Asus S101 Eee PC review

Eee PC gets pimped

Blindingly obvious upon first sight, the Eee PC S101 from ASUS is a world apart from the previous Fisher Price-esque models.

Aimed at the executives amongst us, the S101 netbook looks and feels more similar to the ASUS U6 ultraportable laptop than other Eee PC netbooks. Contrary to other Eee PCs however, you won't find a bulky battery poking out from the back, with the 4-cell pack hiding in the base of the machine an instant relief for the user.

Weighing in at 1.1kg, you've definitely carted heavier laptops in your lifetime, but with a 4-hour battery life, it'll definitely make your previous machine pale in comparison. And it's a netbook, if we haven't drummed that in enough yet! It measures 25mm at its thickest point, making it the thinnest Eee so far. Bet it's got some killer diet secrets.

Glossy on the lid, and with brushed metal on the palm rests, the chrome trim on the edge of the netbook and hinge truly is the buttercream icing on top.

Brighter than your average fresh-faced Hollywood starlet, the LED display measures 10.2-inches with a 1024 x 600-pixel resolution, and the screen backlit can be switched off whenever the need arises. Crammed into the high-gloss casing, an integrated Intel GMA 950 chipset handles all those difficult challenges well, like running a browser, MS Paint and Skype all at once. Oy.

Never has typing on an Eee being so comfortable, with the keys being well built and firmly mounted, and 95 per cent full size. Trust us, this matters hugely, particularly to a normal-sized human who doesn't have elf-like hands like the previous Eees demanded. The touchpad is just as impressive, a good size and it responded well. There is a single-strip mouse button that has dual-click functions and while it's a bit on the smaller side of life, we're giving it a solid thumbs-up.

Storage is as you'd expect, the 16GB solid state drive is supported by a 16GB memory card you can throw into the SDHC card slot, ramping it up to 32GB in total. Windows XP is the operating system we tested it on, and we found it loaded quickly and ran smoothly.

Pricier than any other Eee seen before, the £449 is entirely justified due to the premium materials and smooth processing power. This is definitely the best netbook on the market, and worth spending next month's rent money on.

User Comments

By matt3568

18|10|2008 17:18

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