Eee-only?

September 20, 2008 7:50 PM

Could I use an Eee 1000 as my only PC?

I'd be getting the 10-inch 1000H, with XP Home and an 80Gb HDD.

Specifically, is it practical to watch DVDs on the move, via a bus-powered external US DVD drive? Or would that use so much power that the battery wouldn't last the length of a film?

And if I were to plug in an external monitor at home, what's the maximum resolution the Eee could output, via the VGA port? I've read various forum posts about changing Xandros config files, but nothing for XP.

posted by matthewr to computers & internet (6 comments total)

When I was thinking about getting an Eee 900, my reading of Eee forums revealed that they could be made to output 1920x1200 on an external monitor only with the aid of the third-party software "Powerstrip" on XP. Without this, the max is 1600x1200.

The Eee 901 and 1000 use the next iteration of intel integrated video (GMA 950 vs 900), so I'd assume it's also capable of this.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 8:57 PM on September 20, 2008

Specifically, is it practical to watch DVDs on the move, via a bus-powered external US DVD drive? Or would that use so much power that the battery wouldn't last the length of a film?

You'll notice the difference.
posted by Netzapper at 9:20 PM on September 20, 2008

I bought an EEE 1000h last month. I immediately put 2GB of RAM into it, and installed Ubuntu Linux, Mac OSX and Windows XP (triple boot).

I don't own another laptop or desktop, and it works really well for me.

I have a 22 inch widescreen LCD at home (1680x1050), which works fine in Linux. I've not gotten it work under Mac OSX yet, but I've not put much time into trying....

As for movies, I don't have an external DVD, but I do have an external HD, which I store movies/music on, and I can get 3+ hours of battery even when using it. It's just fine for airplane trips.

My only real complaint is that the CPU lacks a bit of oomph -- YouTube videos (or anything else using flash) leave a bit to be desired. Thus, I'll probably upgrade to a new machine in 6 months or so.. but at $400 for a laptop, who cares?
posted by genome4hire at 10:22 PM on September 20, 2008

I have an Eee 1000H. If would be far easier to rip DVDs to MPG than to tote around an external DVD, but I'm pretty sure you'd have enough battery life to watch a movie. I get 5+ hours on mine routinely in normal use. An external monitor set up via the VGA port will go all the way to 2048x1536, but I'm sure the refresh rate would suck. I've used it at 1600x1200 with no problem at all. The only thing that really bothers me about my Eee is that there is no way to turn off the touchpad. I use a mouse, and when you are typing a lot, the palm of your hand will brush across it and move the pointer. So I would add a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to the list of things to buy if you make this your only computer. Also, the 2 GB RAM upgrade is a must. You can ask any and all Eee questions in the forums here.
posted by Crotalus at 11:08 PM on September 20, 2008

Crotalus writes "The only thing that really bothers me about my Eee is that there is no way to turn off the touchpad."

The latest Asus linux drivers allow this; no idea about MS-Windows.
posted by orthogonality at 5:43 AM on September 21, 2008

I would add that unless you have very small hands, while using the Eee as your only PC is entirely possible, I don't think it's a great idea. The keyboard is really, REALLY small and over time, I'm concerned about strain injuries. I'm no kind of ergonomics freak, but even I know that the hand position for that keyboard is entirely unnatural.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:36 PM on September 21, 2008