Opening her up
The four-cell 2200mAH battery constitutes around a quarter of the laptop's weight. There isn't an option of upgrading it at the time of purchase and sourcing aftermarket batteries isn't a straightforward affair.
The on-board graphics, UniChrome Pro, only support rudimentary gaming, as they're not even endowed with hardware-based transform and lighting (T+L) let alone Shader Model compliance, but we temper this acerbic statement by appreciating that it's not designed as a mobile gaming platform of note.
Running looping iterations of 3DMark2001SE and keeping all communication devices active, the EasyNote XS20 lasted 1h 56m before the battery juice ran out. Extrapolating out, the battery should last around 3 hours with the minor load that, say, word-processing imposes.
Opening it up, the VGA webcam is on the right-hand side of the TFT screen. The keyboard is understandably cramped, given the dimensions, and requires some getting used to. Those with fat fingers will find it annoying, to say the least. There's a trackpad on the right-hand side, just above the keyboard, and it's also too small to be comfortable, we feel.
The 7in screen has a native 800x480px resolution and is easy to read from most angles. There horizontal-viewing angle, in particular, is excellent.
The low-ish resolution takes a little while to get used to, especially if migrating from a mid-range laptop, but it's more than adequate for the majority of tasks you throw at it. Scrolling is smooth, and the resolution sacrifice is worth the reduction in weight.
