31 December 2008

Adventures with my Eee - Part 4

Yesterday I bought another Asus Eee, a black 1000H model with Windows XP on it. The store had only one left (on sale). It has 160GB HD, 1GB RAM, wifi 802.11b/g/n, ethernet, 1.3M camera, Bluetooth, 3 USB ports, an SD card slot, microphone and earphone jacks, and an external monitor port (VGA). Full specs on the Asus website for those of you who want all the technical details. It weighs around 1.45 kg and its power adapter is surprisingly lightweight. I promptly downloaded and installed a specialised version of Ubuntu known as eeebuntu. It comes in three versions: Standard (all the usual software that comes with Ubuntu installs with the operating system), NBR (netbook remix) and Basic (minimal software). I chose Standard. The Eee's hard drive came partitioned into two 80GB drives, so I've now got the Eee set up for dual-booting, with 40GB for each operating system and its software, and 80GB for data files accessible by both o/s. I'm still installing application software. The screen is very crisp and clear; the keyboard is reasonably usable for a touch-typist (much more so than the smaller keyboard on the Eee701); the wifi and Bluetooth work with both Windows and Ubuntu; so I’m happy. This will be my main travel machine, and will also act as my Windows computer at home, replacing the older laptop (a Dell Inspiron 510m) that I’ve been using for that purpose; it, in turn, is going to a friend to replace the friend's elderly computer.