“Say hello to my little friend!” I just go my new netbook, the Asus EeePC 1000 HE. It is slightly heavier than I expected, but not too bad. The screen is 10″ and seems plenty big for what I need. Just to be clear on my purposes, I need something for:
- Taking on trips that is lighter and smaller and doesn’t get as hot on my lap. Needs long battery life.
- PowerPoint 2007 presentations hooked up to a projector
- Checking email
- Instant messeging
- Video conferencing (in theory, haven’t ever done it before)
- Watching movies in the car (for the kids)
- Possibly using in the office as my “notebook” to take notes while in meetings.
- Experimental guinea pig to install strange and wonderful software
- Playing freecell on a flight
So far, the netbook is holding up well to my needs. I haven’t tried all of these things yet, but it seems up to the task. The CPU is plenty fast (1.6ghtz) and the storage of 160G is more than I needed. I couldn’t go with the 16G solid state drive. I wanted to because it’s quieter and can be dropped on the floor without messing up. However, 16G is just not quite enough space. This way, I can transfer movies into Divx and put them on the hard drive. A full length motion picture is about 1G in divx format.
The device itself is stylish, but it’s also a fingerprint magnet. I am not sure why they decided to make the surface this way. There are plenty of surfaces that don’t get so fingerprinty. (Is that a word?)
The keyboard is great. It’s like the mac keyboards. Easy to press and almost full sized. (92%). Of course, I would never be able to type for long periods on it. I can’t type on any flat keyboard without pain shooting up my left arm. I think this is because I do not type correctly. I am the world’s fastest two finger plus thumb typer. I can type with my eyes closed, but only with 2 index fingers and my thumb for the space bar. It’s a real talent. I was considering joining the circus.
Back to the netbook…It’s Windows XP Home Edition. I don’t like this much. I am trying to decide what OS I really want on it. Windows XP Professional? Not Vista for sure. But I wonder if this little guy could support Windows 7? I am not even sure how exactly to do the install…Will it work off a thumb drive? I am sure someone has messed around with it. I don’t want to buy an external CD just for this purpose. Seems like a waste of money. I might just use XP for now and see how it goes.
Lastly, the claims about the battery. If you set the display to the lowest dimmest setting, the battery reads 6 hours, not 9. However, I haven’t actually tested using it for 6 hours in a row. I hear it can get 7 real hours. I don’t know when I will get a chance to really check.
Overall, great price, great device. I see these little bad boys just getting more and more powerful, more battery life and more features over time. So far, I am happy.