My two EEE netbook computers

At the time of writing this I have two EEE netbook computers. One of them is the first Asus EEE 701 and the second one is Asus EEE 1101HA that belongs to me since the girl I love left me. I use both of them and both of them have advantages and disadvantages over each other. I kept the original operating systems on both: on 701 I have Xandros and on 1101 I have Windows 7.

The main advantages of EEE 701 are:

• it's very small and light
• it's silent
• makes a great media center
• short start up time (less than 20 seconds)
• the charger is small

The main advantages of EEE 1101HA are:

• its battery lasts comfortably long (approx 7 hours)
• it's pretty portable
• large screen compared to its weight
• runs Windows (funny, I never thought of this as an advantage...) so I can run all the programs on it, and more importantly, can update my web browsers.

However, they also have some disadvantages. Some of them are there from the start, some of them are bothering me only recent. Anyway, here they are.

The main disadvantages of EEE 701 are:

• its battery could last longer than two to three hours (and now, that it's couple of years old, probably less than that)
• the screen is small, sometimes too small for real work
• media player doesn't support new codes, for example Matrioska or mp4
• Wifi can't connect to WPA protected networks

The main disadvantages of EEE 1101HA are:

• it's really slow
• the processor is very weak, so it can barely play videos at 100% CPU (or sometimes it can't)

If I had to compare both models I'm not sure which one would win (yes, taking in account that they were produced several years apart!). I have specific uses for each of them, so they work pretty well together. If one were better that the other, I guess I would use only one of them and not both.

Beside those two EEEs I have a Kindle (version 3, still with keyboard) and an ExoPC tablet running Meego. My phone is Samsung Galaxy currently running Android 1.6. Time to upgrade everything except the EEEs, or, as I wrote some time ago, try to find a better type of device for all purposes!

Looking for a useful tablet PC

I have my first EEE for almost three years now and my girlfriends for more than a year. They're boh still useful and I still take then to my trips. If the trip is a backpacking one, then I take the 701 with me - it's light, it works and there's no problem carrying it around. If I go to a business trip or a holiday then I take my 1101HA with me, because it has a bigger screen and the battery lasts longer. If I watch movies at home, I use my 701 because somehow its performance is better then what I can get out of 1101HA running on Windows.

However... I am looking to buy a tablet PC that I will be able to use at home in every room, maybe take with me around like a book or a magazine and most of all, experiment with it. I don't want to buy Apple (yet), because I would like to stay free and would not close myself to a platform so closed like Apple's is. I was looking at Android models, but the truth is that IPad is better. It works perfectly and the battery lasts longer. I want a 10 inch model and every one I saw or every review I've read just make me sorry - competition is way behind Apple here. I just hope they will release something useful soon.

Until then, I'm stuck with my Samsung Galaxy smart phone which I upgraded to Android 2.2 by Drakaz. It's small, it's slow, the battery doesn't last long, but at least I can connect with it quite comfortably. I even used it for USB tethering to bring the web to my EEE 1101HA.

Slovenian keyboard on Asus EEE

Since I first got my EEE I followed the instructions on how to turn on the Slovenian keyboard. The instructions are simple, but there's a warning to follow them precisely as written. The instructions are two pages long and I haven't had any trouble following them and enabling the Slovenian keyboard layout. Some people have lost or misplaced the instructions and/or are not comfortable in Linux command prompt (I'm not as well) so I am publishing the instructions here. I have photographed them and uploaded to my blog so I hope they will come handy to Robert (Robi, you didn't leave your contacts so I can't reach you) from my first post and possibly others.

I also have the original DVD with the software so I can make a copy if needed.