Asus Eee PC with Xandros vs. Windows XP review

Xandros is the Linux package that comes preinstalled on some Asus Eee Pc’s. Yes, we DO know that Xandros is old news – it has been the Linux OS of choice on Asus Eee PC from the beginning. But many people still are still strugling with the choice: Should I choose an Asus Eee PC with Linux/Xandros or Windows XP. So here is our take on the subject:

When you first power up an ASUS Eee PC you are asked to select a name and password and set up your profile. Initial impressions regarding the Xandros OS on Asus Eee PC are that it appears very user-friendly with its tabbed navigation but it also suffers from text and icons that are overly large thereby giving you the feeling that you are dealing with a children’s toy rather than a serious machine. Performance is good and the 1.6 GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB RAM, and 20GB SSD that you will find on many Asus Eee PC models provide a smooth user experience.

Unfortunately, after playing with the Xandros OS on my Asus Eee PC  for a while, a number of annoyances come up. Occasionally, when you shut the system down, Asus Eee PC  fails to actually turn off and you are forced to shut it down manually by pressing the power button on your Eee PC. When using the Asus Eee PC’s touchpad, the mouse cursor will sometimes jump around for no apparent reason. Furthermore, the Asus Eee PCs  webcam as well as Bluetooth are disabled by default on Xandros and you have to dig around a bit to enable them, which might prove a little difficult for inexperienced users.

The aforementioned problems are not show-stoppers but they do mar the user experience of Asus Eee PC with Xandros Linux somewhat. It appears that these problems are due to the choice of operating system instead of the Eee PC’s hardware. The upsite of Xandros is that is is easy to use and are lighter than Windows system. The downsides have already been mentioned. As a result buyers might want to look at getting an Eee PC with Windows XP which most users know already – or installing another distribution of Linux such as the popular Ubuntu. There are several guides for this and it should be fairly easy.