Yet Another "eeePC rocks" Post

One year ago, i decided to buy a small laptop, to carry with me in my travels. It was the dawn of netbooks, so my options where these: Asus EeepC and EeePC surf!
I did not chose the "surf" Edition, as it had smaller solid-state disk(2gb instead of 4) and no camera. The processor was also clocked lower and the price difference only 30 euros(42$).

Manufacturing Quality:
Being manufactured by Asus, one of the best hardware vendors in motherboards and video cards, i expected nothing less than top quality. It turned out i was right.
It weights 2 pounds (1 kg).



Operating System/Ease of Use:
EeePC comes preloaded with a specially modified version of Xandros Linux.
Being Linux it has the well known advantages of being fast, safe, rock solid and free. Xandros modified its OS to be usable in screens as small as 7" with the famous tabbed interface, which is now also used by Acer Aspire One.




What amazed me was not how easier it was than most Linux distributions bask then. It was much easier than Windows! It had an icon for the internet, for email and for the wireless connection, pretty much the straightforward design you would expect from a cell phone. I clicked the wireless icon and a window with available networks opened. I selected one of the free ones and it connected with the first attempt i ever made on wifi. I also tried a Huawei E170 3G usb and it did not ask me for drivers. No need for drivers, no configuration(for the wifi, 3G needed username/pin), NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.
Preinstalled software was Firefox, Openoffice, Thunderbird, Amarok and a video player. It also had antivirus installed, although it does not need it(It serves more to protect windows users from infected files that can't harm Linux)

Speed:
EeePc owes its speed not only to Linux, but to the solid-state drive as well. It booted and opened openoffice faster than my Core Duo laptop! Moreover, thanks to the solid-state disk, which has no moving parts, the battery lasts longer and it is more resistant to falls.

Conclusion:
Asus EeePC had some remarkable accomplishments:

1. It created a whole new category, the netbooks and was soon followed by HP 2133, Acer Aspire One, MSI Wind and now Dell Mini 9.
2. It forced Microsoft to keep selling XP(where the 200.000 signature petition failed), as netbooks don't have the horsepower Vista needs compared to Linux and XP.
3. It made Linux mainstream. 2007-2008 was probably the long sought Year Of Desktop Linux . (well, Netbook to be precise!)

To conclude, EeePC was a great buy, as it provides the best user experience till now and it is easy to carry, when you are on the move.
Let Linux haters shout as much as they like! EeePC is an amazing success story.