Now that we've introduced you to the Eee PC, here are some of impressions from using the nifty little machine from Asus. First up, we have impression's from William Henning, a hardware reviewer here at Neoseeker. Then we'll take a look at our resident developer, Jamie Taniguchi's opinions. Last we'll finish up with hardware reviewer Kevin Spiess' feelings on the EeePC.

Bill's Henning's impressions:

As I am sure you've read in other reviews, the screen is small and the keyboard is pretty small too - but the worst part is the dual single touchpad button - click on the left side for left click, click on the right side for right click, click in the middle for headaches.

The interface is very easy to use, but the first thing I did was to re-enable the start menu. While the 4GB of disk space is tight, what's worse is the 512MB of ram - fortunately with the exception of the $299 "2G Surf" model its pretty easy to upgrade it, and 1GB and 2GB DIMMS are cheap. For more disk storage, an 8GB SHDC card does nicely indeed :-) and nothing stops you from plugging in more USB memory - or card readers.

I really like how small and light it is, but I can't wait for the 8.9" version; and hopefully a later Atom version will result in better battery life; personally I only got a bit over three hours out of it.

What's nice is that under Xandros based easy interface you have a full Linux with all the power that implies - however if I was going to use an Eee PC long term, I would almost certainly wipe it and put on a slimmed down Ubuntu with the fancy 3D desktop.

Jamie's impressions:

It wasn't too long before I ran into some troubles with the Eee PC on my recent trip to Vegas. Plugging in a digital camera did not get auto-detected -- at least my Canon Powershot A70  did not. Having to go through the photo manager and then adding my camera from a list was the only way to have the Eee PC detect it. A non-savvy user may have troubles with this and isn't the most user-friendly system.

I was able to get remote access to the Eee PC's mouse and keyboard with the iPhone via KDE's desktop share utility, but it took a little work. On this model of Eee PC,  the feature was hidden away and could only be started via a terminal. This feature is useful if you are using the Eee PC as a media server with conjunction with a larger screen.

Overall impressions were that it was much more portable than a normal laptop and easily fit in a messenger style bag. It was light enough to carry around all day. The down side was the keyboards size and typing  was a chore, making the eeepc unappealing for someone with larger hands. For today's generation the Eee PC would be a good candidate for a "my first PC" or users who only need a laptop for net surfing / email.

My opinion of the Eee PC is mixed. On the positive side, I'd say that the Eee PC is very portable, has a user friendly GUI, is Linux based, and has a large community base that will surely make cool many applications over the next little while. On the negative side of things, I'd say that this small factor computer is not for everyone, and for certain tasks, thinks are much harder to setup than they could be.

Kevin Spiess' impressions:

My first impressions of the EeePC were very positive. From that first day I had some spare moments to play with the Eee PC, I was intrigued. However, after my initial warm and fuzzy feelings faded, I began to see that the Eee PC had its own share of faults in addition to its many assets.

One positive trait that I appreciated with the Eee PC was one of the most obvious: its portability. It's light; it's thin, small in every dimension. It's pretty painless to carry the unit around in the black Lycra pouch that comes with it -- and this pouch doubles as a mouse pad. The Eee PC is very easy to use, with a good selection of applications -- probably enough to satisfy not expecting a full-featured notebook computer. The Linux operating system is snappy, and although this Eee PC has only a 7" inch screen, things aren't all that hard to make out -- colors are bright, and the GUI icons are big.

The user interface could have been executed somewhat more agreeably, in my opinion. The keyboard isn't bad for its size, but typing longer than note-sized documents on it could be an unattractive proposition. The right shift key, for example, is difficult to reach. I think another few millimeters would have greatly improved the keyboard -- especially for those with larger fingers out there, you typing speed might taper off with the Eee PC. As for the trackpad, the smaller size is fine, and its sensitivity is fine as well; however, the button below the track pad takes a little too much pressure to trigger -- for the most part, just double-tapped on the trackpad to select things, instead of using the button.

Using the EeePC to browse online presented no difficulties. While some webpages were hampered by the lower resolution of the display, surfing went smoother than I expected.

In the end, I think the EeePC is not for everyone -- but for some people, it could be just what they are after. Anyone considering purchasing an Eee PC should ask themselves what they need it for, and where they plan to use it. I could see it useful for a college student: being able to take notes in class, and check Facebook on their lunch breaks, while perhaps saving the essay writing for a desktop at home. I could also see the Eee PC being well suited to certain professionals that do only need a computer handy to keep notes, or a spreadsheet handy, or to check things online throughout their working day, if they travel a great deal, or work on the road. However those looking for a laptop substitute, or those who plan to use the Eee PC as a primary computer, may want to look at something just a little bit bigger.