Picked up one of these in Heathrow airport a couple of days ago on my way out to asia... decided the powerbook was a bit too heavy and cumbersome to take round in a backpack with me and this thing will fit in all but the very smallest hotel safes...



7" screen (800x480) is small but functional enough. Actual sized screenshot...



has a 900mhz intel chip, 512mb ram, only 4gb solid state 'hard drive' (although since its only really for communicating thats not too much of an issue, plus I can plug my ipod in as an effective hard drive), 3xUSB, wifi, and brilliantly a macbook style built in webcam which I can use for skype calls.

best bit for me was the price... £212 in the airport tax free shop.

To keep costs down it runs entirely open source software... Asus' own version of debian linux, open office, firefox & thunderbird etc... but more than enough for my needs. You can install xp which I might play with when I get home.

Drawbacks... should have bluetooth so I can use my n95 as a modem when not within wifi range (which in some SE-asia countries would be a huge benefit). screen could obviously be bigger and given the advances in solid state memory 4gb seems a little stingy. Having said that I think they have made a product that just about fits the criteria it needs as a travel computer... sure it could have a 32gb solid state etc. but fact of the matter is I still probably wouldnt have needed it, and it just would have cost a whole lot more!

Anyone else had a play on one of these? Great little toy in my opinion, 8.5
/10

 

That's pretty neat actually, esp. at GBP 212. How much does it weigh?

 

dont have the exact figure to hand but its pretty light... at an educated guess I'd say on the lighter side of a kilo