When Asus came out with the EP121 Eee Slate with Windows 7 Home Premium and a Core i5 CPU, I thought to myself, “Maybe this is the Barry Bonds of tablet PCs that I have been looking for.” So I marched on down to my local Microsoft Store (yes, they do exist) and procured one for myself.

The Unboxing

In case you were curious, this is what Asus gives you in exchange for $1,200.00 (not including the Xbox 360). Yes, $1,200 is asking a lot considering one can get an iPad 2 for $499 or a Motorola XOOM for $199, but once again: I wanted a tablet that could hit 600 home runs in a season and bench press an entire church choir.

As the picture above shows us, besides the standard power supply Asus also supplies a Microsoft 6000 Bluetooth keyboard, a digital stylus pen with spare nibs (or in layman’s terms, the little plastic tip on the stylus pen that touches the screen), and a leather carrying case/easel to secure/prop-up the tablet PC for any level of ergonomic usage. All in all, plenty of accessories to get one’s tablet usage to a pleasant rolling start.

Hardware

The Asus EP121 is a 12.1” tablet with two USB 2.0 ports, a mini HDMI port, a 2 megapixel webcam, a headphone jack, a power button a virtual keyboard toggle button, an SD card reader slot, and a little hole to manually reset the device. The screen is a capacitive LED multi-touch 1280 x 800 display that works with both a pen and a human finger. Overall, the device weighs about 2.56 pounds, or rather the equivalent weight of a half-gallon of milk (if that helps at all). If one is concerned with lap burn from the device, be at ease. The device runs pleasingly cool and can be held for extended periods of time without any notion of heat transfer.

On the inside, the EP121 contains an Intel quad-core i5 CPU at 1.33 GHz, with the potential to be overclocked up to 1.86 GHz (if one is willing to tweak it). This CPU combined with the 4 GB of DDR3 RAM allows the EP121 to run Windows 7 at impressive speeds, allowing a cold boot to occur in 8-12 seconds (boot times may vary). The SSD hard drive allows for fast file accessing and writing, but is limited to 64 GB in size; those of us who want to store our 360,000 pictures of dogs in silly costumes might have to split our photo storage with an external device. Oh, and it has an integrated graphics card as well, which can easily handle some of the videogames out on the market today (I’ve heard that Civilization 5 works well with this tablet’s touch interface).

The battery is a 4 cell lithium-ion 34 W/h module that can be fully charged in less than 8 hours. Of course, the smaller battery combined with the beefy hardware mean that this guy has a short lifespan: about three hours to be exact. But really, when you’re dealing with high-powered internal components running a full-blown operating system like Windows 7, one cannot entirely complain. It’s a major drawback, but easy to overcome by just bringing the power cable along.

Software

The EP121 is running a 64-Bit Windows 7 Home-Premium with Wacom tablet digitizer software to allow one’s finger to do all sorts of beautiful touching and multi-touching. With that in mind, though, it is clear that Windows 7 was not designed specifically for tablets in mind, since finger touches to small check boxes and drop down menus can take a few hits to select. This of course can be solved by trying to recalibrate the screen or by using the stylus, but it would be nice to have more precision already there. To speed up one’s touch usage, I highly recommend learning the “flicks” touchscreen shortcuts that Windows 7 uses to move forward, backward, up, and down a page.

Using standard applications with the touch-based operating system seemed fine, and really the only issues I found was Chrome and Firefox do not allow for finger scrolling on webpages. After some digging a solution was found (more specifically, see: Chrometouch and Grab and Drag for Firefox).

For the graphic artists out there, the RAM and CPU of this tablet more than satisfy the performance beasts known as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, and to date I have seen no issues working with them. The stylus pen does wonders for photo editing and graphics design, and when paired with the Bluetooth keyboard makes editing fast and precise.

The virtual keyboard included with Windows 7 is quite user-friendly and reliable. I have seen instances where the virtual keyboard will be stubborn and not appear when summoned, but fortunately that can be remedied by pressing the physical “keyboard” button on the top of the device. I also have seen issues with the physical Bluetooth keyboard being unresponsive with the EP121’s Bluetooth module, but it is a rare occurrence. Besides that, both methods provide ample QWERTY goodness and enhance the overall non-laptop experience.

If you prefer to actually write out everything, the handwriting tool built into the virtual keyboard can be used as well. I was surprised that it could figure out my abominable chicken-scratch handwriting and convert my written words to text – a nice bonus to the text input options.

A step above the simple handwriting interface is the Microsoft application called OneNote, which comes extremely in handy for scribbling notes and collecting thoughts. When linked to your Windows Live account, these virtual notes and scribbles can be pushed into the cloud for continual availability to revise and update. With OneNote, the EP121 goes beyond the realm of a computer to become a notebook, a stetchbook, and even to-do list.

Conclusion

So did the Asus EP121 with its massive CPU and RAM power and full Windows 7 touch capabilities live up to my figurative steroid enhancing expectations? The short answer is absolutely yes. Its fast, touch-friendly, and perfect for doing just about anything tablet related.

The long answer? Yes it is a fantastic tablet, but that honor comes with a signature “Barry Bonds Hall of Fame Asterisk” attached. If one looks at the current state of the Windows 7 based tablet PC market (which according to a Newegg search contains a total of five other competitors, none of which have an i5 Processor, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, or a 64-bit architecture), the over-powered Asus EP121 obviously stands out in its class. But that is like trying to argue that a middle school boy who hit puberty before his classmates is the best hitter in baseball. So what I’m trying to get at is this: until a slew of newer, higher performance tablets enter the market (which will most likely happen with the eventual release of the tablet friendly Windows 8), it is hard to say if the EP121 is truly the best.

But until that day comes, I’d just go with my short answer.

The post The Asus Eee Slate with Windows 7: A Tablet Computer on Steroids first appeared on Techerator.

With the hugely successful release of the Asus Transformer and a great lineup of laptops, Asus is truly stepping it up this year, and definitely living up to its motto “Inspiring Innovation. Persistent Perfection.”.  And the Asus EeePC X101 is no exception.

What a brilliant piece of hardware engineering! This is the first netbook I have ever used that has truly intrigued me. It’s incredible thinness (17.6mm!) and featherweight design is unbelievable. The battery life is awesome (4-7hrs). The keyboard is actually very usable (I am typing this article entirely with the X101), the processor is snappy (latest Intel Atom), and the white color and textured cover take it to the next level.

I can finally walk into a room and impress people with this netbook. The hardware is so sleek, so smooth, and so refined.

But there is one downfall.

As you probably noticed, I haven’t talked about the software yet. The Asus X101 I am using comes pre-installed with MeeGo, a Linux operating system first developed by Nokia. Don’t get me wrong, the idea behind MeeGo is great, build a lightweight Linux operating system for netbooks that utilizes a simplified interface for more productivity on a smaller screen. The real problem, as in most failing OS’s, is the support. Nobody makes applications for MeeGo because it’s not widely used. Asus has attempted to fix this by having an “app store,” but so far I have yet to see any productive software available aside from what comes pre-installed.

Even with the different problems in the OS, the social integration is great. It actually includes a Twitter and Facebook app that generates a feed for you that is really nice. OpenOffice is installed as well, which gives you the ability to do just about anything you’d do in Windows. And Chromium is always great, so the software isn’t unusable, it’s just not future-friendly.

And that brings me to another point. Asus did a great job making sure the pre-installed software did what 95% of people do with computers; browsing and word processing. On this front, Chromium, the open-source browser on which Google Chrome is built, is the only pre-installed browser and does a great job utilizing the small 10.1 inch screen. Tabs are minimal and there is no utility bar taking up extra space.

The post First Look at the Asus EeePC X101 – MeeGo or NoGo? first appeared on Techerator.

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Asus makes all kinds of laptops. Sometimes it’s hard to even know which model is what with the number-based naming scheme. But, I believe that I am using a laptop that is noteworthy in its design and usability, the Asus K53E-A1. The more I use this laptop, the more I enjoy it.

Running Chrome, playing Minecraft, streaming Netflix, and watching YouTube are all great and flawless experiences on the K53E. As a browsing and media-consuming laptop, the Asus K53E is great. Just don’t plan on going unplugged for long, as the battery life is about 3-4 hours.

Asus seems to love the new brown look. Many of the newer laptops by Asus, the Transformer tablet with Android, and now the K53E-A1 laptop all have options in this color. The brown is a great color and a fresh take on the usual “black” electronics. The aluminum on the upper side of the body is also a great touch and gives the laptop a richer feel.

As a “daily driver” work laptop, I am very happy with the K53E. The keyboard is Asus’s chiclet style, which I love. It is easy and responsive to type with, and it even fits in a nice number pad. I use Google Docs as much as possible, using all the features including Google Draw, which I find exceptionally pleasing because of the incredible Asus touch-pad. Multi-touch functions work great, scrolling is smooth even horizontally. It’s great to finally start seeing touch-pads that compete with Apple’s.

This model includes the Intel CORE i3 processor running at 2.10Ghz,  a 500Gb hard drive, 4Gb of ram, a 15.6″ HD screen, and a full size keyboard with num pad. Even with all these features, this laptop sells for just under $600 on Amazon. It comes with Windows 7 Home Premium and the usual Asus software including Asus Web Storage which can be very useful if you store a huge amount of data at home and want to take it anywhere with this laptop.

If you are a student looking to get a great laptop for school, someone looking for a good browsing laptop for a good price, or a business person looking to have a comfortably sized laptop, the Asus K53E is a great choice. Just be prepared to have an extra battery on those long trips.

The post Review: Asus K53E-A1 Laptop Review – 15.6″ Brown Beauty first appeared on Techerator.

Asus Eee PC 900A

Although the SSD is large enough to run the included Xandros Linux operating system, you may find yourself running into storage space limitations if you install a mainstream flavor of Linux.  (Note: I am focusing on Linux because the 4 GB SSD is nowhere near enough space for any Windows version after Windows XP.)

A great way to add storage space at a low cost is to take advantage of the removable card slot on the 900A by purchasing an SDHC card like this 16 GB SDHC card.

Once you have inserted the card into the card reader you can install your chosen Linux distro.  Since the 900A does not have an optical drive, you’ll have to install Linux from a USB flash drive.  When installing the OS on this system, it is important to have a good partitioning scheme otherwise your netbook may experience performance issues due to the decreased transfer speed of the SDHC slot.

I have found that the partition scheme described below works quite well for both the Fedora and Ubuntu Linux distros.

Partition Scheme Explanation

/boot

• It is common practice to place the boot partition at the beginning of the first drive.  100 MB is enough space for the boot loader and the Linux kernel. I recommend using the ext3 file system for this partition because the GRUB boot loader could experience compatability problems with the newer ext4 file system.

/usr

• This is the Linux equivalent of Program Files in the Windows OS.  Placing /usr on the faster SSD will greatly increase system performance.  3.9 GB could be a restriction but it is unlikely considering the few applications that are commonly used on a netbook.  The ext4 file system is used since its read and write speeds are greatly increased over ext3.

/

• The rest of the OS file system will remain here.  Since the “Program Files” of the Linux OS are on the /usr partition, mostly small text and configuration files remain and are easily accessed on the SDHC card.  Ext4 is used for root due to its increased read and write speeds.

swap

• You’d think that since swap space is the use of the physical disk space as extra RAM, that you would want to place it on the faster drive.  While I do agree with this practice, I believe that in the case of a netbook is different.  The 900A comes with 1 GB of RAM.  If you are using more than 1 GB of RAM on a netbook, you probably have too many programs open or are using the system too hard.  It is important to have swap space available to Linux in the case you do use all of the available RAM to prevent a hard system crash.

I have been using the above partition scheme on my Asus Eee PC 900A using Fedora for a few months now and have not experienced any problems.  My partition scheme is only one of the many possible.

What do you think of this configuration?  Have you tried other partition configurations?  Let us know by commenting below.

The post EeePC 900A: Add More Hard Drive Space with a SDHC Card first appeared on Techerator.