Asus' Eee PC gets torture tested on video
By Darren Murph 
posted Feb 24th 2008 5:08PM
posted Feb 24th 2008 5:08PM
[Thanks, Roman]
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The first person to ask if it blends gets a wedgie.
does it.....owwww omg it hurts!
no, actually that would be hilarious, and we all wanna know what happens. "blender" in French is "un mixer." "Doom" is just "Doom." so it's gonna be something like "mixe-t-il?" and "joue-t-il au Doom?" so please, somebody click through and ask away. and report back.
The guy didn't pee on it. I think you need to finish off the torture by peeing and shitting on it. Yay.
Oh no, the guy forgot to waterboard it! (oops, say, spill water on it)
Bummer... I was expecting more of a test then that. Oh well...
edit:
does it blend?
I know, there were some stairs right there. Huck it off them.
Exactly! I mean what is this anyways? Foreplay before web browsing? I think it would be cooler if someone that was going to abuse a "not so cheap" piece of equipment, would simply have not bought it, and done tests like tipping your waitress or waiter with the money they were going to attempt to destroy, and see the expression on their face... Isn't that a little more positive?
Erik:
"I know, there were some stairs right there. Huck it off them."
Amen, brother.
i remember this video from eeeuser. stupid french people
All I can guess is that there is a deductable stipend in the french tax code for altruistic gadget smashing.
WHATS UP WITH THE GUYS THUMB AT 1:35?! EWWW!
I can do that..you're acting like it's a big deal.
Dude, thumbs are supposed to bend THE OTHER WAY!!!
Hey I know some people can do it :P It's just weird seeing it cos I don't see it often. Nobody I know personally can do it.
Eh, I can do that with my left thumb. All those years of video games...
Its a French thing.
im sure his one of those people who got 5 eee pcs for the price of 1 package.
he's*
Yeah, and now he is going to list it on ebay after beating the crap out of it.
Lame, i was expecting more interesting..Like hammer and blender type of tests.
How many times have you really accidentally dropped a gadget in a blender and pressed the "slush" button?
one time too many
You know, I'm pretty sure my 4 year old Dell laptop can go through the same torture tests just fine. But I am also pretty sure that no matter what the machine is, if it survives at first, it will still have its overall lifetime taken down a few notches.
For real. Back in the day, Dell laptops were pretty indestructible. My 03 Inspiron flew off the top my car at 30 miles per hour when I stopped at the end of the street. Only damage was cosmetic, and it still works fine.
Its a shame Dell sucks so much now.
Yankees368
> I'm pretty sure my 4 year old Dell laptop can go through the
> same torture tests just fine
I dunno about that. Physics dictate that momentum (impact) is proportional to mass. At 6-8 lbs, a normal laptop would hit the floor with much more force than a 2lb Asus. I don't think a normal laptop's screen would survive if it fell while opened (which was the most impressive demo for me). Either the hinge would come off (risking tearing the wires) or the screen would crack (a common feature of As-Is LCD items on eBay).
But the heat test was just silly because 104F [externally!] is probably lower than what your Dell normally reaches internally.
my old toshiba 333mhz model handled that and more- drpped it on the street and it got run over by a motorcycle and it still functioned for years after until I gave it away
What's up with the video moving along so slowly? I think these guys've been watching too much French cinema.
Even the dude on camera seems pretty lethargic. Maybe it's just Brooklyn hipsters being all ironic?
grr.. want one so bad, but i'd rather wait till generation 2 with the 8.9 inch screen *drools* *collapses*
Now I want the MBA version!
Boom!
btw, i posted a comment last week about that new HP UMPC where some of us were making fun of the corporate-speak in the product annoucement and silly use of "lifestyle accessory". i commented that "this is what an MBA can do to you".
I had meant a Master of Business Admin but I guess that's that rare context where this acronym could go either way. Teh moar u kno.
The only two tests that made me cringe were dropping it with the screen open and the heater. I hate cosmetic damage more than hardware failure. I'll bet his screen looks like he wiped it with sandpaper. As for the heater, if he had left it on there long enough, the plastic casing could have melted.
"I hate cosmetic damage more than hardware failure."
I have some beautiful bricked motherboards to sell you.
Fake!
Why don't they do the anvil test. If it survive anvil dropping on it from three feet and still keeps working, then it passes the test. After that, it might be considered as good and sturdy as the MacBookAir.
I'm joking, so lighten up.
and then he drops it 2 inches and it shatters lol
First!
I was gonna ask you if you're one of those ironic hipsters I referred to earlier but then I looked at your comment history.
Now that's just pathetic. And Hilarious. (We're laughing at you, not with you)
wow, looking at my comment history does say a lot. (not sarcasm, actual realization). but most of them were for contests and whatnot so whatever. and getting laughed at is thoroughly enjoyable.
that was the torture test for people that really don't want to damage or plan on destroying their laptop.
lame lame lame.
if it couldn't withstand those "tests" it would be hard to consider more than a cheap toy. Besides, it has no moving parts, thats usual whats fatal when electronics fall.
seriously, that was the lamest thing evar!!! those heights were not high and putting near the heater can't ever touch putting through real fire.
@ dale_nx26: Do you know of a laptop that can survive a fire?
That wouldn't really be considered a test. :)
maybe not a fire, but in most places if you leave your laptop in the car it could get up to like 150 degrees(F) in there, i'm sure in those tests it didn't see higher than 110 degrees.
Same goes for the cold, even in NYC theres nights where if you forgot your bag with your laptop inside in your car, the laptop would face single digit temperatures, not the lame 30 degrees in this video.
i'm just saying this video played more like a "i like to see if my laptop is kinder gardener proof" rather than a "torture test".
I want to see someone do this with a macbook air!
hey you're the third person. good job!
Robert
> I want to see someone do this with a macbook air!
WAAAAAAY too expensive!
Weak. That was weak.
The test hey shoulda done was: does it survive being walked on by a 260 lb person?
Not bad for what you're paying for.
And the video sums up the most frequent accidents to happen.
I think leaving out the test of being sat on by an adult, walked on, and being held at gun point is pretty disappointing....
okay the gun point is a rare circumstance, but still..
"use it like yea stole it"
Thoughts:
The last heat test is meaningless. 40C is only 104F so the tester shouldn't have reacted so painfully when he touched the Asus. Most normal laptops surpass 104F internally so this is not exactly impressive.
The cold test was more meaningful because water expands when frozen. That can potentially damage the LCD, since the L stands for Liquid. LCDs are moving crystals suspended in liquid which is why they're sluggish or dim in cold weather. I don't know if the test here actually reached 32F or below.
The Asus most likely can't survive the most obvious test: Water submersion or simply getting soaked (especially when turned on). I say obvious because pouring a drink on the keyboard or getting caught in the rain is more common than many of the other scenarios.
Let's waterboard an Eee and see if it survives! (Yes, waterboarding is torture, period; just ask John McCain or Barack Obama.)
I was expecting him to curb stomp it or at least drop it off those stairs. Pretty pathetic video, even a 360 could survive that.
Watching that video was so irritating it actually made me want to break something... =(
Summary - it's performs like most laptops when dropped, except it has an SSD so there's little chance of your data being lost.
Juaquin
> Summary - it's performs like most laptops when dropped, except it
> has an SSD so there's little chance of your data being lost
And it's very light at 2lbs, so there is much less impact when dropped as compared to a 6-8 lb laptop.
I WANT A EEE!!! solid or not, I dont care!
no eee's were hurt in the making of this video ;)
My little geeekbook has gone through more than that in normal useage!.
3 foot drop..... check
Stair bounce.... check
Stood on........ check
On for 48 hrs... check
Used as frisbee. check
Humped around london. check
Generally mistreated. check
Called a big sissy... check
Any further requests will be mooted.
(I'm not blending it or chuckin it in the freezer though!)
The drop tests are nice. When you think about it, it is not surprising that it survived. There's no hard drive, which makes it more reliable and less weighty. Also, the screen is set in several inches from the edge. It is impressive that there were no pieces of plastic that snapped off, but then again we could not see whether the case cracked. I wonder if the battery is held in place with a screw. It did not pop out or lose its connection, which is good.
The cold "torture" test is a joke. 1.8C! Come on that's not even winter in many parts of North America. They should have it stuck out at -15C for 2 hours and then turn it on to see if the battery still has some juice. That would simulate leaving it in a car trunk on a cold winter day or evening.
I also think they should have opened and closed the display a few hundred times, in order to see how well the hinges hold up in addition to stress testing the power jack.