The good: Great value; three USB ports; design.

The bad: Cramped keyboard; lack of storage space; no optical drive.

The bottom line: There're no two ways about it--the ASUS Eee PC 701 is a great laptop. It's affordable, sexy and highly portable. If you're looking for a cheap second PC that can fit into a small bag, then there are few better options.

Read full review of the Asus Eee PC 701 »

By Rory Reid, CNET.co.uk
Oct 24, 2007

There's a new player in the extreme budget market, and this one isn't intended for developing nations. Meet the Asus Eee PC 701--an ultraportable laptop that costs as little as £169 (S$506.79). The three "e"s represent Asus' vision of it being "easy to learn, easy to work, easy to play". We have reviewed Asus' £219 (S$656.73) version here.

Editors' note : This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com.uk. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some of other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia. Please check directly with your local distributor for details. Asus has confirmed that the Eee PC which will be available in Asia is covered by a one-year local warranty. The article has been amended to reflect this new information.

Design

The Eee PC is one of the smallest laptops on the market. At 225 x 35 x 165mm, it's about the size of a hardback book, and weighs 920g. Its petite dimensions give it a toy-like appearance, but this is countervailed by the pearl-white finish, which gives it a touch of sophistication. Ultimately, the Eee PC looks equally at home on the catwalk or in a child's playpen--it is what you make of it.

Because it's so small, some sacrifices have been made. The keyboard is exceptionally tiny and the keys are very closely grouped. Whereas keys on a standard desktop keyboard have an approximate 5mm gap, the gap between those on the Eee PC is less than 1mm so it's easy to make mistakes. Fat-fingered users will have a hard time typing long documents, or making notes at speed, but don't let that put you off--it's fine for drafting short to medium-length text.

There are plenty of ports scattered around the machine. There are two USB ports on the right, a third on the left, plus a D-Sub video output port for those who want to use an external display. You also get a memory card reader on the right side that supports SD/MMC media. The modem jack on our review sample was blanked out, as there's no internal modem, but there's an adjacent Ethernet port so you can connect to a wired network.

Narcissists or video-conferencing addicts will be pleased to note the Webcam sitting above the screen. It's great for taking still self-portraits or making short movies of yourself for Facebook, YouTube, etc. Speakers sit either side of the display, but the microphone is strangely mounted on the underside of the laptop, which affects audio quality slightly. You can, however, connect an external mic or external speakers to the audio jacks at the left side of the laptop.

One final note about the design--the Eee PC's power adapter is proportionally as tiny as the laptop. It looks more like a mobile phone charger than a laptop charger, which is great since you don't have to lug an enormous power brick around.

Features

You won't get much in the way of hardware for just over £200 (S$599.76), but the Eee PC shouldn't be written off. It uses an Intel Mobile Celeron-M ULV 900MHz CPU, which is designed for long battery life rather than hardcore number crunching. The Asus version ships with 512MB of RAM as standard, though other resellers such as RM offer versions with 256MB of RAM. If you intend to tinker heavily with the machine or install Windows, we'd recommend getting the 512MB model.

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