Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Steam

Obviously Steam itself isn't a game, it's a digital distribution service. The appeal of Steam to netbook users? Well some netbooks, like our test unit, have a small solid state hard drive. Steam gives you access to your game collection anywhere you have internet access allowing you to install one or two games at a time and changing them up when you want to try something different. This lets you keep hard drive space free and saves you from having to play around with a USB optical drive or image files to install your games.

The Steam client itself downloads and installs quickly and without issue. However, there are occasionally issues when running the client. Loading Steam and connecting to your account sometimes takes up to a minute and if you get impatient and click-happy, the client will lock up. Downloading a game over the Steam network will slow down the client and again, if you get impatient and click-happy, the client will lock up.

The Steam library is large already and as more publishers come on board, it's only going to get larger. In addition to the newest, most resource hungry games on the market, Steam also has PC classics with system requirements that will feel at home on a netbook.

Acer Aspire One
Intel Atom N270 CPU
1 Gb RAM
Intel 945 graphic chipset
8 Gb SS Hard Drive
16 Gb HCSD card used as a second drive
8.9" LCD screen

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