So, aside from minor annoyances like low battery life and certain keys that require a lot of prodding to work properly, it turns out the Asus eee PC has a MAJOR GLARING DESIGN FLAW that is causing me a lot of headaches.
The SSD harddrive has only about 12 gigs of space, which for some reason is split into multiple drives (NICE WORK ASUS!) The C drive has 3.8 gigabytes of space, which is just a bit cramped. Especially when the first Windows updates kicks in and begins rapidly filling up the entire drive with useless security updates. I was just browsing the net last night when all of a sudden the machine started whirring, and a few minutes later a bubble popped up warning me I had low harddrive space.
Googling the problem on my home computer reveals that this is apparently a widespread problem. The solution is to turn off Windows automatic updates and just never fucking update the thing. Putting aside the additional problems this raises, even after I turned the automatic updater off, the stuff it had already downloaded was still on there. I went through Add/Remove programs and got rid of all the most recent updates, but that only pulled me back up to about 650 MB of free space on the C drive.
Evidently there’s still a massive number of pointless update files lurking away in the depths of the computer, and I have no idea how to reach them or remove them. Even if I can, I’m questioning how useful a computer with only 3.8 gigs of C drive space is going to be, and I’m considering taking this back to the store and exchanging it for the 80 gig HD model. Hopefully the customer rule I have learned at Coles (complain long enough and hard enough and you’ll get what you want) also applies to expensive electronics.
6 comments
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December 5, 2008 at 3:07 pm
chris
you totally should have shopped around longer… and something that small and cheap wasnt exatly going to be that good.
i didnt wanna make you sad :( so i didnt say anything
December 6, 2008 at 12:31 am
sunrise089
Scarecrow,
How much cheaper is the EeePC in Aussie land than a low-end full-size laptop?
December 6, 2008 at 9:27 am
Smileyfax
Oh man, the second computer we ever owned had a 3 GB HD. Ah, the halcyon days before broadband and huge-ass games, when 3 GB was actually quite a lot.
December 6, 2008 at 5:05 pm
grubstreethack
eeePC – $500
Most notebooks – $500 to $1000
Most laptops – $1000 to $2000
Impulse buying – priceless
December 7, 2008 at 12:39 am
sunrise089
“eeePC – $500
Most notebooks – $500 to $1000
Most laptops – $1000 to $2000”
We don’t make the distinction between “notebook” and “laptop” up here, the terms are used interchangeably. That said, up here the cheapest eeePC class ‘netbook’ costs about $100 less than the cheapest full-size notebook/laptop. I’m surprised you went with the ASUS without a price advantage.
December 9, 2008 at 3:49 pm
grubstreethack
Small size is a major advantage – necessity, even – since I intend to take this travelling.
That is a price advantage, anyway… it’s the cheapest one there.