Tikkabik

Earlier this week I unboxed an Eee PC -- an Asus-made "netbook," or mini laptop. It's a 1000HA model, which comes equipped with Windows XP, 1GB RAM and an 80GB hard drive. I borrowed it because I wanted to find out first-hand what Mac users are missing by not having a netbook of their own (and no, neither the iPhone nor the MacBook Air count, as far as I'm concerned. Here are some initial impressions:

The device is small. Smaller, in fact, than any laptop I've ever used. For the past several years, I've been working on 17-inch Apple laptops. Switching to this is a bit like going from a roomy sedan to a Smartcar. I definitely feel the difference. The keyboard keys are much smaller, and the typing space is more cramped. In particular, the right shift key's placement next to cursor keys is very awkward - I keep hitting Page Up when I mean to right-shift. I'm also a bit spoiled - I'm accustomed to being able to see the keys using backlit illumination, which this particular model doesn't have that, which makes it difficult to see the keys in low light situations.

The tiny keyboard also makes touch-typing a bit difficult. I'm slowly growing accustomed to it, but find myself making frequent mistakes that I didn't make before. Both the F and J keys have bumps to identify them as home row keys, as well.

The 10-inch display, on the other hand, is bright and legible. The resolution is a bit odd, but it works -- it just feels like pages are shorter in length, because they are -- 1024 x 600 is a weird resolution.

I can't imagine trying to balance this tiny laptop on my legs and using it to take notes during a keynote presentation. It's actually a bit *too* small for that.

The Eee makes a constant whirring sound. I haven't figured out if it's an internal fan or the sound of the hard drive spinning; it's not distracting at all, but I hear it if there isn't background noise.

The computer comes with a full complement of software, including Microsoft Works, Internet Explorer, Skype (which works with the built-in 1.3MP webcam) and other tools; updating XP and installing anti-virus software (in this case, AVG Free) was a lead-pipe cinch. I've also installed Apple Safari, which runs quite fast, and I've put Apple's MobileMe control panel for Windows to synchronize my contact and calendar information. All are working just fine.

Battery life is adequate, but unremarkable -- about 4 hours or so on a full charge. The battery pack clips onto the bottom, near the screen hinge. Were I to own one of these, I can easy see myself buying a spare battery pack or two just to be safe, just as I have with the MacBook Pro.

The trackpad has two buttons, but it's also set up to use tapping, and I can configure it to tap-drag as well. It's only a couple of inches across, but it's big enough and sensitive enough to work well with the screen, and I can easily operate it

The built-in 802.11b/g wireless networking was able to find my home network and connect to it without any problem. Performance when surfing the Web is just fine -- every bit as good, in fact, as my experience on the MacBook Pro. I don't know why that surprised me, but it did.

Windows XP certainly isn't the most elegant operating system in the world, but at this point in its product life, it's tried and true, proven and relatively robust for a wide variety of general computing needs. I'd be curious to see how a Ubuntu-equipped system compares instead. I've used Ubuntu a bit on my Mac and it's a nice OS, at least for Unix.

I'll have more thoughts later, and I'm planning on writing a hands on piece for Macworld, so check there for further analysis.