HotHardware Interview on Asus Eee PC

The new Asus Eee PC has been released to many positive reviews and great consumer interest. A streamlined and customized Xandros and KDE interface combines with other free software applications, a slim form factor and an attractive price point. HotHardware.com was one of the very first sites to review the Asus Eee and report back on this new device. Read on for an interview with Editor-in-Chief Dave Altavilla and his thoughts on the Asus Eee PC and its value proposition.

Please give us the history behind HotHardware.com. (Reasons for site creation, etc).

That's a fairly loaded question there Wade but I'll try to be brief. HotHardware.com has been in existence now for over 8 years. My vision was fairly clear from the beginning but certainly has evolved over the years a bit to what we're all about today. In the early stages, I felt passionate about computing technologies (like many of our readers of course) and in a general sense have always loved the creative writing process. Mix these two interests together and you have the makings of a Tech Journalist I guess. In these earlier days of the net, things were just ramping up so it took a while before some of the major OEMs saw the value of Web Media. Our industry has come a long way since then; from our initial classification of being considered just "early adopters" and "enthusiasts", to now what many major OEMs consider as valuable trend-setters and critical "user expert" feedback resources, in addition to being very influential members of the press.

About a year into it I met my good friend and now Managing Editor of our site (aka the Backbone of HH), Marco Chiappetta. With Marco on board we gained what I would call critical mass and it has been upward and onward ever since. We're currently one of the top sites in our field and are on virtually every major first-round product launch roll-out to the press with all of the top-tier OEMs and board partners. In short, life is pretty good!

How does HotHardware differ from other hardware sites on the web?

We try to walk our talk, so to speak, to the best of our ability. We position ourselves at a consumer-targeted site, whether you consider the enthusiast, novice or IT Professional looking for valuable input. Of course, since you can't be all things to all people, we try our best to take the middle ground and appeal to the broadest scope of the available readership in our industry as possible.

As such, we offer detailed analysis and evaluation of leading-edge products and technologies in computing and adjacent markets, in what we like to think is cleanly presented, easily digestible chunks. That is to say that on HotHardware, you will not see a horrendously long, over-the-top with technical drivel style article, nor will you see what is essentially a regurgitation of marketing hype that amounts to nothing more than a fluffy commercial. Instead we strive to offer our readers a down-to-earth, professional perspective on the "out of the box" experience with any given product or technology. OK, so this thing has 2X the memory bandwidth and 4 times the processing horsepower, so what does that mean to the reader? We try to be very clear on the "moral of the story" and not stray too far into minutia but at the same time provide thorough coverage of the salient points, good or bad, of each product. We also try to hit this watermark in our breaking industry news content as well.

Who are the typical readers and forum posters for HotHardware?

Out audience is made up of Computing Enthusiasts, early adopters of tech products and IT professionals. We also have a fair number of computer newbies that come to our site to learn a few tricks and possibly get assistance on upgrade suggestions and other buying decisions.

Are hardware enthusiasts more likely to have an interest in different operating systems and software?

Absolutely, these people are not afraid to get down and dirty with their setups. If there's a perceived advantage to a new part of their total system solution, they're going to investigate it and prove it out. We have lots of readers that run dual boot setups of Windows and Linux packages.

HotHardware.com recently reviewed the new Asus Eee PC. Can you summarize your findings?

The Asus Eee PC is a breakout product in many ways. First, of course it's a highly portable PC that has many of the significant capabilities of a full sized notebook. It has the form factor of a UMPC, with the usability of and functionality of a much more substantial machine.

In addition, the Linux-loaded version we tested has such an amazing complement of software applications, that you get the feeling the machine has all you need to utilize it to the fullest of its capabilities. It's stable, highly functional and perfect for people on the go, students, or even as a first kid's PC. I think moving forward the product will see some explosive growth in the end user community, especially with the open source crowd and modders that will do some impressive things with it. There's a Windows XP capable version in the works as well, so we're told.

In the review, you wrote "this product has been easily the most researched and searched-upon product in the HotHardware.com content database in many years." Why do you think people have been so interested and intrigued about this product in particular?

Well, primarily because it's an ultra low-cost, ultra-portable PC that comes with a ton of software pre-installed. It's a full-up computing platform at a killer price-point. It also appeals to many user types, from professionals looking for an unobtrusive machine to take notes on in a meeting, to kids in grade school learning the ropes for the first time on a PC.

How does the Asus Eee compare to the OLPC XO-1 notebook or the Intel ClassMate PC? How do the different target markets for these devices reflect in their respective hardware and software choices?

This is definitely an interesting and debatable topic. From my early perspective, to me the XO-1 definitely caters more directly to children. That's no surprise obviously, since that's the whole premise of the OLPC program. The Intel Classmate is similar in this regard, however it's much more a kin to the Eee PC, architecturally with respect to motherboard and processor design which, like the Eee PC, is an Intel Mobile Celeron design. Regardless, comparatively, the XO-1 and Classmate PC look and feel much more toy-like versus what Asus built, which is essentially a classic, sleek design of an ultra-portable notebook. The Eee PC should have much more broad-market appeal as a result.

With lower and lower price points on devices like these, is freely available software becoming more important from an economic standpoint?

I think so. At least it should be. The pre-installed Open Office, Firefox and other open source software products that are on the Eee PC, are a huge advantage for the system. Integrating all that functionality for free should offer much more competitive price points when you consider the entire package and bundle being purchased.

In the case of the OLPC XO-1 notebook and the Intel Classmate PC, how important is it that the software is free from a philosophical standpoint?

I don't know about philosophies but both of those systems are budget PCs target to kids and need to be very cost efficient solutions over all. Parents, schools etc don't want to have to worry about buying and loading up additional software to get their children up and fully functional on the machines. Obviously, it would be pretty pointless if either OLPC or Intel were to develop a machine that would have a total cost of ownership somewhat higher than the initial price tag. Again, for kids in third-world countries, the primary target market for these machines, you need a shrink-wrapped total solution with as little configuration and optional purchases required as possible. It's common sense really.

Simplified desktop UIs are nothing new. How does the Asus Eee succeed and how does KDE play a part in that success?

To be perfectly honest, I'm not an expert user by any stretch of the imagination, when it comes to Linux interfaces and distros. The experience I had with the Eee PC was fairly "pure" in that I was looking at the machine with a fresh, somewhat novice end-user perspective. I mean we've tested literally thousands of systems, notebook and mobile devices at HotHardware, most all of which were configured to run a Windows operating system of some sort.

As such, we're VERY comfortable and fluid power users with Windows OS setups, so a KDE-based interface running Linux was a bit of a departure for us. In this regard, on a certain level, we could have been very harsh critics about the OS configuration, its performance and functionality on the Asus Eee PC. Regardless, we were all very impressed with the streamlined, easily navigable KDE-based UI. In fact, it all seemed very natural and super intuitive. KDE and Asus developed the OS specifically for the Eee PC and you can definitely see and feel the forethought that was put into it.

Looking forward, what changes do you see in operating systems and software based on your experiences with HotHardware?

I think, if there's one thing we've learned over the years, whether you consider open source OS solutions, Apple OS or Microsoft, it's that end-user simplification of the UI needs to continue to evolve. If there's a shining example of things to come, it's probably what Apple has done with the iPhone and iPod touch. The average end user doesn't want to "tinker" like we like to do in the labs here at HotHardware.com. They want to just boot up (and quickly), run their requested program and not worry about anything. In short, it just works and it doesn"t take any learning curve to work it. That day is coming. The question isn"t if but when.

Any advice to the KDE community?

Advice? Me? I wouldn't claim to be able to offer you any words of wisdom but certainly words of encouragement are in order. Keep up the great work and keep doing what you're doing. When a product with such huge, sweeping appeal, like the Asus Eee PC, is showcased with a KDE interface at the helm, you know that's a lot of good exposure and there's significantly more critical mass behind the community in general.