As I said in the earlier blogpost, though I’m in love with the form factor of the eee, I do have some concerns about it as a machine and as part of a school program. Here are the main things I have seen using the machine for about a month now:
- The size doesn’t bother me at all. I have no trouble viewing applications or web pages. Likewise, I don’t have any problem with the smaller keyboard (of course I’m not a touch typist…I don’t know how difficult it would be if I were). I don’t like the fact that the screen is significantly heavier than the keyboard. It works fine on a table top, but when I rest it on my lap, it continuously falls over, often causing me to make typing errors. I correct this by putting a book underneath which helps.
- Another good reason for the book is to keep the heat of the machine from burning my legs! I wonder about the overall power efficiency of the machine, since it gives off a lot of heat both underneath and through the keyboard. It doesn’t become uncomfortable, but you do feel the heat through the keys on your fingertips after typing for a while.
- Probably partially as a result of this, the battery life is poor. The book claims that it should be good for four hours, but I get closer to three, less if I am doing significant wireless work. I’ve read on another blog that a new version of the computer will come with three batteries which will help, but that’s more weight to carry and more charging to remem ber.
- The touchpad (like most touchpads) is temperamental and hard to use. Attaching a mouse makes the machine MUCH easier to use.
- The video card is not particularly robust. When I try to stream video from the web the video pauses often while it is loading the first time. I ran a side-by-side test with one of the wireless laptops currently used by teachers, each streaming a 20 minute video. The Toshiba played the video without a pause, but the eee was constantly pausing to load more data. Now, there are workarounds for this, once the video is downloaded it plays without a problem, and you can always download a video ahead of time, but I wonder whether this would become a hindrance over time.
- The lack of a CD/DVD drive doesn’t particularly bother me, though this might cause some compatibility issues down the line. If a textbook or reference was only available on CD, it would have to be converted to another media. I also wonder whether we would have issues with software that teachers really want that would be unavailable for Linux.
To have students get an eee PC would by necessity mean a scaled down machine, not one designed for high-level graphics. Rather it would be a tool for writing, research and other basic classroom uses. I’m not sure whether this machine will meet our needs (the first edition certainly doesn’t), but I do think it is something to watch as we examine other machines.
- “The great thing about a computer notebook is that no matter how much you stuff into it, it doesn’t get bigger or heavier.”
- Bill Gates
I think that your concerns about battery heat are important. Keyboards that are too small can be difficult for non-touch typers also.
Everything Greg said was true, but for $350ish dollars this machine is great. For simply word processing and Internet, you wouldn’t have a lot of distractions for our students. Also with the Linux operating system we could customize the eeePC so that they wouldn’t have games to play. I wonder is there is a handwriting pad they could plug in to take notes like One Note. Now that would be super duper cool!!!