Articles like this one really annoy me, especially when it is called a “cover feature” and no one puts their name to it. The title of the article is “Deals better than a $499 Eee PC” and is featured on pages 16 and 17 of the March 2008 APC magazine.

The interesting point before I start is that the subheading states “ASUS brilliantly marketed the Eee PC as a revolution in portability and price, and it’s selling like crazy. But, if you want a cheap notebook rather than a highly portable one, there are much better deals.” Ah, so I get it now, we are comparing full sized entry-level laptops to the Eee PC.

Reading the article, it appeared to me that it may be a “paid advertorial” however one or two truths regarding the Eee PC managed to make it into the article, all in the name of fairness of course. Here are just five quotes from the article that I will use to show how bizarre this article actually is:

“… we took one (Eee Pc) home to work with … it became obvious that the device has strengths but also plenty of weaknesses. Ironically, chief among its weaknesses was its price. Feature for feature, the Eee PC is not a good deal when compared to the cheapest entry-level notebooks on the market. The Eee PC’s outstanding quality is its portability. With inbuilt Wi-Fi and weighing only 0.92kg, it’s great for travelling and staying connected through wireless hotspots, bettering any PDA or exorbitantly expensive UMPC’s.”

OK. So we are comparing the Eee PC to the entry-level notebooks available, but one of the biggest advantages of the Eee PC has been mentioned - it beats using a PDA.

“… enthusiastically promoted by ASUS as ideal for people wanting a bargain notebook for themselves or their kids. And this is where the Eee PC doesn’t hack it. With it’s tiny screen, cramped keyboard, insignificant storage and poor battery life, it’s up against proper notebooks costing just $100 more. But this was probably far from the minds of those who rushed out to buy one with that sub-$500 price flashing in their eyes.”

Ah no. I’m pretty sure most people bought an Eee PC because they were tired of using PDAs, especially when most PDAs cost more than the Eee PC. Some people may have bought one because they were tired of carrying a heavy notebook to write documents, read ebooks and surf the web. Sure, the Eee PC has only a 4GB SSD drive on board and the keyboard is kinda small, but you get used to it. It seems though that this article writer/s have never heard of using the SD card slot or a ‘new technology’ called external USB storage to expand storage capacity or add on an external CD/DVD drive? How about the fact that the usage of the SSD removes all of the consistant ‘whine’ that is made when hard drives spin? But, I detect the ‘paid Eee bashing’ starting.

“Henry Lee is Acer senior product manager for retail notebooks. His $749 Acer Aspire 5315 notebooks costs just $100 more than the Eee PC thanks to Acer’s $149 cash back scheme. The Acer notebook recently won an APC Editor’s Choice Award for being a great-value entry-level notebook. For $100 more than the Eee PC, it’s a full notebook with Vista, a hard drive and DVD burner.”

Well, well. What a generous offer - and fancy this laptop winning an editors choice award and then featuring all through this article. Do I trust these editors choice awards anymore? And please, do not use Vista as an arguement to get something - Windows XP sales are going nuts since Vista was released.

“Screen size. The Eee PC’s screen is Lilliputian, just 7in a native resolution of 800×480. It comes as a disappointment when you realize the 7in screen doesn’t fill the 10in space that’s available on the machine. The 7in screen is surrounded by a black bezel that takes up the spare space.”

This quote made me laugh out loud. The first quote I provided from this article stated that “it’s outstanding quality is it’s portablity”, yet it bashes it’s screen size? I am also starting to wonder if the writer/s even used an Eee PC before writing this - the ‘bezel around the screen’ actually contains a pair of stereo speakers, a backlight and an inbuilt 0.3 MP webcam. Plus, for everyone who has used a PDA and Windows Mobile knows that screen widths of 360/480 pixels wide is far more ‘Lilliputian’ than 800 pixels wide.

“Battery Life. Given it’s small size and flash drive, we really expected the Eee PC’s battery to last several hours. So we were disappointed when the little machine ran out of puff after three hours, putting it on par with the big Acer Aspire 5315, which powers a massively bigger screen, hard disk and a Vista OS.”

OK. Let compare lemons with oranges shall we? Seriously, let’s compare the number of cells, amp ratings and battery life times of these two machines using the publically available battery specs of the Acer Aspire 5315 and the Eee PC.

• Acer Aspire 5315 - 6-cell, Li-Ion, 4000mAh: up to 3 hours battery life*


• Eee PC - 4-cell, Li-Ion, 5200 mAh: 3 h 30 min battery life

Well, the Eee PC has less cells, and therefore will recharge faster and be lighter. The published battery life of the Asus is UP TO 3 Hours with an asterix clause - meaning under certain conditions only. Storm in a teacup?

I have a subscription to APC and I am afraid if these kind of “cover features” continue I will be reviewing whether the subscription continues.

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