Asus Eee PC S101 – Is Brown the new Black?

In the immortal words of Waynetta Slob “I don’t like Brown”

Well that has all changed with the introduction of the beautiful Eee PC S101.

Asus have really pushed the boat out with their flagship Eee PC.  This machine is firmly targeted at the fashion conscious business user and is out to take on the top end of the netbook market as well as the more expensive sub notebooks such as the Sony Vaio TT range.

Take our word for it that this  machine certainly has the appropriate vital statistics but the question is for over £400 is it a Jordan or an Elle McPherson?

The glossy lid is chocolate brown with silver strips along the edges and believe it or not swarovski crystals on the end of each hinge.

We are prepared to admit that this sounds very tacky indeed but it really works and helps to make the Eee PC S101 look very special indeed.

The S101 has been created in a new chassis and gives it diminutive dimensions of 266 mm x 191 mm x 29 mm. The S101 also tips the scales at just 1.06kg.

One of the benefits of a 10.2 Inch display is the space for a fantastic keyboard which we would happy to use all day long.

The Eee PC S101 sports 3 USB ports as well as The SD/MMC memory card reader, D-Sub video output and an ethernet port.

Connectivity is as you would expect with wireless 802.11 b/g/n and bluetooth.

Sadly there is no HDSPA modem so if you want mobile broadband then you’ll need a dongle.  We would really have liked to see built in 3G for this money and it would have rounded off an otherwise superb package.

The nuts and bolts are standard netbook fare with the Intel Atom N270 running at 1.6Ghz, 1Gb of DDR 2 RAM and a 16Gb solid State Hard Drive.

The storage could get a little confusing at this point as you will see it with an advertised 52Gb of storage.

To satisfy the terms of Microsoft’s reduced cost Windows XP license the SSD has been restricted to 16Gb with a further 16Gb available on a High Capacity SD card. Asus are also providing 20Gb of free online storage making the 52Gb total.

The 10.2 Inch screen delivers a 1024×600 pixel resolution and pleasingly has a matt rather than glossy finish so you stand a fighting chance of using it outside.  The screen bezel houses a 0.3 megapixel webcam.

The Eee PC S101 ships with Windows XP Home as previously mentioned and there is currently no Linux version available.

The S101 performs in very similar fashion to other Asus Atom powered netbooks and you can comfortably watch 720p High definition video on it.

Don’t be too swept away by the claim of 5+ hours battery life.

In real world use the 4900mah battery delivers more like 3 and a half hours use.

You can buy this high art netbook for under £450.

Overall we like the Eee PC S101 very much indeed. If it had built in 3G internet access then we would be shouting from the rooftops.

However if you are after a quality netbook and you like a bit of bling then this most certainly is the netbook for you.

We can’t quite bring ourselves to recommend it over the Samsung NC10 which is still our favourite. The NC10 has a similar specification and 160Gb hard disk drive for just £310.  True the NC10 isn’t nearly as good looking as the S101 but for £100 less we can live with it!