This past week, my favorite five-year-old, Paige, was in town, so I decided to give her the ol’ Pepsi/Coke Challenge with the ASUS Eee PC running Xandros and the CTL 2go PC running Windows XP. Both are touted as computers for children and both feature educational software. Based on our typing tests last week, both mini-notebooks also have keyboards that are best suited for children’s hands.

Paige is already familiar with video iChat on Macs and enjoys the games and videos on iCarly.com, Zoey101.com and Starfall.com. But which laptop better held the kindergartener’s attention?

After showing Paige the games and her favorite Web sites on both the CTL 2go PC and the ASUS Eee PC, we gave her time to play with both of them. She ran into problems with the 2go because of the sporadic XP pop-up boxes advising her that her Internet connection was strong and that her desktop needed cleaning. While these boxes are meant to be helpful, they impeded Paige’s ability to use the computer independently. She was also frustrated that she couldn’t find games easily to play on it.

She fared much better with the Eee PC. The “Learn” and “Games” tabs in Xandros were straightforward and required minimal guidance. After 20 minutes with Tux Math and Tux Paint, Paige didn’t want to give up the Eee PC. She was able to watch videos from iCarly.com and Zoey101.com without a problem and never once mentioned the size of the screen.

Without a doubt, the Eee PC with Xandros was the clear winner. Sitting next to her with our MacBook she said, “Look, I have a white computer just like you—only mine’s not a real computer.” When we explained that the Eee PC was a “real” computer all she could say was, “Wow.”

“Wow” indeed. Check out this kindergartener stating why she likes the Eee PC over the 2go PC in the video below.

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