PC 900, if i'd have waited 2 months I would have had an N270 (Asus Eee PC 900)

Member Name: tlmartin

Product:	Asus Eee PC 900
Date:	25/05/09 (24 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small, plenty of decent bits of equipment,

Disadvantages: Linux (cut down Debian) OS

I bought my ASUS EEE PC900 almost a year ago. In one way I wish I had waited for the 901, but i'd waited long enough for the 1GB of ram version to be out, and for use to get past the 4G model.

The laptop itself is quite reasonable. I bought it as a play thing to have a play at LINUX. In a way I am glad I did, as am very mcuh put off of how LINUX works as a whole.

First of all the laptop hardware itself.
Great little screen, good quality, always displays what I want to see. 1GB of RAM should handle most things, built in Wireless, and a Built in Webcam. Always a useful luxary.
Naturally a cable port for Networking, 3 USB (which was impressive for any laptop a year ago. Audio out and Mic in. A VGA out which again is impressive incase I want to hook it up to a bigger screen, and an SDHC card port, very good and very useful as all my cameras now use the SDHC cards.

The spec of the laptop is pretty impressive for under £300 (or certainly was then) especially as its a nice simple light weight computer that can easily be carried around.

The Software.
If i was getting this again I would definately go for Windows. For starters the laptop comes with a nhice install of various applciations and a light version of a Debian LINUX syste,m. As I found out Debian is one ofd the many many many versions of LINUX out there, not of which are compatiable with each other.
SO I get my laptop, set up all the basics and personalise it. I start playing with it. First of all its a bit annoyiong to try and open files over a network. I have 3 TB of NAS storage. Inaturally keep my main files on these as they get backed up automatically and it means any pc in the house anywhere can access these files. SO I can be working in the kitchen, the lounge, bedroom and edit my spreadsheets, etc. Not on this though, if you want to edit your spreadsheet using the old version of Open Office (that comes with it) you have to copy the file to the laptop, edit it, nd then copy it back. It can not handle opening files over a network like that.
I might be wrong, I could be doing something completely wrong, But I am used to windows, when I ask a program to open a file and tell it where that file is, I expect it to open it, not to tell me it can;t and that i need to copy it over to my laptop to do it.
Again it might be possible, but if i can;t figure it out, then this laptop clearly aint for an average home user, maybe a linux specialist. Afterall I am only an IT Consultant, who has been creating and using software for over 20 years.

But still all is fine, most liekly I'll be using it out and about instead of having to carry my main laptop with me, afterall thats what its for. I have main pc's around the house for my work, this thing is for convenience and a light carry load, so i'll have USB with me.

I look at the software installed, ok basic this and that, but i have had great reviews of Scribus, ok.... how do I get it?>????? I eventually find out that I have to type in command line code and press ALT+T etc to load up the 'Repository' Apparenttly this is where all installations comes from, in essence an Add & Remove Software for Windows users. Ok, except you can only ADD software if it is listed in here. Well surely big known software like Scribus, Audacity, a few games, all of these things should be found in ASUS's repository, afterall this laptop is popular and has been out for a year.
Nope, so i continue reading on google, apparently I have to add some, "known to work on ASUS EEE" debian repositories, untick the update of kernal boxes otherwise it will completely trash my laptop install as this is a light Debian linux OS, not a full Debian Linux OS,but as it is Debian, most of the installs will work.
Finally a good list of software comes up that I can install. Ok I get Scribus, Audacity, a few other apps and a couple of agmes, that should keep me going a while.

Now if i was doing this on windows, rather than googling how to install applications, find out the repository, make sure I untick kernal boxes to stop my OS being trashed. I would just have gone to Audacities website or Scribuses website and downloaded the zip file or EXE file and double clicked it, jobs a goodun'.

Which is easier? WINDOWS by far!!!
Which is safer? WINDOWS by far!!!

There are all these people preaching about how safe and secure and easy to use Linux is, yet to install a basic Open Source application as needed and useful as Audacity I have to find others who have done it, read their instructions how to get to the installation console and then RISK my OS by installing from not an official ASUS Linux repository but another one that should hopefully work??? sorry but thats not easy, and knowing what users are like in general as someon who fixes their problems, this is likely to forget to tick a little box to say "don;t update kernal from here" afterall thats what marketting companies have been doing to people for years "tick to not be contacted with special offers or if you don;t want us to pass your details on"!!!!!

Anyway I get the software installed and I use the laptop for nice basic things, especially web apps as I am doing lots with google at the moemnt, although I can't use google offline as theres not the app install for debian was there is for Mac or Windows, and if there is i might have to self compile it and hope it works, So pretty much I am reliant upon ASUS keeping an uptodate repository after they have sold this laptop, and thats of cause even further relying on the fact their custome built debian updates over the 1000 series etc can be applied to this laptop.

Well anyway getting abck to the use, I look at images they take time to laod up, not what I would expect from a SSD, but still must be the processor, I admit it is a bit on the low end being celeron 900Mhz, but these are 2MB images.

I go on camp think I know i'll look at a few vids I took on the camera today, these low qualit 320x240 avi files done on a basic digital compact camera, and wow they are stuttery like mad.

This PC is good as a netbook, which I guess it was deisgned for, it is good for basic notes using basic software, anything else it will not handle it. However I would be insterested to see what it is like with Windows XP, afterall XP running on a 1ghz PC with 512MB of Ram I personally felt was quicker than this linux. The only thing with Linux is literally as soon as you turn it on, its loaded, however the first app you use will take an additional few seconds to load.

I think it was my misfortune to not be patient here and end up with a N270 1.6Ghz processor, as I have seen these in action runing windows XP and they are nice and quick, but still doesn't get over the confusion of Linux, and the hassel of basic work.

My advice ensure you get an N270 as minimum (and be aware new dual core models are coming out soon) and make sure it has Windows on it, unless you really want Linux for a reason of, learnign how to use it, or you know how to use it. Home baic users, get Windows, do not fall into the trap of thinking Linux, its free, its not Microsoft, it must be better. It seriously is not on this cut down laptop. Maybe Ubuntu is, maybe RedHat is, but not this version.

Ooooh and as a side note battery life is only just voer 2 hours, definately get the N270 as a minimum they have decent life spans

Summary: Its good as a bit more powerful PDA, that you can properly look at files on.....eventually