Eee PC S101 Notebook

Eee PC S101 Notebook

Published November 27, 2008 at 06:43:07 AM, by Thai Tan

Short Review: Beauty and Brains with the Eee PC S101 Notebook

If elegance is what you are after in a netbook, the Asus Eee PC S101 netbook might just be what you are looking for. Its upscale design in brushed metal far outshines any other netbook and the slimness of the unit rivals that of Apple’s Macbook Air. But with the price tag astronomically higher than most netbook configurations and a (still) tiny keyboard, you might need a good reason to purchase this aside from its stunning looks and dimensions.

On the Higher End of the Scale

The Asus Eee PC S101 netbook is on the high end side of netbooks, thanks to its six hundred and ninety nine dollar price range. This price, of course, is a lot cheaper compared to laptops that also have wrist rests and bodies that are made of brushed aluminum. It certainly is more substantial compared to other netbooks with plastic casings and competes with the HP Mini Note 2133 in terms of style and design.

Something to Think About

The Achilles heel of the Asus Eee PC S101 netbook was discovered upon inspection of the keyboard layout. Right there on the keyboard, seemingly unobtrusive but nonetheless nearly worth tearing your hair out, is the half-sized right Shift key. If you are a touch typist, you might be alarmed at this discovery. The keyboard is decently balanced from left to right in terms of layout, but the right Shift key was moved to a place that is just a little bit inconvenient and not at all easy to hit – to the right side of the Up arrow key. It will take a long time to get used to this.

More on that Keyboard

In terms of keyboard durability and stability, the keyboard on the Asus Eee PC S101 netbook does not have any flex even if the keys are still on the small side and may cause some discomfort for those who are planning to do extended typing tasks. This is quite unlike the spacious HP Mini 1000 which was able to maximize the left to right real estate of the interior, and more like the keyboard size of netbooks offered by Dell and Lenovo.

Screen

The Asus Eee PC S101 netbook comes with a 10.2 inch LCD display in widescreen and a native resolution of 1024 x 600 – pretty standard stuff for netbooks but is also surprisingly bright and crisp like multimedia computing devices that are bigger than it. The screen is hardly glossy and a bit on the matte side, which is good because it does not make any reflections when used in normal bright lighting conditions. With this size, you can view documents and Web pages comfortable without needing to use the horizontal scroll.

Productivity and Computing

The Intel Atom CPU with 1.6 GHz is used for the Asus Eee PC S101 netbook, which is again pretty standard stuff. It is a low-powered processor that gets the job done provided you know the limitations of your machine. Battery life is best at four hours and five minutes so you have a generous amount of time off the socket to work on your tasks.

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Technical Specifications

No specifications are available.