This netbook model from Asus is famous for its number of modifications and upgrades. It is used in cars, in smart homes, make simple servers, tablets, etc. from it.
The topic may already be somewhat outdated, since this model appeared back in 2007, but nevertheless it remains the cheapest (with the exception of 2G, which few people buy) and the lightest in the Eee PC series. The main disadvantages over older models are the small size of the SSD, short battery life and low screen resolution.
I wanted opportunities from my “hedgehog” GPS connections receiver (bluetooth), the ability to abandon the small and inconvenient touchpad (touchscreen), more space for programs and data (SD reader), the ability to access the Internet via mobile communications(3G modem) and bug fixes when the battery drains quickly when the netbook is turned off.
Most of the photos are clickable.
Preparation
First of all, I bought all the necessary spare parts, choosing the smallest ones. Then I disassembled the Eee PC, examined its internals, found the locations of new modules and proceeded directly to modding.Purchased USB hub, SD reader, 3G modem (Huawei E1550, MTS) and bluetooth module I took them apart, unsoldered the USB connectors from them and sawed off the empty parts of the boards. In addition to this, the 3G modem was also disconnected from MTS.
Ventilation
I started with a simple thing - I enlarged the slots in the ventilation grille. This allows the already weak cooling system of the netbook to work more efficiently. The wire cutters and file did their job.
Touchscreen
Then I installed the touchscreen. I bought what I could, it cost me about 1300 rubles, I don’t remember exactly. eGalaxy resistive, 7 inch with USB interface. To my surprise, it worked immediately in Kubuntu 10.04.
I placed the touchscreen controller on the left under the speaker. The cable from the screen itself comes out from the lower right part of it, there, under the board of the hedgehog’s native screen, I soldered the wires to the cable and ran them to the controller. I first removed the foil under the original screen, saving maybe a millimeter. After assembling the case, the plastic began to stick out a little, but it was almost unnoticeable. Other modders still remove the matte coating from the screen to make it brighter, but I left this coating, I like it when the screen is matte, and there is no such strong glare in the sun.
It was difficult to place the touchscreen without leaving dust particles under it. Compressed air helped a lot in this matter.
Battery
To eliminate battery leakage, you need to break one of its contacts and connect it to ground only when you need to turn on the netbook. There is advice online to assemble a transistor key that would automatically close when the Eee PC is turned off, and to turn it on you need to open it using usually the right touchpad button. It seemed too unreliable and inconvenient to me. I implemented this with the help of a world switch and a battery clamp.First I carefully tore out desired contact, unsoldered from the board:
Then I put it back in, but with the wires that would go to the switch.
Here I glued the microswitch next to the battery clamp with superglue:
Here you can see that the microswitch opens when the battery is not fixed:
And here it closes:
I unsoldered the microswitch from an old, non-working camera. There it served as a sensor for the open camera battery compartment.
Now, to turn on the netbook, you need to move the latch to the “closed” position, and after turning it off, move it back to the “open” position.
3G modem, cooler
Now I started to install a 3G modem, this is the most difficult operation, since it takes up quite a lot of space, it is difficult to solder and it is necessary to lay an antenna cable from it to the edge of the case. It would have been easier if I had used a thinner cable, but so I had to break out one stand for the motherboard and saw off part of the cooler so that the antenna cable could pass to the modem.I decided to make the antenna connector for the 3G modem in a connector for a regular modem - a slight irony.
I sawed off part of the cooler so as not to make a hole:
I put it in place:
This is roughly how the antenna cable will go:
3G modem, antenna connector
First you need to get rid of the existing telephone jack.I removed his contacts:
I dug a hole large enough for the SMA connector:
Soldered the connector to the cable:
It was necessary to solder very carefully so as not to overheat the white insulator, but in order to solder the braid to the connector a high temperature was required, it worked on the second attempt.
Inserted the cable with the connector into the port:
This is what it looks like with the plug screwed on:
And so without:
As you can see, it almost does not protrude from the port and certainly will not protrude from the body of the netbook.
I fixed the cable using Chinese hot glue and white electrical tape:
This is what it looks like in the case:
The wires from the cooler go above the antenna cable:
The 3G modem will be located here:
Carefully solder the cable to the modem. First the central core:
And then the braid:
It is very easy to ruin a modem with one careless movement.
This is what it looks like on the board:
3G modem, antennas
I made the antennas for the modem from two WiFi antennas.I made one portable from a 3dB antenna, converting it to the 3G range:
Its actual gain was somewhere around 5..10dBm. Without an antenna, the modem showed a signal of -113dBm, but with this one it turned out to be about -105dBm. Calls (2G) were only possible on the street.
I made another antenna from a 5dB WiFi antenna. I didn’t recalculate its structure, because I was quite happy with how it worked. With it, the modem shows approximately -90..-95dBm, calls are confident, audibility is good.
Wiring
Here is the soldered USB hub:
The remaining devices are shown here, on the left is an SD reader, on the bottom is a bluetooth module, on top is a wire with a white connector that will connect to the touchscreen:
Connecting the hub to an unused USB port on motherboard netbook:
And here I took food for him:
What I didn't like
Small screen
What I liked
Very compact netbook
What I didn't like
small screen but this problem can be solved using special programs small HDD also solvable and small amount of RAM
What I liked
1) light weight, wireless connection, the price is finally great for normal games and allows you to listen to Mouzon and watch videos good quality
What I didn't like
1. Insufficient memory: you can forget about Word and Excel, it is impossible to write down, there is not enough disk space.
2. Screen diagonal does not match Windows settings: Almost all menus that appear are so large that buttons like OK and Cancel are hidden behind the screen size, and these windows do not shrink in size. You make money at random.
3. The device's standard battery lasts less than an hour.
4. WI-FI works very poorly. While the iPhone sees 2-3 weak network sources, this netbook does not see even one.
5. Don’t read books convenient device really heavy, although in the store, without batteries, it weighed almost nothing.
6. It takes a long time to turn on, it won’t start working right away: despite the fact that there is almost no RAM - installed full Windows, which works extremely slowly because of this.
What I liked
Looks like a laptop
What I didn't like
Not enough operating power, lacking processor, screen resolution
What I liked
Small, light, good design
What I didn't like
7" screen, but the EEE PC 900 has already been released with the same dimensions, but a larger screen.
What I liked
0.9 kg, resume/suspend - 2-3 seconds. 900, SDHC reader supports both 16 and 32GB.
What I didn't like
VERY small keys on the keyboard, no BlueTooth, small storage capacity, average build quality, short battery life.
What I liked
Wonderful full featured mobile laptop for your money, light weight and dimensions of the book.
What I didn't like
small keyboard and screen
What I liked
very compact and beautiful netbook... You can watch movies, play games if you want, and playing counter on a grid on this one is just awesome + can be used as a portable workstation
What I didn't like
The native version of the operating system is sluggish and very buggy (Norton Win Doctor 2006 finds about 60 problems on a freshly restored OS). Windows7 does not work correctly with the battery controller (it says the battery is 98% worn out - replace the battery immediately), otherwise there are no problems, it works faster and more stable than native XP
What I liked
a year ago I bought an EEE-PC 701 netbook with a 4 GB SSD, which almost completely replaced a serious desktop computer. The power is quite enough for developing commercial programs, working with sound, and even for video transcoding! It is very convenient to work lying on the sofa.
What I didn't like
Small amount of RAM, hangs.
What I liked
Small and comfortable. Wi-fi available.
What I didn't like
o_0 Weak battery, screen resolution 800x480 is very inconvenient to surf the Internet, there is no Bluetooth, it would be useful, there is a catastrophic lack of memory, in principle I knew when I took it what I was going for, but it definitely finishes off.
What I liked
Not easily soiled, lightweight, ultra-compact netbook =), worth the money. Contra-standard 1.6 with a bunch of bots, good webcam, microphone, Wi-fi works great. The case is included!
What I didn't like
weak processor and little memory, it wouldn’t cost at least 80 gigabytes of native memory)))))
What I liked
A small, ubiquitous thing that will come in handy in your free time, both for watching movies and surfing the Internet.
What I didn't like
The battery lasted for 1 hour, the screen is too small, there is very little RAM, the keyboard is small, but you can get used to it.
What I liked
lightweight, compact
A sus Eee PC 701 can be called a veteran in the netbook market. After all, it was mainly thanks to him that this class of laptops gained such popularity. Like all pioneers, it was not easy for him to win supporters; they said that it was just another newfangled toy. But within the first month after it went on sale, it caused an unprecedented sensation in the laptop market. It's been just over a year since the first Eee PC 701 went on sale in Russia, and has become an excellent addition to a traditional laptop. On this moment this model can be considered somewhat outdated, because it has been replaced by many worthy netbook models, but still, as a pioneer, it has the right to exist.
Technical characteristics of the Asus EEE PC 701 laptop:
| CPU: | Intel Celeron M 353 900 MHz |
| Chipset: | Intel 910GML |
| RAM: | 512 Mb DDR2 667 MHz |
| Video card: | built-in Intel GMA 900 with 64 Mb video memory |
| Data storage: | 4 Gb SSD |
| Display: | 7" with a resolution of 800x480 pixels |
| Interfaces: | 3 USB 2.0, VGA (D-Sub), CardReader for MMC and SD cards (SDHC compatible), Kensington lock port, Ethernet 10/100 |
| Wireless connection: | Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g) |
| Sound: | built-in stereo speakers, microphone |
| Webcam: | 0.3 megapixel |
| Battery: | 4-segment Li-Ion, 5200mAh, 7.4V (approximate time battery life 3.5 hours) |
| Dimensions: | 22.5 x 16.5 x 3.5 cm |
| Weight: | 907 g with battery, with network adapter 1130 g |
| Operating system: | Linux |
| Guarantee: | 12 months |
Design and build
At the time, Asus was faced with the difficult task of designing an affordable ultraportable laptop that could cope with all everyday tasks and at the same time have an attractive design. The compactness of the model, in turn, was limited by the temperature conditions of the laptop.
As for the body, it is made of thick, rough plastic, somewhat rough at first glance, but this is dictated by the desire to make a truly inexpensive and accessible laptop. To some extent this can be compensated for by the wide color scheme: classic black and white, and delicate pink, blue and light green colors. The build quality was a pleasant surprise, however, this is a laptop from Asus, which simply obliges it to be of high quality.
Display
The display, of course, is not the best strong point this laptop, its size is only 7" and the resolution is 800x480 pixels, which can be seen in some models pocket computers. Overall, this is certainly not bad for such small dimensions, but not enough to function properly as a laptop. The screen surface is matte and it doesn't look bright enough, but the color reproduction is still quite good. Considering that this model Designed primarily for traveling the Internet and viewing documents, the screen does its job well.
Keyboard and touchpad
In practice, the keyboard turned out to be a little small, and barely reaches half the full size, but the keys themselves are very pleasant, they do not flex with each press and have a slight soft stroke. To type correctly, you will have to practice long and hard, and you can simply forget about touch typing, since the size of the keys does not allow you to do either one or the other.
The touchpad is equipped with one function button, which simultaneously functions as two mouse keys. So click on right side corresponds to pressing right button mouse, and on the left - the left button. This decision, however, like the small size of the touchpad itself, is caused by the small dimensions of the laptop itself. You can solve this problem by connecting a regular mouse.
Interfaces
The set of interfaces is quite acceptable for a laptop of this class and form factor. On the left there are five connectors: LAN, modem port, USB 2.0 port, microphone input and headphone output.
On the right side there are two additional USB port, card reader for MMC and SD cards, VGA output (D-Sub) and standard Kensington lock slot.
Sound
The location of the speakers is very original, and is also dictated by the dimensions of the laptop. They are located on both sides of the display; this solution can be seen in some models of LCD TVs. The sound quality is a solid C, the bass is almost inaudible, and high frequencies At maximum volume they become very distorted. Almost ideal, if you can call it that, the sound occurs only at medium volume and standard equalizer settings. Solves the problem with sound alone in a simple way– connecting good headphones.Battery
A 4-segment battery with a capacity of 5200 mAh provides 3.5 hours of battery life. This is a fairly average figure, but considering that this model is equipped with a Celeron processor, and most new netbooks are equipped with Atom processors, which have significantly reduced power consumption, then the Eee PC 701 looks pretty good.
Heat and noise
Here the laptop has obvious problems, even under light load it heats up to a noticeable 40-50°C, while the fan does not stop, trying to constantly lower the system temperature. But there is practically no noise from operation; the operation of the fan can be felt by the flow of warm air coming out through the ventilation holes.Wireless connection
The Atheros AR5BXB63 adapter supports 802.11b/g networks, the most commonly used in our country. The network range is approximately 50 meters, while the signal is always high and there are no breaks; the only obstacle to the signal can be reinforced concrete floors.Widget from SocialMart
Conclusion
Like any other laptop, the Asus Eee PC 701 has its pros and cons. But the contribution of this small device to the development of the entire industry is undeniable. You can discuss its shortcomings for a long time, be it a small display or an inconvenient touchpad, but it still showed itself on the good side, and showed itself very well. It copes well with ordinary everyday tasks, be it compiling tables and reports in office applications, receiving Email or communication on the Internet. Thanks to its small dimensions and low price, the Eee PC 701 is an excellent purchase.Introduction As events have occurred during the first half of this year, computer hardware manufacturers seem to have hit on a new idea that can pay big dividends. The essence of this idea is to offer users a new family mobile devices, which can be conditionally classified as additional, “second” laptops, which are a cross between full-fledged mobile computers and handhelds or smartphones. According to the first impression, the concept was successful, the demand for such products, as it turned out, exists, and in the near future a boom awaits us in the nascent market. This will be facilitated not only by the zeal of mobile device developers, who expect revenue growth due to demand for new products, but also by the interest of such giants as Intel, NVIDIA and VIA, which have prepared specialized hardware solutions for use as part of “second laptops.”
The main driving force in the new market, obviously, should be the imminent appearance of Intel Atom processors, specially created by the engineers of this company for use in portable devices, the size of which is smaller than that of conventional mobile computers, and the battery life is significantly longer. When announcing Atom processors, Intel representatives talked about netbooks - inexpensive small laptops and mobile tablet computers, capable, however, of offering a full range of communication, office and multimedia capabilities.
The first devices based on new processor Intel should appear in the second half of this year. It is at this point that engineers are going to complete the development of the Centrino Atom platform, which will become a full-fledged basis for a new generation of portable devices. An alternative solution from VIA, the Nano processor (Isaiah), may also appear on sale at approximately the same time. At the moment, hardware component developers cannot offer a sufficiently powerful, but at the same time economical, specialized platform for netbooks. However, this is not an obstacle for everyone. Seeing the promise of the new market, some laptop manufacturers tried to “get ahead of the curve.” Such attempts became the topic of this review, in which we will get acquainted with an extremely popular miniature laptop that has almost all the features of a netbook today - ASUS Eee PC.
To be fair, it should be noted that miniature laptops are far from a new trend. At different times, many players in the mobile computer market offered such products. However, unlike ASUS Eee PC, all such offers turned out to be niche products and did not gain widespread popularity. This happened mainly due to the fact that ultra-portable mobile computers turned out to be too expensive, which was determined by the desire of their creators to make a kind of full-fledged laptop in a miniature design. As a result, there was a well-founded opinion about such products as expensive and fun high-tech toys, but they did not receive widespread recognition.
ASUS's merit lies in the fact that this manufacturer, apparently drawing inspiration from the ambitious OLPC project ("One Laptop Per Child"), has prioritized not size and capabilities, but size and price. Eee PC became a reflection of this plan, ahead of the netbook generation by at least six months. At first, ASUS wanted to ensure that the low-end Eee PC models would fit into the $200 budget. To achieve this goal, the manufacturer was ready to equip its computer with a small screen, a low-power processor and a minimum amount of RAM, and also replace the hard drive with a small flash memory. Naturally, this would impose restrictions on software, for which it was proposed to use the free Xandros operating system of the Linux family. However, subsequently minimum price still increased to three hundred dollars, and more expensive models even acquired the ability to work with the Windows XP operating system familiar to many. And, as a result, ASUS managed to achieve unprecedented success: their miniature laptop, the Eee PC, has become a truly mass device, interesting not only for high-income enthusiasts and technomaniacs, but also for a wide range of users with different income levels and qualifications.
Naturally, our laboratory could not ignore such a phenomenon as the ASUS Eee PC. Unfortunately, the path of this “toy” to the Russian market turned out to be quite difficult. Faced with unprecedented demand for its new ultra-portable laptop, ASUS decided to push non-core markets into the background, so Russian users had to wait quite a long time for the Eee PC to appear in stores. However, in mid-May, Eee PCs became appear on sale, which we took advantage of. So, we have in our hands an Eee PC 4G (from the Eee PC 701 series) with a pre-installed Windows XP operating system - the older model of the device that can be bought in Russia.
First look
ASUS Eee PC even begins to surprise with its packaging. We are used to the fact that laptops are delivered in fairly massive boxes. However, the miniature Eee PC is unique: it comes in a box that is smaller in size than most motherboard packages.Inside this compact box you can find a dwarf laptop, a power supply, a thick fabric case, the necessary minimum documentation and an auxiliary DVD.
The Eee PC itself makes an indelible impression with its dimensions and weight. It can hurt a person accustomed to living in a world of ordinary, even 14-inch laptops, to the very heart. To imagine the dimensions of the ultra-portable new product from ASUS, it is enough to compare it with a book: the latter will be no more than 2-3 centimeters in size in both main dimensions. Thus, the Eee PC works very well as a portable device. With all its intelligence, it is quite capable of fitting even in a jacket pocket, which will not weigh much, since the weight of the laptop does not even reach a kilogram.
Along with the laptop itself, the power supply is also striking in its toy size. In this case, it looks more like a phone charger, since it is made in symbiosis with a plug, and not in a separate case. This, by the way, makes the Eee PC, which weighs less than a kilogram, even more mobile, because the power supply often travels with the laptop, and here it not only takes up little space, but also weighs only 110 grams.
ASUS Eee PC makes a good impression even upon closer examination. Despite the low price and rather modest filling, the manufacturer did not skimp on plastic, for example. The body has sufficient elasticity for high-quality protection of the internals. Moreover, the Eee PC can even be classified as a shockproof laptop (within reason, of course), since it has no moving parts at all. In particular, for obvious reasons, it is deprived of an optical drive, and the hard drive is replaced with flash memory that is not afraid of overloads. So perhaps the Eee PC could become good choice and for not the most careful owners, for example, those same schoolchildren.
So, externally, the body of the machine does not give a cheap impression: it does not creak or rattle, and all its parts fit tightly together. We tested the black version of the device and can confirm that in terms of appearance it is not inferior to most mid-range mobile computers. price category. The plastic has a pleasant-to-touch roughness that successfully hides small scratches and greasy stains.
However, the unbridled delight that a visual inspection of the Eee PC causes is easy to nip in the bud. Simply lift the lid of this ultra-portable notebook, which is held closed by a flexible spring. After all, the 7-inch screen with a resolution of 800x480 located there, in its parameters, is more reminiscent of a digital photo frame than a means of displaying images of a modern mobile computer. Additionally, the negative impression is reinforced by the fact that there is enough space in the case cover for a 9-inch screen, but that’s the downside of the low price. If you want an inexpensive computer, be content with a photo frame, not a screen with normal characteristics. It’s difficult to say how relevant discussions about the image quality on this tiny screen will be, but perhaps it’s still worth mentioning that the matrix used in it is far from ideal. And if everything seems to be in order with the brightness level, then the viewing angles, especially vertical ones, clearly let us down.
In order to somehow justify the small size of the screen with a much larger lid, ASUS placed two flat speakers covered with fabric at its edges, providing quite decent volume and volume. frequency range sound. Of course, you shouldn't expect powerful bass from them, but against the background speaker systems Typically found in laptops, the Eee PC's speakers make a good impression. Above the screen there is a webcam with a resolution of 640x480, but, unfortunately, the quality of the image it produces cannot even be called satisfactory.
Directly below the screen, on the bend of the case, there is a power button for the laptop; for some reason it remains accessible even when the lid is closed. LED indicators for computer and battery status, hard drive activity and wireless network are located on the front edge of the case so that they remain visible even when the laptop is closed.
The second sore spot in the ergonomics of the Eee PC after the screen is the keyboard. The fact that key size would become another victim of miniaturization was clear from the very beginning. But the quality of their mechanical parts, at a minimum, raises questions. Perhaps we were unlucky with a particular instance, but on our laptop the keyboard sagged unnaturally and creaked suspiciously when pressing the buttons. It is difficult to predict what can happen to it with prolonged use.
Natural inconveniences during work may also arise due to the dimensions. Although the manufacturer tried to use all the available space for the keyboard to the maximum, certain typing problems will inexorably haunt everyone who is used to using full-size keyboards. To make typing on the Eee PC more or less comfortable, ASUS resorted to a rather controversial solution - increasing the size of the main alphanumeric buttons by reducing the size of the remaining keys. If for the Latin alphabet such an approach could be called acceptable, then for the Cyrillic alphabet it leads to very strange results: some of the buttons with such legendary letters as X, B, Zh, E and Yu, as well as basic punctuation marks, are almost half the size of the others in terms of surface area. But the already long-suffering letter E is especially unlucky; it won’t be able to be found on the keyboard right away. Against this background, even the sparkling humor of ASUS engineers fades, who decided to clearly demonstrate that Russian users can easily do without the letter P. Of course, you can get used to everything, but there is no doubt that the number of errors when typing text on the Eee PC will exceed the statistical average. . This will probably be helped by the location of the “up arrow”: it is awkwardly squeezed to the left of the right Shift.
The exhibition of miracles of miniaturization is complemented by a touchpad with a working surface smaller than a “ghost” matchbox: 45 by 30 mm. But such a tiny space is enough to navigate on a screen the size of a photo frame, provided that the native resolution is used. So there's not much to complain about here. The touchpad buttons are made in the form of a single panel, pressing the right and left parts of which carry different functional loads.
From the above, it becomes obvious that the ease of use of the ultra-portable laptop in question raises at least some doubts. In other words, when closed, the Eee PC looks much more advantageous than when it’s working, so let’s hasten to slam it shut and return to looking at the outside of the new product – on the left and right, where all the slots and ports it has are located. There is one USB 2.0 port on the left edge of the Eee PC, next to it is a 100-megabit connector. network card. Next door are two analog audio jacks for connecting headphones and a microphone. On the right there are two more high-speed USB 2.0 ports and an analog D-Sub connector allowing you to connect external monitor and with a resolution of up to 1600×1200. There is also a card reader slot that supports MMC and SD cards.
There are no noticeable details on the front and rear ribs of the body.
Much more interesting is the bottom surface of the laptop. In addition to the built-in microphone, there are ventilation slots on it, and the exhaust air is discharged through the grille on the left side of the laptop.
Right there, exactly in the center, there is a compartment cover in which there is a SODIMM slot with a DDR2 SDRAM module. Thus, Eee PC owners have the opportunity, without losing the warranty, to increase the amount of RAM, which in the standard package is 512 MB, and also to supplement the disk space by installing additional flash cards in MMC or SD formats. Other upgrade options for ultra-portable ASUS computer does not provide.
Of the wireless interfaces, the Eee PC only supports WiFi standard 802.11b and 802.11g. The lack of compatibility of this miniature computer with the 802.11n standard, as well as with a gigabit wired network, should hardly be considered a serious drawback. This laptop does not have a capacious hard drive or high-performance processors capable of decoding HD content in real time - therefore high speeds It simply doesn’t need network interfaces.
However, the insufficient capabilities of this computer for connecting with other devices still raise criticism. So, although ASUS engineers did not skimp on USB ports, they forgot about Firewire - an interface that developers of ultra-mobile computers usually do not neglect to support. But this is a small thing compared to the fact that the Eee PC lacks support for Bluetooth, the main wireless interface used to communicate with cell phones and other gadgets. This flaw is hard to forgive for an ultra-mobile computer, since it actually puts an end to the ability to use the Eee PC as an Internet device away from WiFi access points. The only possible solution in this case is to stock up on an appropriate USB key in addition to your laptop.
Hardware filling
So, the first impression of the Eee PC 4G has been made, it’s time to pay closer attention to what lies inside this little one. At the very beginning of the review, we already said that in order to reduce the price of its ultra-mobile new product, ASUS sacrificed performance. This means that it is pointless to look for not only high-speed, but also modern components in the Eee PC.So, this laptop is assembled from three main chips - the Celeron M 353 processor, the north bridge with an integrated graphics core i910GML and the south bridge ICH6-M.
All these components have been available on the market since mid-2004, so today, four years after their appearance, they are not enough stars from the sky. However, contrary to expectations, their power turns out to be quite enough to solve the main tasks that arise in front of an ultra-mobile laptop, even in the Windows XP operating system.
Speaking about the main components in more detail, it should be noted that Celeron processor M 353 is based on the 90nm Dothan core (the second Pentium generation M). This single-core CPU boasts a 512 KB L2 cache and a base clock speed of 900 MHz. Since the Celeron M 353 is an Ultra-Low Voltage modification, its standard supply voltage is 0.94 V, and the typical heat dissipation fits into a 5-watt thermal package. However, the creators of the Eee PC thought this was too much by modern standards (the heat dissipation of the same Intel Atom would be approximately half that), so the processor frequency in the Eee PC was reduced to 630 MHz.
Reducing the processor clock frequency is done in the most elementary and straightforward way - reducing the FSB frequency from 100 to 70 MHz. However, since the Celeron M does not support SpeedStep technology, this is the only available method, although, of course, it also has a very unpleasant side effect, expressed in a decrease in the operating frequency of the memory.
Actually, this is why the single-channel DDR2 SDRAM used in the Eee PC 4G only operates in DDR2-280 mode, although the 512 MB module installed in our laptop, according to the standard specifications, is capable of operating at frequencies up to 667 MHz.
Thus, the artificial limitation of performance in the Eee PC occurs, as they say, on all fronts. I would like to hope that this is not all in vain, and such a decrease in performance will have a beneficial effect on the battery life of this laptop.
The fact that the main components underlying the Eee PC operate at values lower than their nominal frequencies involuntarily suggests the possibility of overclocking this laptop. Indeed, the first BIOS versions for the Eee PC allowed increasing the FSB frequency to 100 MHz, which led to an increase in the processor frequency to 900 MHz and memory to 400 MHz. But in later BIOS versions, overclocking capabilities were, unfortunately, removed. However, such overclocking did not cause any negative side effects, other than a reduction in battery life. The processor did not overheat, and the system remained absolutely stable even at 100% load.
Therefore, it is completely natural for utilities to appear that allow you to control the frequency of the Eee PC processor directly from the operating system. In particular, we can recommend the eeectl program, which allows you not only to switch FSB frequencies between 70, 85 and 100 MHz, but also performs temperature control, and also, if necessary, makes it possible to increase the rotation speed of the laptop cooling system fan.
By the way, this cooling system is interesting in itself. Since it was problematic to place full-fledged coolers, albeit laptop ones, inside a small case, ASUS engineers simply placed an aluminum plate under the keyboard, in contact with all the heating chips. The air flow along this plate is created by a small fan located at the left edge of the laptop. The fan turns on when necessary, and its rotation speed in normal mode is apparently very low, since it is practically inaudible. But the keyboard, through which a fair amount of heat is dissipated, on the contrary, heats up noticeably during operation.
ASUS Eee PC uses the Intel GMA 900 graphics core built into the northbridge of the chipset.
Unfortunately, the modest characteristics of this accelerator are aggravated by the fact that it takes away part of the RAM for its work. However, it is capable of hardware acceleration of 3D graphics and MPEG-2 video. Of course, the performance of this solution with four pixel pipelines is low by modern standards, but in some cases it is quite enough for a screen with a resolution of 800x480. In other words, many games of previous generations on the Eee PC 4G are not only fully functional, but also demonstrate acceptable speed: for example, we tested Age of Empires II, Diablo 2, Max Payne 2, Need for Speed Porsche Unleashed, Quake 3 Arena, Trackmania Nations and Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne.
Below are the results of the popular tests 3DMark 2001 SE and 3DMark03
obtained at the standard Eee PC 4G resolution of 800x480
The 4 GB mini-SSD used in the Eee PC 4G also deserves attention. It is curious that it connects to the south bridge via the Parallel ATA-66 interface, however, a faster interface is not needed in this case, since the maximum reading speed from the selected SSD is no more than 30 MB per second.
It should be noted that this disk is not made in the usual form factor; it is soldered onto system board laptop, so it is impossible to find a replacement for it.
Talking about the lineup hardware Eee PC, we only have to mention two Atheros chips responsible for supporting Fast Ethernet and 802.11b/g WiFi, plus dual-channel AC97 Realtek ALC662 codec. As we can see, here too ASUS has chosen some of the most inexpensive microcircuits, but, nevertheless, they have good driver support for various operating systems and cope well with the role assigned to them.
One of the most painful places in the hardware of the ASUS Eee PC 4G in the configuration provided to us for testing is the battery. While it's obviously chosen for weight and size reasons, ultra-mobile laptop users always expect relatively long battery life. However, sold in Russia, and in many other countries, ASUS options Eee PC 4G supplied lithium-ion battery with a capacity of only 4400 mAh, which is not enough for three hours even according to the manufacturer itself. Unfortunately, the best batteries with a capacity of 5200 mAh are not yet imported into our country through official channels.
Detailed Specifications
Below we present the basic characteristics of the laptop in question. Exactly in this standard form it ended up in our testing laboratory.
Impressions from ASUS Eee PC with Microsoft Windows XP
The first modifications of the Eee PC that went on sale came with a pre-installed Xandros Linux system with an extremely simplified user interface. In addition, the laptop already had the basic software configured. In other words, the original concept of the Eee PC assumed that this ultra-portable laptop would be aimed at inexperienced and novice users, who, by and large, are the least concerned about the operating system: the main thing is that it works. However, the experience of the first sales showed that such positioning is not the best option. The fact is that many potential Eee PC buyers with more high level qualifications and who, for various reasons, prefer the more common Windows, postponed the decision to purchase this extremely interesting device, if only because they did not want to deal with the rather problematic process of manually changing the operating system. ASUS itself undertook to solve the problems of this part of users, in April it began shipping Eee PC models with pre-installed Windows XP Home Edition.
At the same time, some delay in the release of Windows versions of the Eee PC turned out to be completely justified; it was caused by the selection of the most suitable hardware configurations. The fact is that Windows XP, compared to Xandros, is a “heavy” system that requires more powerful system resources. Therefore, it is offered exclusively in crowning the lineup ultra-portable laptops with a 7-inch screen Eee PC models with at least a 4-gigabyte flash drive. And even then, out of 4 GB of disk space, only a little more than 2 GB is available to the user immediately after purchase. True, it was installed on the laptop along with Windows XP Home Edition Microsoft package Works (a kind of Office in miniature) and Windows Live(a set of interactive services that simplify work on the Internet).
The operating system itself, as standard, is quite skillfully configured; it occupies approximately 210 of the 512 available MB in memory immediately after loading. Of course, its loading time, which exceeds half a minute, is somewhat frustrating, but in practical work there are no serious problems not visible. The system reacts quite quickly to user actions and does not “slow down” when starting the main utilities (unless, of course, we are talking about some heavy software products).
The lack of free disk space can be compensated by deleting unnecessary components operating system and programs. However, it is not possible to achieve as much as we would like in this way. In particular, through standard dialogue“Add or Remove Programs” in the Control Panel, we were able to clear no more than 2.7 GB on the disk - and this was after removing Microsoft Works, Windows Live and unusable parts of Windows XP.
Therefore, for serious use, we would recommend reinstalling the operating system from scratch, removing all unnecessary components from the beginning. A seeming obstacle in the form of the absence of a reading drive in the Eee PC optical disks in fact, it’s easy to work around, since for installation you can use external bootable flash media, both in the form of MMC and SD cards, and in the form of USB sticks. The simplest and most affordable option for most is to install the operating system on the Eee PC Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PC. This one is based on Windows kernel The XP system (and fully compatible with it) is designed specifically for computers with limited hardware resources and allows you to avoid adding some components at the installation stage. But even in a typical configuration with all necessary drivers for the Eee PC, this OS takes up just over 500 MB of disk space.
More experienced enthusiasts can even create their own Windows XP distribution using the nLite utility, which allows you to cut down the distribution of this OS even further. Thus, during testing, we were able to minimize the disk space occupied by the operating system to 300 MB while maintaining all the necessary functionality. At the same time, the system occupied no more than 120 MB of memory, and loaded in 19 seconds.
In other words, the Eee PC opens up enormous scope for creative software optimization for sophisticated users with experimental inclinations. So, instead of Internet Explorer you can install the increasingly popular Firefox, instead of Microsoft Works we would recommend using the more compact and more functional free office suite OpenOffice.org, and as graphic editor choose the compact but feature-rich Paint.NET program. The proposed ASUS Windows package Live generally seems to be of little use as software that can be completely painlessly not installed at all.
Thus, the most significant problem facing Eee PC 4G owners is the rather low resolution of 800x480. It's obvious that Microsoft company When developing my operating system, I didn’t count on such screen sizes at all, so often even standard dialog boxes do not fit entirely into the visible area. Similar difficulties can arise when working in familiar programs and even when visiting websites, most of which are currently optimized for a screen width of at least 1024 pixels.
In part, these troubles can be circumvented by the specialized utility AsTray Plus, which allows you to set resolutions on the Eee PC higher than the standard one, determined by the characteristics of the LCD matrix, up to 1024x768. However, it should be understood that this is a kind of “stub”; we cannot talk about full-fledged operation in such modes, since the image quality in this case is below any criticism.
If you close your eyes to the insufficient screen resolution and the noted problems in ergonomics, then it is not so easy to make any complaints about the operation of the ASUS Eee PC in Windows XP. It handles with dignity the typical tasks that may arise from an ultra-portable computer. The performance, disk space and amount of RAM are quite enough not only for simple surfing of web pages and viewing electronic documents, but also for full-fledged work in office applications, and for decoding DVD-resolution video files, and for Skype conversations, accompanied by receiving and transmitting video. But for playing video high resolution The power of the Eee PC is no longer enough. However, given that this ultra-portable mobile computer lacks an optical drive and has a small screen, watching HD video should hardly be considered a typical load for it.
While testing the hands-on capabilities of the Eee PC 4G, we tried to recreate a typical (from a technical writer's point of view) work environment. To do this, we launched OpenOffice.org Writer on the laptop, in which the text of this article was edited, and also opened several windows Mozilla Firefox by loading Gmail and a number of information materials from technical sites into them. During this experiment, in the background, in parallel with the main load, Winamp was running, broadcasting Internet radio, Miranda IM, Skype, uTorrent and avast antivirus! Home Edition. And surprisingly, in this case, the Eee PC did not have any critical problems. Even without overclocking, the processor load level did not exceed 50-60%. A much more in-demand resource turned out to be not CPU speed, but the amount of RAM, which, in our case, was almost completely occupied by running applications. So increasing its capacity beyond the standard 512 MB may become a priority for those users who plan to use the Eee PC quite actively.
However, in any case, ASUS Eee PC 4G running the operating system Microsoft Windows XP proves to be a well-balanced solution, in the sense that its feature set and level of performance are well suited to the size of this ultra-portable computer. All typical tasks that a laptop of this size may face are perfectly solved using the Eee PC 4G.
But, perhaps, with one offensive exception. The fact is that, given the hardware of the Eee PC, you expect that this laptop will be able to please its owners with a relatively long battery life. However, in practice the situation is completely different: we were never able to get battery life from the Eee PC 4G for more than two and a half hours. However, these tests were carried out with the screen brightness set to the maximum level, and the WiFi adapter was used to establish a connection to the wireless network. The built-in USB camera was disabled.
Testing with Battery Eater 3 in standard mode(under load) allowed us to achieve only a very modest result of 2 hours 13 minutes. In Reader mode, which puts little load on the system, the laptop worked a little longer - 2 hours 35 minutes. Separately, we measured the battery life of the Eee PC 4G when playing DivX video: it was 2 hours 21 minutes. In other words, in terms of autonomy, the Eee PC is frankly disappointing.
conclusions
Despite the fact that the impression left behind by ASUS Eee PC turned out to be very mixed, it is impossible not to praise the developers of this ultra-portable solution. The fact is that with its Eee PC, ASUS turned out to be a pioneer; it opened a new promising market for inexpensive and small laptops. And from this position, the Eee PC can be described as a real breakthrough. Such small laptops, the cost of which is not deterred by the number of zeros on the price tag, can be useful for both beginners and experienced users. The fact is that there are a lot of possible applications for such a computer, which explains its growing popularity.ASUS did exactly the right thing by releasing several varieties of Eee PC with different operating systems. It was with this step that the manufacturer managed to significantly increase the reach of the target audience. As a result, the Eee PC's promised sales of 5 million units by the end of the year seems quite achievable, unless, of course, the dominance of ASUS's offerings is shaken by the imminent arrival of a motley squad of netbooks based on Intel Atom processors.
However, along with the undoubted success of the innovative Eee concept, one cannot help but note the shortcomings of the specific implementation - the 4G model we examined. Especially now that the Eee PC has been on sale around the world for more than six months and the euphoria about this product has already subsided. After all, it turns out that this model is far from flawless. For example, it makes a winning impression only when it is closed - under the lid of the laptop hides a miniature ergonomic nightmare, the main components of which are a too small screen and an inconvenient keyboard, especially in the Russian layout. The insufficiently thought-out hardware capabilities are also frustrating: the lack of Bluetooth support and the amount of RAM that is too small to fully work in Windows XP.
However, some of these shortcomings have been corrected in the next Eee PC 900 model, which is already being sold with all its might in ASUS' priority markets. Unfortunately, the Russian market is not one of them; in the situation with the supply of Eee PC, ASUS deliberately demonstrates its disdain to domestic buyers. And this applies not only to new models of ultra-mobile laptops, but also to configurations of older models. For example, the same Eee PC 4G reviewed in this review was equipped with the weakest of all possible batteries, with a capacity of only 4400 mAh. As a result, it is not at all surprising that during testing we received an indecently short battery life, significantly falling short of even three hours.
Thus, despite the attractiveness of the Eee PC as an idea, we would recommend not rushing into the purchase and waiting. At least when ASUS releases the Atom-based Eee PC 901 with a nine-inch screen and a gigabyte of RAM, a larger flash drive, Bluetooth support and longer battery life. Well, in addition, numerous ASUS competitors are about to enter the market for inexpensive ultra-portable laptops, many of which will probably not be classified as Russian market as a secondary matter. So, in any case, the appearance on store shelves of netbooks that are more advanced and convenient than the Eee PC 4G is not far off.
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The “hot” innovative solution from ASUS Eee PC has finally arrived in our testing laboratory. This compact, in general, laptop should become the most popular offer among all segments of the population, because... will be able to provide minimum productivity sufficient for study and work, with sufficiently good functionality and equipment with modern means of communication. Indeed, a mobile computer is probably the dream of almost every user, because... always all important information be at hand, moreover, it will be more protected than the same paper, which can instantly lose its presentable appearance. But a full-fledged and high-performance laptop, and even more so a compact one that is always convenient to carry with you, will not seem like an affordable purchase to many. ASUS Eee PC was invented specifically for those who want to keep up with the times and need a laptop, but are unable or unwilling to pay a lot of money for it.
Technical specifications
Before starting the review, we invite you to familiarize yourself with the internal components of the laptop under test. Data for the Eee PC series was collected from the manufacturer's website, and a report from the PC Wizard program was used for a specific model.
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Manufacturer |
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Eee PC Series |
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CPU |
Mobile Intel Celeron M ULV 353, 900 MHz (9 x 100) (FSB 533 MHz, 512 KB L2 Cache). |
Intel Celeron M processor with 512 KB L2 cache. |
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Mobile Intel 910GML Express |
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512 MB DDR2-400 DDR2 SDRAM. |
DDRII 400MHz SO-DIMM, maximum memory capacity 2048 MB. |
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HDD |
SILICONMOTION SM223A (4 GB, SSD) |
Solid State Disk (SSD) - solid state drive on flash memory up to 8 GB. |
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Optical drive |
Not provided. |
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Card reader |
3-in-1 module for working with flash cards, supports Secure Digital (SD), MultiMediaCard (MMC), MultiMediaCard Plus (MMCplus). |
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Graphics accelerator |
Intel GMA 900 (64 MB) |
Integrated Intel GMA 900 graphics card. Can connect an external monitor with a resolution of up to 1600×1280. |
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Digital Flat Panel, 7" LCD, WVGA 800x480/800x600. |
7" WVGA widescreen display with resolution 800x480 and 800x600 pixels. |
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Realtek ALC662 @ Intel 82801FBM ICH6-M - High Definition Audio Controller. |
Built-in HD (High Definition Audio) sound system. |
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Interface connectors |
3 x USB 2.0 |
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Networking capabilities |
Network card (Atheros L2 Fast Ethernet 10/100 Base-T Controller). Wireless adapter (Atheros AR5007EG Wireless Network Adapter). Adapter for access to wireless networks standard 802.11 b/g. |
Built-in 10/100/1000 Mbps network card adapter. Built-in adapter for accessing wireless networks standard 802.11 b/g (Wi-Fi). |
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Expansion cards |
Not provided. |
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Multimedia |
Two speakers. |
Sound system consisting of two speakers. |
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Safety |
BIOS password. |
Support Windows log on, protect your computer |
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AC/DC power supply |
Universal Power Adapter: |
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Battery |
Li-Ion 7.4 V, 4400 mAh |
4-cell lithium-ion battery (2.8~3.5h), depending on load. |
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Dimensions, mm |
225 x 164 x 21.5/35 |
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operating system |
Windows XP® Home Edition |
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Products webpage |
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If we take into account the segments the laptop belongs to, we can say that the hardware is not bad, and allows you to work with those functions that are needed for both work and study. It's nice to note that the standard package includes a built-in web camera, thanks to which you can participate in video conferences or simply chat via the Internet. You can also listen to music and watch videos, but what you shouldn't count on is games.
Supply
Delivery is carried out in a single box made of white and blue cardboard. The packaging contains images of the laptop, all possible color variations (including: white, black, silver, pink, sky and light green), as well as logos and the slogan of the laptop line “Easy to Learn, Easy to Play, Easy to Work”. The reverse side lists the main differences between the device. The box itself is small in size, convenient enough for transportation even without a special handle.
Equipment
In addition to the ASUS Eee PC laptop, the box contains:
- Battery.
- Power unit.
- Folder for transporting a laptop.
- User guide.
- Brief instruction manual.
- A booklet with a user manual.
- A small multilingual guide on battery usage.
- Disc with additional manual.
- Microsoft software license.
- Warranty card.
Appearance and ergonomics
The ASUS Eee PC laptop, due to its light weight and small sizes, resembles an ordinary book, made not of paper and cardboard, but of plastic. The design of the laptop is quite strict, because... It has practically no rounded corners, and is completely black in color. This option seems to be more suitable as a business solution, but the other color solutions look more youthful. By the way, the Eee PC series has one rather significant difference from all other laptops: the absence of an optical drive.
The front side has nothing remarkable, except that you can see the edge of the metal plate responsible for the functions of the left and right mouse buttons.
On the right side there are two USB 2.0 connectors, a Kensington lock slot and a card reader that reads information from SD, MMC, MMCplus memory cards. There is also a VGA connector, thanks to which you can connect the laptop to an external monitor.
The left side contains: an RJ45 network port, an RJ-11 modem port (this model does not have a modem, and therefore the seat is covered with a rubber plug), a USB 2.0 connector, two mini-jack connectors (line output and a microphone connector). In addition, there is a ventilation hole through which heated air is exhausted.
There is nothing on the back except for the AC adapter connector.
Below you can find several ventilation holes located above the main components, several stickers and a compartment, by unscrewing which we can get to the processor. But to get to the remaining components, you must completely remove the bottom cover. There is also a battery compartment, which, in addition to a spring lock, is also equipped with a manual one.
Matrix, input devices, web camera
The use of matrices with a large diagonal is simply unacceptable, since the laptop is small in size, so the maximum possible diagonal is 7 inches. The matrix resolution can be set in two positions: 800 x 600 or 800 x 480 pixels. True, at first working with such a display is not as convenient as we would like. The coating of the matrix is matte, and not the newfangled mirror, which leads to the absence of annoying glare and reflections. The viewing angles are quite large, both horizontally and vertically.
Above the display there is a built-in webcam with a resolution of only 0.3 megapixels. Unfortunately, the webcam has a fixed position, so you will need to change the position of the entire laptop lid in order to get into the frame. There is also a microphone here.
The keyboard is made entirely of black plastic, and it is quite different from the full-size one. The reduction is quite significant, but, fortunately, not so significant that it affects work. Of course, you will have to get used to it, but after literally 30 minutes the keyboard will become “native”. The keyboard has 80 keys. Taking care of the users, the manufacturer did not change places
Between the keyboard and the display, on the right side of the peculiar cylinder that mounts the display, there is a button to turn on the laptop.
It is very convenient to work with the touchpad, since the sensitivity of the panel is perfectly selected for it. There is the possibility of vertical and horizontal scrolling, although only vertical is checked. Below are two standard keys, made in the form of a homogeneous metal plate.
On the right side of the touchpad there is a block of LEDs responsible for: network connection status, battery charge, hard drive access, network connection status.
Acoustics
The sound subsystem is provided by two speakers located on both sides of the display under a metal grille. The sound is loud, but at the same time clear and high quality for speakers of this size.
Power supply and battery
To power the laptop, a fairly powerful adapter is used (90 W, 9.5 V, 2.5 A), which only heats up while the battery is charging. As soon as the battery is charged, the power supply becomes almost cold.
The battery with an output of 7.4 V, 4400 mAh is manufactured by ASUS itself and is based on a 6-cell lithium-ion battery.
Testing
For testing, we selected the only possible competitor among the previously tested mobile PCs - ASUS UMPC R2E Vista (Intel Little River i945GU, Intel A110 @ 800 MHz, Intel GMA 950, 1024 Mb DDR2-533, TOSHIBA MK1011GAH (100 GB, ATA, 4200 RPM) ).
ASUS UMPC R2E also uses a 7-inch display, approximately the same processor and video. It has more memory and a hard drive, but runs the more resource-intensive Windows Vista operating system.
Thanks to CPU-Z program, we receive information about frequency characteristics the core of the installed processor, its multiplier and capabilities.
Using the GPU-Z program, we received the full specification of the video card installed in the laptop.
The performance of the ASUS Eee PC laptop is very low, it is only enough to work with office applications, photo processing, surfing the net and some other undemanding tasks. There is no need to count on any 3D, because... The video system is based on a low-performance Intel GMA 900 graphics accelerator, but the processor and RAM are quite enough for the tasks that the Eee PC is designed for.
Drives
The HD-Tune program was used to obtain information about the laptop's disk subsystem. The laptop uses a 4GB flash solid-state drive (SSD).
Autonomous operation
Using the Battery Eater program, we measured the laptop's battery life. Measurement took place in the following modes:
at maximum load,
minimum load,
battery charging mode.
The results were as follows: the battery charge (4400 mAh) at maximum load was enough for 107 minutes of continuous operation, but during minimum load the laptop turned off after 121 minutes of operation. It takes a full 245 minutes to recharge.
The result of battery discharge is controversial, because For some reason the battery only discharged to 20%, then the laptop was in a sleep state for about 5 hours. Perhaps this was done so that work would not be lost. For example, if the charge ran out and you didn’t have time to save documents, you could come home, connect your laptop to the network and save what was unsaved.
Results
Surely, the main advantage of the ASUS Eee PC laptop is its compact size, which makes it possible to take this mobile PC anywhere, and thanks to Wi-Fi support, you can easily access the vastness of the World Wide Web. It's nice to have a webcam that allows you to participate in video conferences. It is also worth noting a good display, a rather interesting and quite comfortable keyboard and a high-quality sound subsystem. What confuses us is the lack of an optical drive, which would be very useful for many, as well as the small amount of flash memory ( hard drive). Good optical drive can be connected via USB, and the memory is expandable using flash cards, although this will be an additional cost.
To summarize, then ASUS laptop The Eee PC is an excellent, relatively inexpensive digital companion that can help in many situations.
- High-quality 7-inch display.
- Compact size and light weight.
- Presence of a web camera.
- Low productivity.
- No optical drive.
- The battery capacity is quickly depleted.
- Not very great communication capabilities
We express our gratitude to the company PF Service LLC (Dnepropetrovsk) for the laptop provided for testing.
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