My trusty EeePC has been going now for six months, and how has it faired. Well, it has proven to be pretty good except in three areas… all of which are not killers for the product. It must be said that I refer to the 701 unit with its 7 inch 800×480 screen, rather than one of the many newer units that have now come through the pipeline, in addition to all the other ‘netbooks’ that are coming through.
I must comment on the name – netbook, it is a name that does work for the device, although it understates its function. Then again, I have taken it much further than many with a full installation of Windows XP, Office 2007 and Project 2007. In effect, I have everything on the machine that I have on my main laptop (a 12.1 inch Twinhead 12Y branded as the Philips X56), apart from all that non-work video and audio. I could put that stuff on, but one area I have decided on is that the EeePC is a ‘Sync’ machine and so I have kept that off.
Back to the three areas which are the poor exceptions. The first is that the overall performance (even clocked to the full 900MHz) is not quite enough, sort of annoying level slow. I have though improved the performance by turning off my anti-spam software, as this is where the performance hit seemed to be – operating with Outlook 2007.
The second is in the type of storage – the Flash SSD. I like it that I do not have to think about movement running around with the machine in my hand, but on the other hand the 4GB main partition size is not enough. I would prefer an 8GB or 20GB 1.8″ HD instead. This is primarily though because I needed Outlook calendaring, Office and Windows. I am sure I could fit it all in if I did not need the nasty calendar features 
. I do not mind having to think about sudden movements with it in my hand.
The third area is in relation a fault that has cropped up. That fault is that if I clock it to 900MHz, then it now sometimes will do a full system crash. This only started happening though after the laptop did not shutdown through the lid closure, and proceeded to get very hot – 90′C hot. I think I have messed the thermal sensitivity up, so I have to now accept the crash if it happens or never take it to the full speed. Running at 85% is ok.
Even with these problems, would I recommend one? The answer is YES, although right now I would look towards one of the newer 9″ models with the Atom 1.6GHz processor and an extended battery. I am sorely tempted to look around for one of the Atom based units, so I can get around one of my primary issues… but the current unit works well when I am roaming. It is very important as an indepdent consultant to have reliable, effective a light IT solution and for that the EeePC is a match.
