
- It has a fan but it is rather quiet
- I am used to a MacBook and in comparsion, I would not say it runs hot.
September 16th, 2007 at 9:51 am
I use some different sized Transcend Flash drives and am wondering if I can just swap out the one they provide and put in one of those?
http://www.transcendusa.com/Products/ModDetail.asp?ModNo=15&LangNo=0
Or put in a SanDisk SSD drive (or Samsung etc)?
What is the expected lifetime of the SSD that they provide?
External devices - will the USB 2.0 be able to power those small USB hard drives?
Will there be a DVD movie player software installed so that when an external dvd burner is added to the USB that one can watch movies with this thing?
Software questions?
Gimp?
Gwenview (with Kipi Plugins)?
OpenOffice.org?
Pudgin?
FireFox (or Opera)?
Music Players?
Real Player?
MPlayer?
Can we add own SSD and install Ubuntu Mobile?
What about using Maemo.org applications?
Will WiFi work like Nokia N800 where it is easy to connect to Access Points?
Is the VGA on it the same as OLPC (with the low light setting that saves on battery and also is something that can be used outdoors…? If not, then how easy is the screen to use outdoors… if not usable then the ASUS Flash Video on this link with the woman using this Eee PC 710 outdoors is a lie.
http://event.asus.com/eeepc/
Did the price go up because there were folks that were saying that they would pay double the price of the OLPC to own a OLPC unit (where 1/2 of the cost would be donated back to OLPC for some disadvantaged 3rd world student to be able to have one)? IF so, then that is disappointing.
My guess anyway is that once this hits the market that Nokia will have to lower the price of the N800 and might need to throw in a free bluetooth keyboard in to the N800 deal as well (something that Nokia should have done in the 1st place).
September 16th, 2007 at 11:46 am
can I ask arne about your general impression? do you feel that it worth its price?
September 16th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
What did you think of the keyboard? Too cramped? Stiff? Cheap? Good feedback? Trackpad good? Screen good in bright light? Tried it outdoors in sun? So many Qs…
September 16th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
@Nikolaos: Worth its price? It did not cost anything for me, so yes
But seriously: I do not even know the price, do you? If it would be around EUR200,- , I would probably buy it ( that would be around 280 USD ), even for the 2GB version ( but with webcam ).
If I would have to describe the device by one word, I would say “adorable”
It really is a quite nice device and everybody who saw it was fascinated ( ie. colleagues for example ). The device does not look cheap, it really looks like a good notebook, just smaller.
The software is clearly targeted on the non-techical oriented user. It will be just a matter of time until specialised distributions will be available for this device and I do not get why anybody here is wondering about the software.
September 16th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Arne could you film a video for us showing most of the major functions? There is very little video available of the Eee in operation. If you do film please show the following:
1-A tour of the hardware features of the machine including the ports on the side and interfaces on the bottom.
2-Web browsing on various types of sites. Suggestions include Youtube, Amazon, CNN, IMDB, this site, others.
3-Video playback
4-The included applications such as OpenOffice or others.
5-The simple vs the advanced user interface
Thank you Arne, you are one of the very few sources of information that exist for the EEE, it is appreciated.
Also have you discovered anything that would help us solve whether or not the SSD is replaceable?
September 16th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Since Xandros is Debian-based, the output of “dpkg -l” would be most useful. It’ll show a list of all the installed packages, and should answer a decent number of questions.
September 16th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Thanks a lot, Arne
September 16th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Docprego
this should be in line with your question, especially if you understand Taiwanese
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7NqOgJWcK4U
September 17th, 2007 at 5:26 am
Thaks arne! I think so too, 200-250 euros is a very reasonable and competitive price. Bearing in mind that the OLPC initiative is now 188$ (instead of 100$ originally planned), the eee is going to be a hit. Lets wait and see.
September 17th, 2007 at 7:00 am
Can we use any of these ECC and Wear Leveling SSD’s to replace theirs?
See a list of affordable (and the prices will continue to drop at all sites selling these, even Dell has them for sale) SSD’s at this url:
http://www.dvnation.com/nand-flash-ssd.html
Can we use these? Is the Eee 710’s SSD something we can access and replace on our own?
September 17th, 2007 at 7:49 am
we don’t know, depends on how SSD is connected
September 17th, 2007 at 8:21 am
It is possible that a SSD can fail… and the unit had better have this as something that any tech can service.
MTBF is what it is, but it is only an average, any part might need replacement, even after warrantee has expired.
What is the warrantee of the unit, anyone know?
September 17th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Hey, I just checked allasus.com, and their release date changed from “late sept” to “early october.” When did they change that? Hasn’t been very long.
September 17th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
I saw that yesterday. Let’s wait for “late October”, then “early November” and so on…
September 18th, 2007 at 2:30 am
PCI-E x1 is sufficient to hook up a PCI-E card, truthfully this PC probably couldn’t use much more than a 7300 could put out, but for TV-Output an external card is a must.
PCI-E is a standard that auto-negotiates the number of lanes available, so the NB will tell the card that x1 is available, and the card will run fine, I have tested this by cutting off a 6200 down to a x1 slot and booting up and running 3DMark.
Crazy? Yes. But I enjoy it none-the-less, I suppose I should rig the 6200 for Laptop duty and pick up a used lappy
September 18th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Can I use MSN Messenger in the EEE Pc ?
thanks
September 18th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Sure, why not? =D
September 18th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
I talked to allasus.com, and they say that the change from “late sept” to “early oct” was jus to account for the delay between release and delivery. They were really only rewording to better fit the situation.
September 18th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Asus Eee To Do Color Covers
September 18th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
thanks
I was asking because I’v never used Linux before, didn’t know if it supports MSN.
September 18th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
How would I connect my Raptor drive to this ?
September 19th, 2007 at 1:19 am
There are better chat programs for Linux than MSN - and I think some of them are able to emulate MSN (connect with it)…
September 19th, 2007 at 1:51 am
[數ä½]Eee PC æ–°è¨Šæ¯ - 0919
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September 19th, 2007 at 11:37 am
i use gaim/pidgin in linux and adium on mac, both very good chat programs with compatibility to most networks. (adium is based on the gaim lib at the core).
September 19th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
@terror - put it in a USB box and plug it in.
@May - you should be able to connect to the MSN network, but probably won’t be able to do it with MSN’s client software - use some other chat program and you’ll be good to go.
September 20th, 2007 at 7:53 am
Does anyone know if this unit will boot off of the USB port… so that if we have one of those USB devices, or USB powered mini-hard drive device that we can boot a different version of LINUX from that “external” device?
October 17th, 2007 at 3:25 am
My friend has one shipped yesterday in Taiwan, I’m disappointed with the softwares it buddled. It is 4G/512MB with WiFi & 0.3 Mega Camera, the software did not function well,the touch pad is not responsed sometimes, and it is running hotter than normal laptop. this model is NT11,100 here in Taiwan. the first sale of 2000 pcs is not sold out as local news reported. I will wait and see the 2nd generation of eeePC and buy one if they fixed the *hot* hardware and software smoother.
by the way, you can boot the from the USB DVD-ROM to install OS likes Windows XP, it is confirmed running well.
October 17th, 2007 at 3:29 am
fix: the first 2000pcs is sold out at release day (Oct 16), the local news reported. but it’s not true as some guys found there’s some in stores today.
October 17th, 2007 at 3:38 am
users can add 1GB DDR2 RAM to the slot in the bottom, but there will be no warranty if one do so. and the warranty is only one year for the body, 6 month for the battery. no terminal software likes xterm… rxvt…etc bundled so Linux Guru might have to hack it from USB boot
October 17th, 2007 at 8:30 am
The XP Home bundled eeePC will be released on November, price will be NT$800~1500 higher. all of the eeePC made in China, not in Taiwan, Taiwan Asus plants build the top line products only.