U1E Owners?

Mea Culpa if this exists somewhere else within the forums but I have yet to see it.
General non-detailed first impressions in no particular order of importance:
Packaging: Top notch (reminds me of a certain credit card elite card)
Laptop Display: Excellent, better than the Sony LCD side by side
External Display: Issue, intel graphics managment software does not seem to support x by 1024 resolution?
Battery Life: Reasonable 3+ hours (default battery/6 cell)
Keyboard + Touchpad: Subpar due to odd right shift key placement and hard to depress and small touchpad. I may adapt to it.
Speed: Reasonable benchmark scores, but is rather slow. Vista is...well Vista
Build Quality: Excellent; fit, feel and finish (well maybe except for the velveteen laptop case)
Pre Installed Software: Some bloatware, Norton PC Monitor requires a seperate uninstall utility available online, Adobe reader needs to be installed. .NET and SQl easily installed. Better than other vendors however.

General notes: So far the laptop has exceeded my expectations, but has its annoyances. Still too early to tell. I suspect aside from the keyboard some of the issues are O/S related. Vista is like a pretty date that wears thin and gets on the nerves. (and checks up on you needlessly--the drm software is a complete debacle). I like pretty dates; but I'll let you know how the XP downgrade works.

 

Wow thanks, I've been looking at this as my next notebook. How much did you pay?

They beat the Vaio TZ (its main competitor) to the punch by putting the 965 chipset. TZ should incorporate it soon. Amazed they fit four USB ports and 54mm Expresscard slot vs 2 USB ports and 34mm in the TZ. Also like its 1.8" HDD is easily accessible on the bottom.

I know the U1F models came with a 6 and 3 cell battery but I heard these come with only one? One seller said 3-cell is included, another said 6-cell. And I hear Asus notebooks have mediocre to poor battery life, at least have good battery life in the ultraportables! The TZ gets 4 hours battery playing a DVD on its standard battery and 5-6 hours normal usage.

Why did you buy this notebook, especially over the Vaio TZ?


Please let us (or only me?) know more about this notebook!

 

Heheh this is a very nice & illustrative comparison.

 

Tommorrow is downgrade day. Nothing new to report till then except: some people checking it out during meetings--it is the type of item that even years from now when it becomes somewhat obsolete given Moores law and all, it will still maintain an elegent look in a study or vacation home etc. The right shift key is still annoying, the battery life (1 included) is still more than adequate.
Given how small this class of laptops are the great warranty Asus provides vs Sony clinched it [also a hint if you use an amex plat or blk it doubles].
As for how much 2030usd, very quick shipping.

 

What doubles if you use AmEx Platinum?

 

I believe he's referring to doubling the warranty when using amex plat/blk.

 

Please follow up with the status of the downgrade to xp. I am hoping to do the same.

 

Thought I'd update everyone on how things are going with the U1E. So far battery life good, fit and finish holding up well, no issues to report---well except that it is blindingly (as in I want to poke my eyes out) slow.
I switched off hibernation and it still takes a minute or so to sort itself out, with hibernation turned on the restart is joke. Compare this to the MacAir or even my old SonyVaio and it is startling. The culprit is likely how Vista is configured, but I've used Vista on other machines and it isn't as much as a resource hog. I've turned off as much of Vista as I can and it still creaks.
Ofcourse months ago I stated I would downgrade to XP. However my best intentions aside there are the downgrade driver pack is NOT available via ASUS. I've had a couple of calls with ASUS tech. (who do promptly answer and try to help) to no avail.
So in conclusion as slick as it is until I find a way to speed it up dramatically [yes, I know that more memory helps] I cannot reccomend it. (btw the finger scanner is an ergonomic nightmare since at least once a day I inadvertantly trigger it).
It looks like ASUS learned and the U2 attempts to solve these issues.

 

I as well bought this nice little piece of art and I definately wants to downgrade to XP.

Like you I haven't got any help from ASUS support who suggested me to check asusdriver.de which is for sale.

I guess I need to find out what hardware is under the hood and then check at some 3rd party sites.

If anyone else has found drivers for XP please let me know.