Who should buy a Asus Eee:

College students:
I'd advise college students to get a good quality laptop. But if they really want an Eee, then it's not an entirely bad option. On its own the Eee is lacking but if it can be combined with an external monitor plus keyboard and mouse, it offers a reasonable computing platform. Slip the Eee into your backpack for taking notes during seminars and then, when you get back to your dorm room, plug in the monitor, keyboard and mouse. You should be able to run the monitor at its full resolution.

Incidentally, MySpace and FaceBook are just about OK on the small screen. YouTube runs great, as do most video files that might be downloaded (maybe some sound sync problems on WMV files). Some highly personalised MySpace pages can bog-down the browser and are sometimes too wide to fit, but that's true even if you're browsing MySpace using a standard desktop computer

Of course, there's no version of iTunes for Linux. The speakers are surprisingly loud but lack bottom-end and are prone to distortion.

Beware that I was unable to connect to my WPA network, and had to switch it down to the older and less secure WEP. This issue is fairly typical for current desktop Linux. Also, as far as I can tell, only WPA Pre-shared Key is accepted. I understand that some college networks insist on WPA Enterprise or even WPA2.

School kids:
As mentioned, smaller kids will love this notebook. It's like Mattel created a notebook just for them, taking into account their size. Most kid-orientated sites tend to be built around lower-resolution screens anyway. High school kids will berate the lack of an optical drive (no DVD movies), and, as mentioned, Facebook and MySpace only just fit into the small screen. So they'd be better off with a standard laptop. There's a good selection of educational software preinstalled, however, but mainly aimed at the lower age range.

Sysadmins:
The Eee is a neat network diagnostic tool. It's small enough to fit into a toolbag with other bits and pieces, and you can install just about any x86 OS on it provided you have an external optical drive (bear in mind that you'll need an XP disc with SP2 slipstreamed into it; I guess this means Win2K and NT won't install). So you could even put OpenSolaris on there, for example. The only slight issue might be that the network port is 10/100 and not gigabit; the wifi is b/g but not n, although appeared to get a stronger signal than both my MacBook and 770.

Mobile workers:
There's some modest PIM/calendar software, but no bluetooth, so you can't share contact info from your phone. But for checking emails while out and about, or casual browsing at the coffee shop, the Eee is in its element. Note that I'm unable to test Outlook web access (OWA), but the standard version of Firefox is provided, so it should work (although IIRC you're limited to a cut-down version of OWA). The default mail cilent, Thunderbird, works only with POP or IMAP. Kmail is provided as part of Kontact, the PIM suite, but that too only works with IMAP and POP3. You should be able to install the Outlook Exchange-compatible Evolution if you setup the Xandros package repositories, but this requires quite a lot of knowledge of how Linux works.

The Eee is ideal for the office worker who's prepared to step outside the mainstream and take-on new technology. It's small enough to fit into just about any bag/briefcase (even a large handbag), and also pretty rugged (it's a misnomer to say that the Eee has no moving parts, because it has a fan; it just has no moving hard disk component). Its pearl white case doesn't look very businesslike, however. What have manufacturers got against grey or black nowadays?

Media server:
On my 4GB machine, there was just 1.2GB left. On the other hand, the small power draw is ideal for a media server, and you can plug in an external hard disk via USB. But be aware that the default OS doesn't appear to offer a way to share folders across a network unless you start hacking things. On balance, it's not good value to buy the Eee for use as a media server. You might as well buy a second-hand notebook or even a full PC.

Edit: Actually, the Eee's file manager app lets you share folders for accessing via Windows or Macs. So it's pretty easy. My MacBook had no trouble seeing the shared folder straight away.