Best apps for an Eee PC running XP?
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Coffee + tech + travel = happy
APC staff
12 posts
Posted: 22/03/2008 2:03 AM
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I've been playing with the new Windows XP version of Asus' mighty mite Eee PC (there's a full review up on the site somewhere) and showed it to a friend who's been keen on getting one, but she would rather have XP than Linux. (Please, can we have no rants from the Penguinistas on this? She's a mainstream consumer user, she knows XP so it's all easy and familiar, there's zero learning curve.).
So she's pretty stoked that the Eee PC can now be bought with XP. But what's hit me is that with only a 4GB hard drive (of which 2GB is taken up by the OS), 512MB of RAM (although I'll encourage her to have this upgraded to 1GB) and a 600MHz ULV Celeron M (it's actually 900MHz but Asus underclocks it at the factory to extend battery life) -- well, you really need to think a little different about the software to load onto it. On a regular notebook or desktop with a bigger hard drive, faster processor and likely more RAM, you don't need to think quite as carefully when choosing an application as on the Eee PC. On the Eee PC you still want decent functionality but minimal footprint on the hard drive and system resources. And of course, as this is a sub-$600 machine, it'd be nice if the software was freeware rather than commercial - would be odd to tell her she needs to pay more for all of her software than for the whole bloody laptop!
So with those parameters in mind, does anyone have suggestions as to the 'best' (ie, most appropriate) XP apps and utilities for an Eee PC?
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Technical Editor
APC staff
40 posts
Posted: 25/03/2008 11:03 AM
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I've been thinking about this specifically. Personally, I think this is going to spawn a new genre of software to work with these ultra-portable, low power, low cost machines, where traditional huge apps and suites aren't going to cut it.
Hopefully, this isn't going to be a primary work machine for your friend, so she's more likely to jot notes than write war and peace.
If that's the case use Notepad++ which is a very fancified (and powerful) version of Notepad. (Mainly redesigned for programmers, but general users like it too).
Communications software are mostly all free, like Pidgin for instant messaging, Thunderbird for email.
For entertainment, there's endless amounts of casual games that would work well on something like the EEE. Think Popcap or Puzzle Quest, but they do cost some money.
For media playback, hunt down Media Player Classic or VLC, it's got very little overhead where Windows Media Player 11 might bring the EEE to it's knobbly knees.
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New user
59 posts
Posted: 20/07/2008 3:07 PM
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From my use the Eee is a very capable machine and one of my friends has thrown everything at and it is relatively fast performing well in games, admitedly older ones such as Warcraft III but and performing well in demanding apps such as CS3. As long as you have a large USB Falsh Drive of SDHC card >4GB, there should be no problems with running any programs on the Eee.
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