EeePC – First Impression

I have given up on Apple offering a netbook and I am open to trying something else. We do own an XO, but I am looking for something with more capabilities. Cindy brought home an EeePC from school and I am exploring.

What would I expect in a machine I would purchase? I would want a machine that would allow me to do real work online. Obviously, wifi and the capability to browse. I have been trying to do much of my work online and this would involve searching, writing, and spreadsheet tasks.

So, I was able to connect to our home wifi and set the required WAP password. The browsing experience is pretty good. There seem to be times when there are noticeable delays, but the page does appear. It does seem that more complicated pages (e.g., my igoogle page) takes longer  to render. I have encountered no problems working with my online apps.

The keyboarding experience will take some getting used to. I have relatively large hands, but I am starting to develop a technique. I can’t place my hands over the home keys, but I have developed a “swivel at the wrist” technique that seems to work. The feel of the keyboard is far superior to the XO.

I must admit that I wanted to complete this post using the EeePC. The text has been no problem. I wanted to also see if I could get the image from my camera and then upload it to Picnik for modification. I was not able to figure out how to do this, but I did not spend a lot of time. There are USB ports so I could attach the camera, but I then was stuck. My Canon does not show up as an external device on this machine or on my Mac and I must run software to locate and download images. There must be a way to do this.

I am very tempted to make a purchase. I need an excuse. It would have made a nice Valentine’s Day present. Too late. My wife has a birthday some time iin June.  Too early. I will have to keep thinking. How about stimulate the economy? That explanation may work.

Apple better pay attention. This type of hardware seems a reasonable approach to 1:1.