Nov 06
A Kid’s take on the Eee PC
“Mommy the screen is just too small for me” was the final statement from my son Kellen. At first he was drawn to the small size. It’s funny because he thought the entire top of the laptop was the screen. So when he turned the laptop on he thought he did something wrong. After I explained that the speakers were on the side he asked why. I didn’t have an answer and quite honestly I would like to know why too. Maybe it was the only place the speakers could go. I wouldn’t be surprise if the next generation Eee has a larger screen in the same place and the speakers located on either side of the touch pad. While Kellen did like the laptop, he was taken a back by its different interface. He kept expecting it to be like Windows. The big difference was Yahoo! Messenger versus Pidgin. He uses it to send messages to his sister, who is away at college. Pidgin just doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that Yahoo! has. He was also disappointed when he found out that the webcam doesn’t work in Pidgin. Still, I think that over time he will get use it.
I gave the Eee PC to Kellen without explanation. He immediately knew what to do. The only thing I had to point out was the tab layout. Of course he quickly found the Play section. The first day he played some of the games, but became somewhat bored after a few minutes. He wanted me to add more software and was disappointed when I told him I couldn’t. I suggested the learning software and he promptly quit that after a couple of minutes.
I think that main reason why Kellen hasn’t taken a shine to the Eee PC is because of his Internet experience. He likes playing a couple of the games on Cartoon Network’s site. One of them he told me would keep freezing up. I don’t know if my son is the typical child that Asus is targeting. He’s a tech kid, because he has a tech mom. I still have to wonder though. Even if the target group has no computer, certainly these children are exposed to them at school or the library. Would it be enough? I am sure that as time goes on there will be more software available. All I know for sure is that now I really like it.
Related: WSJ article The First-Grader’s First PC
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