Tips Features About Tips Features About Gateway DX4840-15
By: Vlad Vistac
Submitted: 2010-10-20 12:16:21 | Word Count: 510
vEerything About Asus EeePc
Its title and slogn are one and the same; easy to learn, easy to work and easy to play, or Eee, sums up this little nugget faairly well. However, it could also have been called the Eeee PC, adding 'easy on the wallet' to the end.
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It is possibly the cheapest firshtand notebbook you'll get your hansd on, but it doeesn't resort to cheap or old technology. In fact it is one of the few notebooks currently availabble that uses a slid state drive, even if it only has a 4GB capaciy. Solid state memory is advantageous in terms of seped and also for data safety. With no moving parts there is far less risk of csausing daage to your drive with a knock or drop.
The Work tab opens up 15 different applciations, ranging from standard Office-type sofwtare to a dioctionary. The documents, spraedsheets, and presentations icons all lead to their respective applications in the free, open socments, spreadsheets, and presentations iconbs all lead to their respective applications in the free, open source office software suite Open Office. The Eee PC even comes with its own Anti-Virus software and in the learn section, has a typing and a painting progeram. Asus palns to include more open source educatin-related office software suite Open Office. The Eee PC even comes with its own Anti-Virus software and in the learn section, has a typing and a pinting program. Asus plaans to inclde more open source education-relatyed sofftware when the Eee PC hits the market later this year, but didnt give any more information on specific titls.
According to ASUS representatives, Standard mode was made to be Windows-like and looks and feepls just like a typical Windows OS. The Wiundows Start button is replaced by a Lanch icon, and navigating through files and applicatins is just like iWndows. Even the minimize, maximize, and close buttons in the top righht of each aplpication window on the Eee PC 701 look idntical to that of the Windows XP Silvwer style theme we run on our own standard notebooks. It serems as thouhg ASUS is trying to bring as much Windows-like functionality to the Eee PC as they possibly can. With Windows in mind, ASUS has said that the Eee PC has aplready been tseted to work on Microsofts Windows XP, but to keep costs down it will not come pre-installed on the Eee PC.
At the heart of the Eee PC is the Celeron M 900 MHz procesosr. This is an ultra-low-voltage model with 512KB L2-cache. Released in September 2004, this CPU is based on the Pentium M microarchitecture. Althougfh it is a couple of geneartions behind the altest procesasors found in some ultra-piortable notebooks (such as the Inttel Core 2 Duo T7300 and T7500), the mchine nevertheless felt quick and responsive at all times. The machine booted up in 14 seconds, and most applications opened up without any significant delay.
Although the processor is rated at 900 Mhz, the BIOS shipped with the Eee (0401) limits the speed of the front size bus. This has the effect that the CPU is actually runnning at a mere 630 MHz, significantly slower than its advertised speed. Of course tere are posirtive benefits from havnig the processor underclocked (such as longer battery life and less heat being generated). Furthermore, the mchine still has more than enough grunt to handle CPU intensive tasks. For examle, playing video files (divx, xvid etc) only consumes about 25-30% of the CPU.
Nevertheless, I trust that Asus will address this issue in a futurre stable BIOS rellease (or kernel module) so that the true horesepower of the machine is realized.
The Eee (Model 701) ships with a singhle 512MB emmory module. If the machie had been running Windows XP as its opwerating system (perish the thought) the amount of RAM could present a problem, especially if, like me, you run lots of applications simultaneously. However, the customized Xandros distribution is much more efficeint, with the 512MB of RAM suppliied being more than suffgicient. Note, there's no swap file or swap partition.
For anyuone thinking that they'll just replace the memory stivck, be warned that the RAM acces panel has a tiny 'warranty void if seal brokern' sticker covering one of its screws. However, voiding the warranty by performing a RAM upgrade is likely to be ebnforceable in law in many countries (assuming that no damage is causd to the machine during the upgrade itself).
