Asus eeePC as audio player?

[Packgrog]

I've been seeing quite a bit of raving about the eeePC (a very inexpensive ultra-portable laptop with a puny 7" screen and 4GB flash drive instead of a hard drive). I'm curious as to whether or not anyone here has picked one up, and equally curious about how the sound quality might be from the built-in headphone jack. With the absence of a hard drive, I suspect there would be less electrical noise to contend with, but I wonder if the audio quality is good at all.

For one thing, with the advent of high capacity secure digital cards (which apparently can be used with the Cowon D2), there could be quite a bit of audio storage room to use one of these things as an audio player. It's advantage over one of the 7" Archos players would be that you could check your email while listening to tunes.

Thoughts? Experiences? Enquiring geeky minds want to know!

-Packgrog

 

[anthonylei]

I was temped to get one about a month ago... but the final retail price put me right off... the $199 version is 2 GB sur version and it is not even available to public...

the only advantage this 'laptop' has is the weight... I dont think anyone will actually use this as their main rig.... hard drive capacity, video card, ram, keyboard size are far from ok standard.....

I think this is more like a powerful PDA and should not be used for audio.... as it requires external storage....

 

[regal]

According to the Asus website. There is no USB, PCMIA, or esata. Basically its a PDA.

 

[Caribou679]

Hi!
I ordered one last week in Canada from thesource.($468 taxes and shipping )
should receive soon.

I expected to use it with an external HD(160gb) connected to one of the 2.0 USB.Or with SD card in extension port.

browsed eeeuser.com for answers concerning music support but not much comes up, one apps is music player and does mp3.

As regards support for other formats: ogg,flac????

 

[Packgrog]

No, no one in their right mind would use one of them for anything more than internet connectivity. It's too weak to use as a main rig. That said, it seems like the ultimate laptop for some network browsing at Starbucks (or wherever else you have free wireless and tasty beverages). I have a 17" beast as my main rig, and the idea of schlepping it to a cafe, even in North Carolina, makes me cringe (when I commuted into NYC every day, it would have been an even bigger issue).

These cafes rarely have music I care for, and PA systems will never touch the quality of a nice pair of IEMs. So where I'm curious is on the sound quality of some tiny thing like this. I broadcast on an internet radio station on Thursday nights, and it kinda sucks having to be stuck in my office into the evening (I have no connectivity in the boondocks where my house is). Something as tiny as the eeePC seems ideal, if the sound quality is good enough. I have an ultra-portable of sorts (a Compaq Evo N410c), but the sound quality is horrendous through the built-in headphone jack. The sound quality on my 17" beast is good, but I wind up being tempted to bring along my external DAC, and the laptop is already huge.

As far as external storage, I could easily hook up one of my DAPs as external drives, since both simply mount as USB hard drives, or I could save on extra bulk and pop a Secure Digital card into the built-in reader in the eeePC. That would certainly add a fair bit to cost, sure, but it would maintain the extreme portability without adding to battery drain.

I doubt I'll get one in the forseeable future, but I'm curious about how this little unit might have some unexplored uses as a media station.

 

[Packgrog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by regal /img/forum/go_quote.gif According to the Asus website. There is no USB, PCMIA, or esata. Basically its a PDA.

It has 3 USB 2.0 ports and a SDHC slot (Secure Digital High Capacity, which can allow SD cards of over 16GB, which would be fine if it's just being used to read audio data). It *IS* kind of a jumped up PDA, but one that's entire capable of running Windows XP if you so desired. It comes with a custom Linux environment, but people have installed other larger distros on it quite easily.

 

[Packgrog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caribou679 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hi! I ordered one last week in Canada from thesource.($468 taxes and shipping ) should receive soon. I expected to use it with an external HD(160gb) connected to one of the 2.0 USB.Or with SD card in extension port. browsed eeeuser.com for answers concerning music support but not much comes up, one apps is music player and does mp3. As regards support for other formats: ogg,flac????

It runs Xandros by default, and Debian-based Linux distro. Installing FLAC and Ogg support should be ridiculously easy. If not, install Xubuntu.

 

[johnas]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Packgrog /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thoughts? Experiences? Enquiring geeky minds want to know! -Packgrog

I bought one a few weeks ago. I have used the headphone jack briefly and it is passable. The default music player is Amarok and can handle all your files right out of the box (FLAC, MP3, haven't tried OGG). It works fine with SD cards or USB drives. It would pair well with a USB source like a Bithead.

Contrary to what the other poster says, this thing isn't a PDA, it is a laptop. It can be easily tweaked to run in full desktop mode or you could install another Linux distro on it. I am running my apps from the command line in easy mode. It only takes about 12seconds to boot. I have installed some programs from default debian installer files (Firstclass, Abiword). There are endless possibilities.

Feel free to post any questions or read the forums here: EeeUser.com > An Unofficial ASUS Eee PC EeePC 701 Community

 

[Packgrog]

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnas /img/forum/go_quote.gif I bought one a few weeks ago. I have used the headphone jack briefly and it is passable. The default music player is Amarok and can handle all your files right out of the box (FLAC, MP3, haven't tried OGG). It works fine with SD cards or USB drives. It would pair well with a USB source like a Bithead.

"Passable"? Meh. Can't really expect better, but one could hope. If only ASUS could get hardware that sounded as good as a Cowon player they'd be set.

Which reminds me, there seems to be an untapped market for DAPs in this regard. My Cowon A2 sounds fantastic from the headphone jack. When connected to a PC, it just shows up as a USB hard drive. Why oh why can't DAP manufacturers take these things a step further and enable the playback hardware as a USB sound card!?! Cowon players especially would be superb for such a function. Ah well.

 

[Caribou679]

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnas /img/forum/go_quote.gif I bought one a few weeks ago. I have used the headphone jack briefly and it is passable. The default music player is Amarok and can handle all your files right out of the box (FLAC, MP3, haven't tried OGG). It works fine with SD cards or USB drives. It would pair well with a USB source like a Bithead. Contrary to what the other poster says, this thing isn't a PDA, it is a laptop. It can be easily tweaked to run in full desktop mode or you could install another Linux distro on it. I am running my apps from the command line in easy mode. It only takes about 12seconds to boot. I have installed some programs from default debian installer files (Firstclass, Abiword). There are endless possibilities. Feel free to post any questions or read the forums here: EeeUser.com > An Unofficial ASUS Eee PC EeePC 701 Community

It's a laptop! That's why I bought one! I really need a small pc and this will be perfect for my needs in internet and emails. I basicly need a secondary laptop to keep in communication.

If it plays music it's will be an added bonus! If it supports Flac then it must support ogg. That's a relief as most of my music is encoded in ogg.

My ONLY concern is with the linux os. Good knows I tried in the past to make linux work on my pcs but always ended deleting it! Never succeded in installing any apps or programs. Linux has a learning curve too big for me.

Is the "easy" mode complete enough that I don't need to go in the advanced setup?

Can a SD card be use to give it more ram?

I don't plan to install XP instead of linux. from what I read in general this machine is very interesting as it is. And the wifi is very strong!

What use do You do with this pc?

 

[johnas]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caribou679 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I basicly need a secondary laptop to keep in communication....Is the "easy" mode complete enough that I don't need to go in the advanced setup?.... Can a SD card be use to give it more ram?......What use do You do with this pc?

I use the EEE PC as my secondary laptop. I have a laptop for work, but I don't like to carry it with me everywhere.

I like easy mode because of the quick boot time. You can launch any installed programs from terminal in easy mode. There is no learning curve for this thing, everything works on first boot. I installed Hamachi VPN on it and can now pick up my network shares and secure web proxy from anywhere.

It takes standard laptop ram, but an added SD card will give you more drive space.

It plays OGG files fine:

 

[Caribou679]

Great! It plays ogg

I think this will be a very nice tool to keep in comm and also to have fun.

The promo talks about the ease of use, for children as well as elderly.
Luckily I fit somewhere in the middle!

regards,

 

[regal]

I think the problem is the Ausus website makes no mention of USB ports or any real technical specifications. I guess we are too dumb to understand them.

This is an ideal product for me but without Head-fi I would have never known.

 

[Penchum]

This is off the spec sheet at Newegg.

Audio Ports Audio Jack - Out (3.5mm)
Audio Jack - In (3.5mm)

Audio
Audio Hi-Definition Audio CODEC
1 Internal Microphone
Speaker 2 Internal Stereo Speakers

This is the same built in as my A8JS and it sounds great with optical out. I can't find any info if the eeePC has the optical out combo jack or not. On ASUS forum, they are saying if you have the HD audio codec version, you'll have optical out. I just have a hard time believing that. Could someone with one of these verify the optical possibility? I've asked Santa for one. Maybe I'll get Lucky.

 

[anthonylei]

i dont think it comes with a optical out...

it has usb.... so for those of you have a usb sound card or dac.... this 'laptop' should work just fine