Laptop magazine bags the first review of the Asus Eee PC

The first full review of the Asus Eee PC has appeared at Laptop magazine's website. Mark Spoonauer rates it 4 out of 5, citing that a Celeron laptop with a 14.1in screen, 80Gb hard disk, DVD drive and Windows Vista is available for the same $399 price. Fortunately, he hasn't missed the point completely and goes on to explain that it's "ten times simpler to use than any Windows machine, starts up twice as fast (no crapware!), and is only about a fifth of the cost of other systems in its weight class."

The review is light on photos or screenshots (you'll need to read the imminent Mobile Computer review for that!) of the Linux operating system, but Spoonauer is a fan of the simplified child-friendly interface. Battery life came in at 3.5 hours, which isn't bad but well short of a good, though conisderably costlier, ultra-portable.

He also favourably compares the display to the excellent one used on the OQO model e2 (the e2's is better, to my eyes), but points out that the 800 x 480 resolution sometimes results in the bottons on dialog boxes disappearing off the bottom of the screen. The e2 has a dedicated button to artificially increase the screen resolution for this reason.

The Eee PC goes on sale in the UK from November 1 and will available from RM (as the miniBook) and Clove Technology for around £220.

[ Laptop]