Asus Eee Note EA800 Review

Asus Eee Note EA800: Conclusion

We've still come to appreciate the Eee Note EA800, despite its shortcomings. While not the most attractive tablet device we've ever seen with its relatively chunky bezel, it's still very solidly built and the rounded edged, brushed aluminium feels lovely. At the very least it's also completely functional: the buttons, the icons, the inner features all do their jobs as expected.

While the Eee Note is quite diverse in function, this diversity is double edged. With features people start comparing it to fully fledged tablets like the iPad or Galaxy Tab, which it clearly isn't designed to be. It's also 'a notepad that also acts as an eReader', yet the lack of dedicated eBook service makes it no Kindle either.

Despite our initial impressions that this is a market focused device, it's actually made itself into an awkward middle ground where it's only really great at recording handwriting input with a list of 'can dos' on top. It has a lot of nice features, but all of them need more work. The display needs more contrast; customers will expect colour; it needs a far better webcam; a better WiFi aerial; a better microphone; and ultimately a faster CPU and more memory to cope with these extra needs.

Yes, we want those things, but all that costs money, which, for a niche device, people won't be prepared to pay for. The Eee Note is stuck in this middle ground.


As we said above, for all those extra features though, they at least still work, and they either just demand a bit of patience or understanding of the limitations. It's at least very accurate at recording any scribbles, so it's great for students whose course involves something other than just reams of text, and if you get into the habit of tagging notes and syncing them with Evernote it's easy to find them later on, plus, you'll never lose them after the inevitable stagger home from the student bar.

We found ourselves wanting more space too! Both of these are from personal experience I might add: while an A5 sized 8in 'jotterpad' size is good for a journalists brain dump during meetings, for students A4 is more appropriate to spread notes, equations and drawings out.

The Eee Note certainly won't be a tablet for most people and even though we've come away weighing towards the positive, we'd still be hesitant to recommend a purchase even if you're interested. Because it's unfamiliar; because of the learning curve; because it needs to fit in with your writing habits; definitely try one out before you buy.

• Performance
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 6/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

Score Guide