Great travel solution but too many drawbacks to be anything more (Asus Eee PC 8G)

Name: elliepop

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Product:	Asus Eee PC 8G
Date:	27/07/08 (49 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very small and light with good build quality

Disadvantages: Keyboard too small to use for extended pieces of work, bad battery life

I have had one of these for a few months now, having bought it as a lightweight and portable machine to use instead of my main laptop when travelling. On the whole, my experience of it has been positive, though there are some notable negatives.

First impressions: the machine is very neat and well finished. I personally like the exterior, which doesn't try to be anything it's not - although some friends find it a little too "kiddyish" for their liking. The machine is very lightweight, coming in at around 1kg, and feels firm and robust - not cheaply put together. The machine powers up quickly from start, the screen quality is high, and despite pre-purchase reservations, the screen is more than big enough to be useful. Navigation via the touchpad is easy.

Now for the cons: battery life is poor. My machine manages only a couple of hours before a charge is needed. The machine also consumes a lot of battery power on standby (assuming it is not also plugged in) - so much so that I have left it on standby on more than one occasion only to find it no longer on standby when I return, as the battery is flat. This could of course be remedied by buying one of the longer life batteries that are now on the market for this product - but given the (currently not terribly competitive) price of the machine, understandably many will not wish to do so.

The keyboard is also small and could not be used practically for long periods of time. My machine runs Linux and I've not yet worked out how to view the newer version of Microsoft files using my Open Office software (I think these are the files created in Office 2007 applications). I think this is something to do with the "x"extension to the file (e.g. docx etc). A quick Google seems to suggest that there is presently no way to do so (happy to be proved wrong here!) although this may change over time.

Summary: Highly portable but currently overpriced and useful mainly for travel purposes

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