Lucky me! I got my hands on an ASUS Eee PC 1000H this week and I wanted to share my thoughts on the subject since I have been a bit enamored with the sleek and compact portable computing power of these little netbooks. As something of a joint birthday and Christmas gift, my aunt wanted to get a laptop so she could take her work files with her on the go, and of course she came to her favorite little techie niece to help her find a good fit. Well, after a needs assessment of what she wanted- Windows XP, a good sized hard drive, portability, and the color green (!)- I decided that she would be the perfect candidate for a netbook. She already has a computer she uses for work, so she didn’t need anything with a lot of bells and whistles; she didn’t care about the lack of a DVD drive, since she wouldn’t be using the machine for anything but toting around her work files and emailing on the go; and she was excited about having a super small laptop that would be a breeze to pack in her tote. Well, I looked around and found her exactly what she wanted, and that ended up being the ASUS Eee PC 1000H. Here are the specs:
Well, the computer just came in this past weekend, and so I have been “testing it out” for my aunt, downloading programs she needs on it, ect, and of course I thought I should share a few observations.
First of all, it is pretty small! Very light, very portable, and fits into an average size handbag- which I love! The downside to this, however, is that it has a very small keyboard, smaller than I expected really. I have small hands myself, and I was having trouble hitting the proper keys when I was typing. The screen as well, seemed so tiny! It is amazing to think that the screen is only a few inches smaller than my Macbook’s screen, and yet it seems half the size! It was definitely large enough to view web pages and such, but you really can only have one thing going on at a time with this screen because there is not much room for multi-tasking!
Second of all, it is a time saver! Now, I don’t know what it is, but this computer is fast. As soon as you turn it on, it is actually, ON! Most PCs I have encountered take a while to boot, but this was up and running in no time at all. On top of that, the battery lasted for what seemed like forever! I used it on and off for two days with a fully charged battery. I cannot even image how useful that sort of battery life could be- there is no thinking about it, once you charge it up, it is good to go!
Lastly, it is loaded! It has two 80GB hard drives which make up the 160 GBs of hard drive space available. It also has a great little web cam built in that was a snap to use. The operating system came with Skype preinstalled, which I loved because this little machine was just aching for attention. It really is a machine made for travelers who don’t mind compromising some features for the portability and ease of use this netbook offers. Honestly, this is the first time I have ever encountered a PC that was ready to use right out of the box, but this one is just very user friendly!
Nice review. I loved mine too until the ac adapter did not work 10 days after purchasing. ASUS Customer Service(CS) rep said replacement power adapter in stock at end of month. The ASUS CS Supervisor said early October at best. Yikes! By then I’d be unable to return to vendor in case something else failed. Forget it! Not worth the headache. I need something more reliable. Back to a mac witht a Power Gorrilla for now. Hope you have better luck with your unit!