Asus Eee PC 4G user reviews (white, Windows XP)

3.0 stars

"Good Lightweight Travel Tool." on February 27, 2009 by Airbus300

Pros: Low noise, Very light weight & easy to handle (appealling feature). Reasonably fast with the Linux O/S and solid state hard 4GB drive.

Cons: Keyboard quality stinks. Annoying. There's a software scripting bug (in mine) for the wireless Atheros card to set up the interface to connect to a SSID wireless access point. Annoying. ASUS probably fixed this I'd hope but not sure.

Summary: It is very convenient for me. Especially having to take it out at the airport TSA's checkpoints or anywhere worldwide airport security. I travel a lot and only use it for jumping on the internet & e-mails. Look at the 9" before buying this one.

Updated on Feb 27, 2009

Also, I've had mine for about a year now. I had wished I would have waited to get the 9" one. The biggest annoying aspect of this laptop is that the wi-fi, Atheros wireless card has a bug in it. The scripting can actually take a ridiculously long time to recognize SSID's and then make the connection. I absolutely abhor this part of it. And, with the keyboard's keys one must "bang" very firmly on them to get them to type properly.

4.0 stars

"Excellent for what it is" on August 17, 2008 by djb3500

Pros: light, cheap, tough, works

Cons: Only for travel

Summary: It would be best not to think of this as a laptop - it is a smartphone on steroids for budget concious travellers that do not want to pay Blackberry data rates.

It is no where near as good as the top end ultraportable business laptops, but then it is a fraction of the price. For a business traveller it will probably not cut it as the compromises will drive you crazy.

If you are paying for yourself and want to spend your time sipping coffee overlooking scenery rather than sitting in a dingy internet cafe, then this is a great compromise between price and performance.

I got the linux version (despite having no linux background) and am extremely glad I did - whip it out of the backpack, fire it up and you are checking the lonely planet e version in under a minute. If it has logged onto a network the email you did this morning overlooking the valley are sent and your inbox is full.

The interface is extremely easy to work out and all of the software is pretty friendly. Power users will not like it as you pretty quickly hit the top end of what it will do with a 4G drive.

Need to know where to wash your socks, check the flights, tripadvisor.com and you are good to go without paying outrageous nextG data roaming rates.

One thing that took some getting used to was the wireless network logon. It is no harder than any of the Dell / Win equivalents but is not as automated, which is kind of tricky when trying to get free wifi by hanging around close to the wall of an airport member's lounge.

The Wifi sucks the battery, too, however the battery life is pretty good for an old chipset - I get about 3 hours.

1.5 stars

"poor quality and poor support" on June 5, 2008 by sclendenin

Pros: cheap and small

Cons: fragile screen and poor support

Summary: My EEE PC 4G sat on a desk with no transport for 7 weeks and one day I look and the screen has gone "funny". It is 9 months old and I send it in for repair. Asus sends me a picture of my PC with an obviously cracked screen, which it didn't have when I mailed it and tells me I can pay $160.00 to have the $400 pc repaired. No thanks. I then read user blogs and found out I'm not the only one with fragile screen problems. Good concept but poor execution. I'm not having it repaired.

4.5 stars

"Good for surfing and email and documents" on May 6, 2008 by ChristineWinters

Pros: Size, weight and price

Cons: space...4 Gigs only ran out of space after windows updates.

Summary: As long as you don't install software and are picky about updates this is great.