TESTING....TESTING...Is this thing on?

In preparation for my trip to Las Vegas for the International RE/Max Convention (I leave in one week from today!), I treated myself to a new "toy" last night - an Eee PC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC

I got the cadillac version with all the bells and whistles and it was still only $400CDN!

Within minutes of taking it out of the box last night, I was surfing online via the wireless modem (I also discovered that there are at least 2 neighbours with wireless internet as I had 3 choices for logging on wirelessly).

At only 2 lbs and tiny enough to slip into my purse, I'm far more excited about taking this to vegas than the 50 lb toshiba ancient notebook we have at the office! This will also allow me now to take my Rebel camera as I can fit both in carry-on; something that was impossible when I was going to take the toshiba.

Although small, the keyboard is easy to navigate with only a small learning curve with respect to the function keys, which are sensible and clearly marked.

The touchpad is responsive and easy to use.

It has an integrated webcam, 2 stereo speakers built-in on either side of the 7" colour monitor which produce surprisingly good sound. There is also a jack for external speakers should you require fuller sound when you are gaming or watching movies.

There are ports for ethernet & phone connectivity, microphone & external speakers, 1 firewire port and 2 usb ports, a serial port for a monitor, should you feel you need a larger display, and a 7 in 1 flash card reader, which I'm going to test now.



Yes, it works. The webcam also works, but I'm not posting what it's seeing this morning. Scarma!

Overall, I'm immensely impressed with my purchase, which later today will have an upgrade to 2 gb internal memory and also has 8gb external via a compact flash card.

Kudos to the Eee PC; Easy to Learn, Easy to work, Easy to play!