Deeelighted
22:54 Thursday 27 Dec 07
“If it’s a mac I’ll take back all my excitedness”
Our girls are not ones to stay in their rooms. They prefer to be downstairs with us. This a good thing but since I moved to work upstairs it has meant there was the one computer downstairs. So P wants to use that as it is hers now. But her sister wants to use it too. D misses the laptop she did use and she won’t use the mac laptop. (Both my girls are articulate but neither can explain just what it is they do not like about them. It’s not my opinion affecting them – they are very capable of expressing their own ideas. Either way, they won’t use the mac.) So, 2 girls, 1 computer.
I’d been reading about the eeepc since it came out. It looked to be the business. Reading further it really did look like not just a solution but a good solution. The OS didn’t matter. What did was what it did. The girls use Neopets, myspace, IM, facebook, like little games. So that’s Firefox, MSN and a couple of other bits probably. The eeepc had these and more. So I bought 2.
The quote above was from D as she saw it was a computer but didn’t yet know what. Both girls love them. You know what tickled D the most on that first day? The fact it had the periodic table. Small thing but she never got that excited about something in Windows. So far P has just used the default apps – browser, IM – as I knew she would. D has started exploring. She’s not a fan of Pidgin and we couldn’t get amsn installed despite following the steps in the eeeuser forums but she’ll probably try and work through it. I think she’s got how to get the terminal up to get synaptic running, we’ve updated some apps.
We got the 4G machines. Each has the webcam. The OS takes around 2.6gb but the amount left is more than adequate for some music and whatever bits of work they may (or may not) do. They are really small though – Toni has some pictures and more thoughts. The keys are really small, and both girls were hitting the Enter / Shift on the right. There was a problem yesterday on waking with D’s and the touchpad but adjusting the (previously good) sensitivity worked. I’m probably going to buy them an SD card for storage if they need it. I’m a little wary of a USB drive sticking out of the side. For £200 it’s a good machine for what it is meant to be. They know it can have XP on it. They also know it will not be going on it. Do they mind? No. Why? Because it does what they want already and more.
So the girls can watch TV / eat food / talk to each other / in fact do just about anything and IM / use tux paint / play penguin racer / browse at the same time. They are really pleased. ‘really’ is an huge understatement. And now I need one :)
1
Yeah, I was looking at one of them myself for general hackery and playing with… there’s some good stuff online about adding bluetooth and more capacity internally to it which is promising… it seems a fun machine!
14:34 Friday 28 Dec 07
2
Get your fingers trimmed down – the kb really is tiny.
The online stuff is what tempts me too. And as it works out of the box with the wifi I really could just sit and do all manner of nonsense.
19:53 Friday 28 Dec 07
3
I quite like the idea of one of those. But I’ve just got a new work laptop and I have a wireless pda so I don’t need one. But this isn’t about NEED, is it? :)
17:11 Saturday 29 Dec 07
4
It’s got absolutely nothing at all – not even remotely – to do with Need. Oh no. This is lust. Gadgety lust.
Lust is good ;)
17:41 Saturday 29 Dec 07
5
Hi,
I’ve not commented here in a long—long while. I hope you all had a good xmas (possibly also for the last couple of years as I cannot remember the last time I said hi!).
Please keep us informed on how the Eee Pc’s work out, I’ve been thinking one as a surfing/messaging device for the evenings. I have laptop but that is for work, and inevitably when I start using that I start using that my mind starts thinking of work. I want something that is quick & light to do a little things for myself on.
With that in mind, I have a couple of questions if you care to indulge me:
What’s the boot time like? Is it really instant-on, I want something I don’t have wait ages to boot up.
How responsive is it? I know given the specs it should be ok, but I’d like to hear it from a real user.
Of course the real attraction to me is that it runs Linux, so as a long-time Linux user I could find many a cool thing to run on it I’m sure.
Take care, I shall endeavour not to fall of the radar of life again soon – and will even attempt to do something with my blog in the New Year!
23:52 Sunday 30 Dec 07
6
cjp – hi :)
Switch on to usable desktop: 10 secs
Firefox start to full page load (which is the asus default): 6 secs
Wikipedia opening in browser from desktop: 5 secs
I just tested because the girls have gone bed – I’d not get a chance otherwise.
Read up on the eee wiki about Xandros 4 unless you’ll be installing another OS. Apparently it’s picky.
Try the keys and trackpad – essential. Get on with that and the rest is fine for the money and my expectations. That comes from both my girls not complaining about any aspect at all which is pretty good for them :)
01:41 Monday 31 Dec 07
7
Thanks for that, I will seriously think about getting one of these – though my bank balance needs a few weeks to recover after xmas I think!
19:15 Wednesday 2 Jan 08