Welcome to the Eee: My computer just got downsized

Since the Linux model isn’t sold in stores, and the Windows model is supposed to arrive about now but reports are mixed about its actual availability at Best Buy (brick and mortar, anyway), I’m starting up a little section here devoted especially to the Eee, because I feel this is where computers are headed.

If you’ve been reading technology news the past two years, you know that the One Laptop Per Child XO Laptop, the Intel Classmate PC, and the Macbook Air have been a lot of the exciting developments in the area of home computing and/or education. Computer use recently has grown more and more dependent on the internet. These days, with Firefox (or another web browser), you can do your taxes, organize photos, listen to music, share documents, shop, connect with friends and family, get directions, buy concert tickets… you get the point (and so do computer manufacturers). The traveling internet appliance has arrived and are even starting to earn the nickname netbook.

Well, I’ve been eyeing these “netbooks” for a while now, and the Macbook Air is just too far out of my price range, and I’d been hearing good things about the Eee for months (the fact that it has Linux preinstalled on it didn’t hurt for me either as a selling point). After reading literally hundreds of reviews of it (blogs, videos, user comments, tech news articles), I took the plunge and got myself a Xandros-preloaded Eee PC, and I don’t regret it. More details later, but for now just know that it is cute, visually stunning, and does what it’s supposed to (email, web browsing, web camming, Skype, IM, word processing, time-wasting games, music management, photo editing) and in a very, very small package.