Review: Asus Express Gate V1.4.4

Welcome. Today I'll be looking at a fantastic bit of software, this software is a mini operating system that is present on most of Asus's newer motherboards.

The operating system itself is Linux based. Bout 256Mb big I believe. And is stored on an on-board chip, unless of course you happen to have Express Gate SSD which comes on a 512mb - 768mb flash add in. The OS lets you boot up into the internet, Skype, MSN/Yahoo, photo viewer and depending on which motherboard you have you get music playback to.

The main reason I'm reviewing V1.4.4 (Asus P5QL-E version) is because it was gob-smackingly wonderful. The 300mb file (which Asus let me have a 20Kbp/s, Thanks for that) intrigued me as usually the new update were pushing 100Mb. So I downloaded it and expected to see no visual improvement so I didn't rush to restart my pc to have a gander. But after I finally did I was gob-smacked, the new layout is not far off vista's cleanness, and is much better layed out than the previous versions. I've also noticed a slight improvement in load times, Firefox (splashtop browser as its called) loaded a lot faster than it used to as did the photo viewer but I was a bit disappointed to see the messenger side of things a bit worse off, Skype taking slightly longer to sign in as the messenger program (which does like to throw up contacts missing errors every now and then). But overall I have to say the new major update has made me think of not bothering to boot into vista as I don't really need to now unless I want to play a game. The only thing stopping me from doing this is the lack of music and video playback (oh and maybe a torrent app) but because I payed £63 for this motherboard I'im not expecting the best, I suppose you get what you pay for. Most of Asus new motherboards which display the Ai lifestyle sticker or which have the P43 chipsets (and upwards) include it now, apart from the gaming series motherboards, which is a shame as it's a fantastic feature.

All in all Asus have shown real initiative in making the time to put this in. This is mostly aimed at people who are in a rush and don't wish to wait a long time for XP/Vista to boot just so they can read their emails or make last minute plans over Skype/MSN. One thing that I am a little disappointed about is that at the moment there is no version for PC's running the Windows 7 Beta/RC even though its in its very early stages most companies have seemed to make at least some effort in porting drivers over to it and Asus should to as it seems to be the "Leader in hardware"

For those interested I've taken some pictures of Express Gate.



Hope you enjoyed my review and stay tuned for the next one.