It146;s small, that146;s all

You are forgiven for thinking it is a make-up box. Yes, it is small, and yes, it is a laptop.

You are forgiven for thinking it is a make-up box. Yes, it is small, and yes, it is a laptop. You are looking at the little master of netbook land 8212; the Asus EeePC.

Though Asus says the name Eee is derived from 8220;the three Es,8221; of its advertising slogan, 8220;Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play8221;, I don8217;t understand how it can be used as a main workstation and I don8217;t think the manufacturers want you to either. This is a netbook, ideal for surfing the Net with Wi-Fi connectivity, jotting down your thoughts at the most unlikeliest of places, storing music as a backup for your ipod and well, that8217;s it.

First let8217;s take a look at what it is good at. It is small and hence can go anywhere, does most 8212; and I mean most, not all 8212; functions you8217;d expect from a computer and has enough power to execute them. Its primary use would be as a netbook, which allows you to link to the Net anywhere, provided you have the 8216;right connections8217;. The inbuilt 1.3 mp webcam also make life a lot easier for those of us who can8217;t live without their daily session on Yahoo chat or Camfrog.

It is something an aspiring author could kill for; just open and type the latest twist in the tale wherever you are. And the 80-GB storage space means you can tuck in most of your pictures, songs and DiVX movies and link it to your iPod, phone or digicam.

But the good news pretty much ends there for by then you would find a little detail missing. This small wonder has no CD/DVD drive. You have to either download everything from the Net, do a shuttle service with an external drive or bluetooth stuff from your bigger, smarter, laptop. Or you can pay extra and get a DVD drive that plugs in to the tiny laptop.

Despite the Dolby sound, the speakers leave a lot to be desired. We all know laptops are notorious for poor sounds; be sure to carry along a good pair of earphones for this one.

That8217;s not all, don8217;t even look this way if you have big fingers, for every time you press a key four others will join the party. Moreover, you have to do a balancing act of sorts to keep the fingers from coming in contact with the touch pad and moving your cursor to unexpected destinations. May be, you will get used to it.

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But, maybe that is the price of technology. As things get smaller, they also tend to become more complex. Why would you want a netbook, when you can pay as much 8212; around Rs 33,000 8212; and get yourselves a laptop that does all this and much more, but is a bit more bulky. Well, I think the jury is out on this one.

The others
Acer Aspire One
Screen: 8.98221; TFT
Weight: 995g to 1.26 kg
Processor: Intel Atom N270, Mobile Intel 945GSE Express GMA950 and 82801GBM ICH-7m
Storage: 8 GB of flash-based solid state storage SSD or 120 GB / 160 GB hard disk drive.
OS: Windows XP Home edition/ Fedora 8 based
Linpus
Linux
HP 2133 Mini-Note PC
Screen: 8.98221; WXGA
Weight: 1.27 kg
Processor:
Via C7-M 1.2G
Storage: 120GB HDD
OS: SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop/Genuine Windows Vista Business
MSI Wind PC
Screen: 88221; or 108221;
Weight: 1.04 kg to 1.18 kg
Processor:
Intel Atom 45-nm
Storage: 80GB HDD
OS: SUSE Linux,
Windows XP
Dell Inspiron Mini 9
Screen: 8.9 inch WSVGA
Weight: 1.035 kg
Processor: Intel Atom
Storage: 4/8/16GB of SSD
OS: Linux, Windows XP
8212; Nandagopal Rajan