A window to the Eee's internals
Those eager to get their hands dirty will be pleased to know that just a couple of screws gate the guts of the Eee PC.

There isn't much you can do with the 40G once it's opened up, but in the picture above you can see the single SO-DIMM slot occupied by 1GB of DDR2 memory. The slot itself should support 2GB DIMMs, but previous versions of Asus' Xandros-based Linux distro haven't been able to use more than 1GB of memory. That shouldn't be an issue if you swap the Eee's OS for another Linux variant or a version of Windows.

To the left of the DIMM slot you can see the SDHC card responsible for 32GB of the 40G's storage capacity. A separate 8GB solid-state drive rounds out the rest.

A little more Linux
Like the first Eee PC, the 1000 40G comes equipped with a surprisingly user-friendly Linux-based operating system. All the essentials are there, including a Firefox-based web browser, StarOffice 8, Skype, the Pigdin IM client, media playback software, and even a Picasa app.

The Xandros-based Linux desktop is organized into tabs filled with handy shortcuts, and it's easy for users to set up a set of their own favorites. There are plenty of student-oriented goodies, as well, such as a dictionary, math program, periodic table and star map, and even a copy of Let's Learn Chinese. Users can also tweak the desktop appearance with a handful of color themes.

Mainstream users may not be familiar with Linux, but even my mother found the Eee's interface appealing and easy to use. Asus has dialed software updates, too, allowing the Eee to automatically download new BIOSes, drivers, and software patches as easily as Windows Update. The update system could use a little more polish to help mainstream users understand what's going on, though. I received one update message asking to install the 1.1-1 version of Icewm-config-override, with no other details provided. That's the kind of thing that might easily confuse Joe Sixpack.

Apart from the potentially confusing update messages, the Eee's OS should serve mainstream users well. For enthusiasts, however, it feels a little too dumbed down. Simple things take more effort than they should, such as shutting down the system, which despite the presence of an "instant shutdown" icon, still takes at least three separate mouse clicks to complete. PC enthusiasts are probably better off supplanting the default OS with one of the new netbook-optimized Linux distributions that are floating around. Windows XP is also an option, and that's probably what I'd run if I were using the Eee every day.

The Eee PC 1000 deserves a more robust operating system because with a bigger screen and usable keyboard, it feels more like a proper laptop than a cut-down netbook. A 1.6GHz Atom processor may not deliver lightning performance, but it's quick enough for basic apps, and certainly up to the task of handling the Remote Desktop Connection sessions that make up the bulk of my own mobile computing.