NEW DELHI: Affordable computing is the latest buzzword. As millions of new users join the digital world and look to buy their first computing device, companies are pushing down the prices of laptops, netbooks, smartphones and tablets. The key is to carefully remove extra features to bring down the cost of a device, without affecting the basic functions. Asus claims it has done exactly the same with EEE PC X101H, a netbook. We test it to see if it satisfies those looking to buy their first computing device on the cheap.
Light and stylish
The design of X101H belies its price. It's all plastic but the build quality is surprisingly good. There are no creaking parts and no flexing. Barring the glossy bezel around the 10.1-inch screen and the portion around keys, rest of the plastic has a textured finish to it. This gives the netbook a premium and sturdy look. With thickness of just 22mm, X101H feels very compact. It weighs a tad over 1kg, making it very portable.
In terms of hardware, it is all standard affair. X101H is powered by Atom N455 processor. It's a single core processor – but with hyper-threading – and runs at 1.66Ghz. There is 1GB DDR3 RAM and 250 GB hard disk. Two USB ports (one on each side), 3.5mm jack, VGA port, 0.3MP webcam and LAN port complete the netbook in terms of features. As it is the case with all netbooks, there is no optical drive. The screen has a resolution of 1024×600 (16:9).
The keyboard and touchpad are two most important aspects of a netbook or laptop. On X101H, the performance and quality of keyboard is above average. The keys are soft and lack any sort of tactile feedback. But given the entry-level tag to the netbook, they are decent. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the touchpad. Mostly it's slow – enabling full acceleration in touchpad settings helps somewhat – and sometime frustratingly unresponsive.
Screen is another important component that can make or mar the user experience in a computing device. For a cheap netbook, X101H has a good screen. Brightness is adequate and colors look natural. Though view angles are quite poor.
The battery on X101H is rated at 2600 mAH. In our test, where we looped a video clip, it lasted for nearly three hours. In normal use, it was good for around five hours of use.
Let down by software
The secret behind X101H's low price is that Asus is using MeeGo, an operating software that Intel and Nokia were jointly developing until the beginning of this year, and not Windows for which companies have to pay to Microsoft. The result, in our opinion, is not good.
Let us explain. MeeGo, in the form that we encountered on X101H, is not ready for the prime time. Especially not on a netbook. While the interface, though basic, seems decent, the performance is very poor, most likely due to lack of optimization.
Navigating through various windows in MeeGo is sluggish. Web browsing and scrolling, especially once you have opened two or three websites, is slow. The device struggles to play Flash videos on the website like Vimeo. A large number of video files cannot be played because codecs are missing from the media player bundled with X101H.
Compounding the problem is the fact that unlike in the case of Windows, where you can replace the media player or browser if you face a problem, with MeeGo it's not that easy because apps are available for the OS. Asus has bundled an app store with X101H but it can hardly match the ecosystem offered by Windows. The lack of apps means that when it comes to usability, X101H falls short of our expectations.
Final words
EEE PC X101H is available at an MRP of Rs 12,449. It is also sold in combination with a Reliance Netconnect USB modem, where the user gets a discount or Rs 2,500 on internet charges. This effectively makes the price of the netbook Rs 9,999, a figure that Intel, Asus and Reliance recently termed "affordable" for anyone looking to buy a cheap netbook.
However, given the poor performance, price is of little significance here. As we implied in the beginning, even low-cost devices have to maintain a certain level of usability and performance. X101H fails here.
X101H has decent hardware and you can spend an additional few thousands rupee more and buy Windows 7 Basic for it. But then the netbook won't be costing Rs 9,999. Similarly, if you are tech savvy, you can replace MeeGo with a better and more mature version of Linux. But for the majority of users who are looking to buy their first computing device, we believe X101H will not be the right choice.