I’ve mentioned the Asus EEE PC on TravelTechTalk before, but today I’m actually going to give you a closer look at the machine, and do so from the perspective of a regular traveler. Does it travel well? Will it do everything I need? That kind of stuff…

First off; I hate to break it to the Linux fans out there, but the EEE on Linux really doesn’t impress me. It’s great for Grandma “email once a month” or Mr. “I hate Windows with a passion”, but the reality is that the EEE is perfect for Windows.

It turns it from a nice machine with a mediocre OS into a full fledged ultra portable notebook. If you have an EEE, you should seriously consider putting XP on it.

Thankfully Asus make is extremely easy, and I’ll show you how to install it in a different article.

Just like on Food Network, I’ve got an EEE right here that I prepared earlier with Windows XP on it. The hardware is all stock; 4Gb SSD, 512Mb ram. I’ve added a 4Gb SD card (where I install applications).

Here is why I prefer XP on my machine instead of Linux:

It runs all the applications I want. Sure; Linux has an alternative for most Windows applications, but none of them have the look and feel, plus there are some notable exceptions (Slingplayer for example).

XP feels faster. Linux has always been touted as the “Windows Killer” and we’re told that it’ll even run on a 286; but in reality (at least my reality) it’s sluggish. XP feels smoother and boots just as fast.

Business use; it’s easier to access my network, easier to connect to a VPN and easier to provide support should you need it. I’ve already talked about my Windows Home Server, if I kept the machine on Linux I’d have a hard time getting it to work with the data stored on that server.

There ARE solutions for everything on Linux, but most of them are just not easy enough for the average user.

I’ll now take a look at the various applications a normal user might need to run on the machine for it to be considered as a real replacement for a large(r) notebook.

• Multimedia (music, video, photo) when on the road
• Internet access (wired and wireless)
• Office applications (Microsoft Office)

During most trips these are really the only things I need to do with my laptop. It needs to entertain me, I need to have access to my email and the web, and I need to be able to work on my documents.

Let’s start with the fun part – Multimedia. The good news is that the EEE plays video files absolutely perfectly. On mine I’ve installed the “K-Lite codec pack” which means I have support for almost any video format AND I can play them in “Media Player Classic” instead of the horribly bloated Windows Media Player. The bad news is that may run into limitations of the 900MHz CPU.

All the video files I carry along with me are compressed to Mpeg4 and were encoded for the iPod. This means that they are in a lower resolution than your average DVD. They still look absolutely stunning on the display though. You’ll have a hard time playing DVD resolution files, but with only 4Gb of storage (1.5Gb after installing XP) you really don’t have much space to play around with anyway.

Music is just great, and the built in speakers are surprisingly good. They are loud and there is no distortion at high volumes.

Last but not least; Slingplayer. There isn’t much to say about it, it just works (like it should). It plays great in full screen, even when the stream is set to High Quality. I’ve made a screen capture here of what it looks like:

Internet Access – The EEE has WiFi built in. And it’s surprisingly good. The integrated Atheros WiFi card pulls in more wireless networks than any other machine I have ever had. If I open my Dell XPS with expensive 802.11n I’ll find 3 networks at home, and at the same time the EEE will find 6 of them. Once connected, it’s also rock solid. No signal drops, no slowdowns. This is how WiFi should be. Of course, it also has a wired Ethernet port for those silly hotels that have not yet invested in WiFi.

Of course, the big difference between the original “Easy Desktop with Linux” and XP is that under XP you can run the stuff you are probably used to. It’ll do Outlook, Internet Explorer and anything else you run on your usual machine.

But this is once again where you run into a bit of a limitation of the machine; The display. It’s not so much the screen size, it’s the resolution. 800×480 is pretty small for surfing the web, and you’ll find yourself scrolling around a lot more than you are used to. It’s perfectly usable, but is borderline annoying.

At the moment I’m running Firefox, Thunderbird, Outlook, Internet Explorer, Trillian (for IM) and Skype , and they all work perfectly. Skype calls are just as clear as on my Quad Core desktop machine.

Office Applications – Really not much to say here that hasn’t already been said. Everything works fine, Word and Excel load surprisingly fast considering I run them off an SD card, but once again you run into the small(ish) screen resolution.

Despite these shortcomings I am still convinced it’s a real winner. I’ve owned virtually every kind of portable machine on the market, but the Asus EEE is just magical.

At half the size and weight of my 12″ Dell notebook it just feels great to carry around. It’s more practical than a “UMPC” like the Samsung Q1 Ultra. It’s much cheaper than the current generation thin machines (like the $1800 Macbook Air). Yet it still offers 3 USB ports, SD card reader, VGA output and audio in/out. Battery life is actually a little less than I would expect, most likely because they are still using regular PC components. With average use I saw around 3 hours off the 4400mAh battery. Asus recently announced some accessories for the EEE including 2 larger batteries.

To make this an honest review I should note that the $349 purchase price of this machine does not include Windows XP or the 4Gb SD card I installed. These bring the price to around $475. Of course, if you have a spare XP license at home or the office this does not apply.

My biggest complaint though is the display. It’s just too low a resolution to make it practical for day to day business on the road. If all you need to do is open a few files, read them, watch a movie and send some email then you’ll be fine, but anything more than that will eventually drive you insane. Those of you with a real job (and a boss) will probably have a work laptop anyway, so if you don’t mind the extra 2lbs in your carryon you could bring your own EEE PC along with your work PC.

You can’t make an ultra portable machine without making compromises and it’s clear Asus made some major compromises here.

Interested in buying an EEE PC? Check the lineup at Amazon. They are available from $299 (Surf 2G) to $399 (Surf 4G with Webcam). For a machine capable of Windows XP I recommend the $349 Surf 4G.