Is the Asus eee hard to balance on your lap?

One of the occasional complaints about the economical mini-laptop produced by Asus, the eee, is that it is hard to balance on your lap. It’s not good for the lap-balancing. In an article at searchCIO.com:

Before Apple head honcho Steve Jobs unveiled the MacBook Air at Macworld in January, some Apple-watchers were hoping for a sub-notebook - something smaller than the existing 13.3 inch MacBook, rather than thinner. While there was some disappointment, the truth is that anything smaller than 13.3 inches results in a screen and keyboard that are too small to use all day, every day. Take the tiny seven inch Asus Eee PC which weights in at under a kilo. The Eee PC’s small size makes it awkward to balance on your lap yet, even sitting at a desk, the small keys can turn otherwise competent computer users into two finger typists. In comparison, the MacBook Air’s large backlit keyboard is joy to type on.

I don’t think the eee was intended to be used “all day, every day,” but it’s nonetheless remarkably usable and I end up spending a lot of time with it even when my main laptop is easily accessible. Using the smaller screen is a little tricky, but it’s doable enough with a few common-sense workarounds. As for the lap-balancing…  One can’t even place a regular-sized laptop on one’s lap if one is bothered by the heat and weight. I use the eee with a usb keyboard and put the keyboard on my lap. The eee itself can be propped anywhere–on a tray, on the arm of the arm chair, a table, whatever.

Apple’s Air looks looks like a very interesting machine. It has a different set of trade-offs and is also a lot more expensive. The eee is one of the first mini-laptops to be small in price as well as footprint.