|
|
Computing Lite
 ASUS
eee PC: Simple minded laptop
Since I began motorcycling about 6 years ago, I’ve returned to
camping. While travelling I like to bring a laptop to stay connected
to the internet and download my GPS tracks and camera pictures. As
I’ve gravitated to riding my smaller dual sport bike more, packing
room has become a bit tighter and I’m starting to sing the mantra of
Sound RIDER’s Tom Mehren "Packing Right, Packing Light." So I began
a search of a smaller and lighter laptop. My criteria were that it
be under $500, light weight (less than 3 lbs), small, no hard disk
drive, and have on-board wireless and wired communications.
My search recently ended with the discovery of the Asus eee PC.
The eee stands for Easy to Learn, Work, and Play, Excellent
Internet Experience, and Excellent On-the-Go. This little
marvel weighs in at 2 lbs; it’s about the size of a medium sized
paperback novel, has flash memory for disk storage (my model has 4
gigabytes), WIFI built in as well as Ethernet, sound and video
connectors, and a slot for an SD memory card. There’s also three USB
2.0 ports for hooking up your favorite accessories. What’s more,
there is a little surprise with the operating system: it’s LINUX.
I’ve used Windows for years and have hankered to experiment with
Linux. So I ordered a black 4G SURF (it’s the model without the
camera).
Rand McNally Ride Atlas of North America:
Harley-Davidson 105th Anniversary Edition
Bigger than a Laptop – but not as useful.
There’s always some kind of licensing going on with
the H-D label and the latest is a new North American
atlas Milwaukee has stamped their name on from Rand
McNally. Its 284 pages are chock full of state routes
and interstates. Inside you’ll find all the usual
markings of an atlas, but the motor company has slipped
in 39 suggested rides in the US including two for
Washington (Grand Coulee and Olympic National Park),
none for Oregon and none for Idaho. You also get a wall
map that provides numerous alternative ways to go home
from the 105th anniversary celebration in
Milwaukee this summer. For those of you living in upper
Idaho or Washington your suggested route is I-94 to
I-90. For those of you living in lower Idaho or Oregon
your suggested route is lots of I-90 and I-84. How’s
that for creative?! The maps inside feature an added
bonus of marking all the dealer locations along the way
with a red bar and shield logo. This same information is
available for ALL dealers (not just H-D) in Mapsources
City Navigator software.
To put it bluntly Tim’s ASUS eee laptop (reviewed
here) loaded with some basic mapping software will prove
to be a far more practical use of a less amount of
space. Our take: Skip this atlas and pack the laptop. |
As shipped, this is a full computer! It boots in less than a
minute and it has a full suite of Open Office 2.0 software (word
processing, spreadsheet, and presentation manager) along with Adobe
Acrobat 7.0, a notepad, dictionary, Thunderbird email client,
Firefox internet browser, Skype internet telephone software, video
manager, photo manager, media player, sound recorder, several games,
a personal information manager, screen capture program, and
calculator. All of these programs are contained within a very nice
graphical user interface (GUI) that will look very familiar to the
MAC or Windows user. The keyboard is a QWERTY version with a
touchpad, albeit a bit on the small side, but it is quite
satisfactory for my size hands. The screen, while also small, is
quite viewable. There’s also a video output port so one could plug
in a monitor and using a USB port for a keyboard which results in a
pretty fair desktop unit. But that’s not my intended use.
As a test, I began using the unit without reading the small user
manual. It was all very intuitive. The wireless and Ethernet have
worked well for me. A friend brought over his portable hard drive
filled with pictures which he created in a Windows environment and
we plugged it into a USB port. It ran flawlessly to show his slide
shows and pictures. The battery life is around 2.5 hours and the
charger is about the size of cell phone charger and charges at 9.5
volts which means that I can easily charge it off of my motorcycle
using a 12 volt to 9.5 volt charger which I found online. I tested
my wireless mouse and it plugged in and functioned perfectly from
first connection without adding any new drivers. The Open Office
software saves in formats that are compatible with my desktop
Microsoft Office suite and I’ve opened and saved files that I’ve
created previously in Windows without a problem.
Recently I was doing a presentation at a rider education event
and I forgot my power cord for my big laptop. Fortunately I had
saved my presentations on a thumb drive. So I plugged in the eee PC,
hooked up the PowerPoint slide control device to a USB port, and the
projector to the video out port. It worked like a charm. It really
saved the day.
I’m still experimenting with downloading tracks from my GARMIN
and will report on that later. I’ve found several LINUX GPS programs
and they definitely show promise for capturing tracks from my GARMIN
2610. I need to learn a bit more about LINUX.
How much was all of this computing power? As purchased online
from http://www.newegg.com it was $350. It was similarly priced at
www.amazon.com and www.costco.com . It gets stares and questions
everywhere I use it. It’s a very good bargain and it’s no wonder
that Asus has sold 350,000 in the first quarter of sales. Recently
Asus announced that there’s a new model coming out that will have XP
as an option for a nominal upcharge. For those not willing to use
LINUX, this presents an attractive option. In my opinion, they’ve
really hit the mark with this little gem. It hit the mark so well
that my wife desired one for her travels. So we now have His and
Hers eee PCs! She recently spent a week in New York and loved
having the small size and and the WIFI connectivity to check email
and surf the net. It traveled with her along with a number of other
items in a small backpack during the day.
Tim Bowman/Spring 08 |
|
