The ET2410 boots up in under 15 seconds. I barely had time to open this document before it was singing the Windows tune and showing me its 24 inches of screeny beauty. So now what? I decided to work with the touch exclusively in this review to see exactly what features I can access and how much room there is to manoeuvre.
The Windows 7 basics are all included. From the Paint and the Game Centre to Notepad and essential tools. As there is no productivity software installed, you can either get yourself Office or you can download any one of the free variations such as OpenOffice which is as compatible and useful but without as many bells and whistles.
ASUS have added some other extras though. You get the Eee Cam and Eee Cinema. The former is hugely entertaining (as I mentioned in a previous post) and while it does have some speed issues, I rate it as well worth using for creative purposes. The Eee Cinema, on the other hand, has proven somewhat surprising.
A simple tap on the icon takes you to the programme which will automatically scan for media and add them to the database. Once that’s done you can swipe between Photos, Videos, Music, Movies, Options and YouMemo – navigation is slick with either a screen swipe or a tap on the arrows getting you around.
YouMemo is a cute little addition that plays a similar role as to Windows Sticky Notes. You type in the note and it appears on the virtual corkboard. It’s a well put together programme as you can vary stationery – pen, pencil, paintbrush – colour, stamps, and fonts. Save takes you to the landing page where your notes can appear in chronological order. You can also set an alarm and it is genius for letting kids unleash their creativity. A tap on the house (home) icon takes you back to the menu.
Movies is where you’ll find whatever disc rests in your Blu-ray player and playback is instantaneous and sweet. I love it. I am going to try streaming from one of my portable devices in another post this weekend but for now I know where to go. To get back from Movies you can either tap the home button or just swipe the screen. That last is a lovely touch I think.
Options gives you the opportunity to set your Eee Cinema to use green features to conserve energy. This is really, really awesome as you can set it to automatically pause when idle or disable video enhancements by default.
In my next piece I’ll be looking more closely at Photos, Videos and Movies to see exactly what you can do with these and what kind of quality I get.