It lives!! About a month ago my trusty Asus Eee pc701 developed the ‘click of death’ – bugger. Initially I thought the hard drive was the soldered SSD type which would have meant game over (new motherboard required) but after checking I realised it wasn’t.
Next stop was ebay and I managed to find a new SSD hard drive (16 Gb) for the lovely some of £25 – not to bad. It arrived the next day and after much rejoicing was fitted. Now what software to run on it? Initially it had a mighty 8Gb SSD so Windows XP fitted but Windows 7 was a struggle. Turning to Linux I settled on Lubuntu and it ran smoothly until the hard drive started to fail. This time around I wanted to see how it would cope with Windows 7 installed so I installed Home Premium first. With only a 900 Mhz processor under the hood the eepc 701 was never going to be a speed freak but it does run Windows 7 smoothly enough (it is upgraded to 2 Gb RAM) but it is restricted to a resolution of 640 * 480 which is not great. Due to this limitation I turned back to Linux and currently run it on Linux Mint 13 with the XFCE desktop. It runs quickly enough for the tasks I need to use it for.
Now why would I go through all this hassle for a netbook which is now 5 years old? A couple of reasons:
1. I hate throwing out old kit. If I can reuse a piece of computer equipment I will. The Eeepc 701 still has life in her yet!!
2. Configuring routers and troubleshooting wifi issues. This is the mainstay for the eeepc 701. It is great for configuring routers on existing networks and troubleshooting wifi issues. As much as I love my Blackberry Playbook this is one area the netbook trumps it.
3. Sometimes I just want to type. Surfing the internet on a tablet is great but sometimes I just want to type instead of using a touchscreen keypad. Yes my Blackberry Playbook has a bluetooth keyboard which is great but it is not the same is it?
4. It is very portable, light and has very good battery life.
Now I could use a laptop but since I don’t own one I would have to go out and spend hundreds of pounds to get one. The eeepc 701 cost me £25. No contest is it?
Do you own one of these wonderful little machines?
About the Author
Hi I am Chris Wakefield the owner of ComTech IT Support. I provide Windows and Linux based IT Support, laptop repairs and computer repairs to both business and personal clients in and around Stirling.
For a list of what I can offer you why not visit my website www.comtech247.net where you will find a list of my services, testimonials, blog and much more.
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I actually got one of these out of Singapore – when they surfaced.
The machine is “very Limited” but not impossible, my wow experience came when i did apply Android to It, behold – it suddently became useful.
You are quite right, Linux and Terminals are good on this; mine has gone beyound “life and usage” – and has recently been replaced by the Acer Aspire i aquired a few years back (Atom and 2GB on Board) – which are not bad either.