When you mention small, cheap laptops, the One Laptop Per Child device immediately comes to mind. 

Designed for third-world school children, the OLPC was supposed to cost just $100, although that price has increased to $200.

That’s why this week’s announcement from Asus is so exciting.

Their Eee PC also is a small, simple laptop which runs on the Linux operating system and is made to sell for just $300 to $400. Since it went on sale, last month in Taiwan, the Eee has been selling like hotcakes. 

Asus has just announced their feature-rich, top-of-the line model, the Eee PC 4G, which is now available for sale here in the United States.

Eee stand for “easy to lean, easy to work and easy to play.” It’s a small, ultralight laptop with a 7-inch color screen, an Intel processor (the OLPC has an AMD chip) and a battery which provides up to 3 hours of use before needing recharging.  Eee weighs less than two pounds.

There is no hard drive inside. The U.S. version comes with 4GB of built-in flash memory to both run the computer (as RAM) and provide approximately 1.4GB of storage space for files, music and pictures.  There is also a memory card slot so you can add as much as 32GB of extra storage, which currently costs more than $400.

Connection to the Internet is via the Ethernet port or the built-in Wi-Fi circuitry.  There’s a hole for a modem connection but no modem built inside.

Eee runs on the Linux operating system with an easy-to-understand interface created especially for this device.

The desktop has six tabs on the top of the screen for the different categories of software icons and Internet destinations including the Open Office 2.0 office suite, Mozilla, Skype, Wikipedia, language learning tools, games, a media player (sounds great playing MP3 and WAV files through the Eee’s built-in stereo speakers), a still and Web camera plus instant messaging, anti-virus software and a whole lot more.
 
The only real fault I could find with the Eee is a small one: the keyboard.  It’s literally very small – made for little fingers.  It’s better than the keyboard you get on a smartphone but not as comfortable to use as keyboards you find on larger laptops.  It wouldn’t be my first choice for touch-typing but will do in a pinch.

I’ve been quite impressed with the Eee – the way it looks, feels and operates in the short time I’ve had to test it.  It’s small but never gives the impression of being toy-like in any way. 

Out-of-the-box, the Eee is both simple to master and a delight to use.  It can make a terrific computer for first-time users – or a great second or third portable for the computer warrior.

Highly recommended.

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