ASUS Eee PC 1000H User Review

by Mihir Joshi

When ASUS announced and launched the Eee PC line of subnotebooks last year, they caught the attention of the world with their inexpensive and light products. Dubbed “netbooks” by the community, the original Eee PCs were good for little more than web browsing and word processing. However, they weighed a mere 2lbs., had a tiny footprint, and perhaps most importantly cost only $200-300.

ASUS has continued expanding on the Eee line with larger and more powerful models, and in June 2008 released the 1000 series, based on a 10” form factor. Many people did not approve of a 10” netbook, arguing that ASUS was crossing into the threshold of mainstream small-and-light notebooks. Moreover, at a launch price of $649, it was creeping into the price range of mainstream notebooks as well. Fortunately, that price has fallen considerably, and I decided to purchase one.

Here are the specifications on the ASUS Eee 1000H.

• Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz, 512KB cache)
• 1GB DDR2-400 SO-DIMM
• 80GB 5400RPM 2.5” SATA Hard Drive
• Intel GMA950 Integrated Graphics
• 10” WSVGA 1024x600 LED-backlit screen, 1.3MP webcam
• Windows XP Home (comes with ASUS recovery DVD)
• Atheros wireless 802.11b/g/n mini PCI-Express card, integrated Bluetooth 2.0
• 3 USB 2.0 ports, 10/100 ethernet jack, MMC/SD card reader, mic in, headphone out, VGA out, Kensington lock slot
• 6-cell 6600mAh battery (Asus claims 7.5hr. battery life)
• 1-year Global Hardware Warranty
• Dimensions: 10.5”x7.5”x1.5”, 3.2lbs. with battery
• Retail Price: $449 ($649 at launch)

The price of $449 is a steal for a netbook of this functionality. Just a few weeks ago the 1000H was selling for $549, then ASUS announced a $100 price drop. The only comparable netbook, the MSI Wind, is still selling at $549 with the 6-cell battery. One important note – the 1000H ships with a slipcase. I think it’s pretty handy to keep the netbook from scratching and getting dust, but it certainly won’t protect it in a fall. I like to keep the 1000H in the slipcase and then in my backpack.

Reasons for Buying

Around this time last year, I was looking for a full-featured notebook that would not break the bank. Unfortunately, I realized that I could not get the balance of functionality and portability that I wanted in any current notebook, so I abandoned that plan and bought a reasonably powerful desktop. This year I have gotten the itch again, but since I already have a powerful desktop PC, I did not really need another powerful notebook. I just wanted something that I could move around with, and bring to class to take notes. I knew I needed a netbook, and after waiting for a while and doing research on the possibilities, I decided on the 1000H.

Where and How Purchased

I purchased this netbook from Zipzoomfly (www.zipzoomfly.com) because at the time they had the best price. This was a few days after ASUS had announced the $100 price drop, so most resellers were in the $440-450 range. ZZF was listing it at $439, but I could not buy it for a few days. When I went back to check, it had dropped to $409. Not wanting to miss that deal, I immediately pulled the trigger. Not surprisingly, the 1000H went out of stock within a few hours. My order went through, and my final price was $409 shipped. As it turns out, the price drop was to help ASUS sell off their remaining stock so they could introduce a new 1000H model. The new model ships with a 160GB hard drive and retails for $479.

Caveat Emptor: I purchased this netbook from ZZF on Saturday (9/13/08), and as of Thursday (9/18/08) my order had still not been processed. I later found out that I had to call them to verify my address, something that they make no mention of during the checkout process. It's highly unusual and frankly annoying that the customer has to call the retailer, rather than the other way around. If you do buy the 1000H from Zipzoomfly, keep in mind that you may have to call them. From now on I'm just going to avoid the hassle altogether by buying from other retailers that do not require me to jump through hoops to get my package.

Build and Design

I think the 1000H is extremely solid, and that's a testament to its design. At just over 3lbs. with the battery, it is fairly lightweight. Combined with its small footprint (10.5”x7.5&rdquo it is extremely portable and I can easily carry it around without issue. Most of the body is made of ABS plastic, which I find to be quite sturdy. The mouse buttons, though they are likely plastic as well, have a brushed aluminum finish to them. After pushing relatively hard on the back of the screen, I was able to get some rippling along the bottom, but I had to apply a significant amount of force to get those ripples. The screen has a barrel hinge that is extremely solid, and its frame resists flex to a very high degree. In fact, I could only get some flexing by pushing forcefully on the top corners of the lid, and even then it was minimal. The casing seems to be very thick and sturdy, and the all-around construction is quite impressive for a notebook of this size.

The lid and palm rests are covered with a glossy plastic, which naturally is a magnet for fingerprints. Fortunately ASUS throws in a nice microfiber cloth that you can use to wipe the fingerprints off. The rest of the body is a matte plastic that won’t pick up fingerprints as easily.

Screen

The 1000H comes with a 10” screen with a native resolution of 1024x600. This is actually an unusual ratio, not conforming to the standard widescreen 16:10 ratio or even the HDTV 16:9 ratio. It's somewhere in between the two. The screen itself is matte, which I prefer to glossy because it does not pick up glare as easily. The colors are quite vibrant, and the blacks and whites are well defined. It is LED-backlit, like most netbook screens are, and with the matte screen it is bright enough to be readable in direct sunlight.

My unit shipped with zero dead pixels, which I am thankful for. Coming from a 20” desktop display, I figured it would be difficult to acclimate myself to a screen half the size. In reality, though, it is not too difficult. I do find myself scrolling quite a bit, though I suppose that is to be expected on a screen of this size. I won’t be doing post-processing on a screen of this size, but for what I intend to do with it, it is more than enough. Horizontal viewing angles are quite decent, but vertical angles are not as good. The screen does appear washed out from above and over-contrasted from below.

Speakers

The speakers are as good as can be expected from a notebook of this size. They are adequate, but at maximum volume they do become tinny while not producing a whole lot of sound. Sound quality is much better with external speakers or headphones, and I do recommend that if you plan on listening to a lot of music or something that you do invest in headphones or speakers.

Processor and Performance

The 1000H, like nearly every netbook on the market, comes with an Intel Atom N270, clocked at 1.6GHz. It has Speedstep functionality to reduce the clock speed and increase battery life, and can be set to run at half-speed on battery power and full-speed on AC power. It is extremely fast for a mini-notebook, taking 23-25 seconds to get to the logon screen from boot. The hard drive is a standard laptop model; 2.5” and 5400RPM.

The 1000H ships with 1GB of RAM, but can be expanded to 2GB. ASUS does allow modification of the RAM and hard drive under warranty. Actual modification is made quite simple – just remove the back panel and you have instant access to the DIMM slot as well as the hard drive.

If you come in with reasonable expectations, the 1000H will do what you need quite snappily. So far, all I've done with it is web browsing, typing this review, importing a few pictures, and watching some TV shows online at Hulu. It performed all of these tasks very well, and I was especially impressed by the smoothness of the online TV stream. As this only comes with a GMA950, games are pretty much out of the question. You can play flash games and basic emulators, but I would not push it with 3D-accelerated games.

Benchmarks

The Intel Atom is not built for speed, and coupled with a GMA950 and 1GB of RAM this netbook certainly will not be much in terms of power. It still puts up respectable numbers for a notebook of its size and more notably its price.

3DMark05: 264 3DMarks

SuperPI: 3m 9s to calculate 2M

HDTune:

wPrime: 112.343s to calculate 32M

Heat and Noise

Keeping with what seems to be a trend among Atom-equipped netbooks, the 1000H does get a little warm under use. The left palm rest does get warm after prolonged use, and the bottom area just under the hard drive does get noticeably warm as well. Neither of these reach the point of being uncomfortable, but they are noticeable. Fortunately the 1000H comes with rubber “feet” that prop it up about 0.5-1cm off the ground, allowing more air circulation underneath.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard is always an area of uncertainty, and while many notebooks have solidly-built keyboards, just as many have flimsy keyboards that you don’t feel safe typing on. Fortunately, the 1000H’s keyboard is firmly in the first category. The base is solid, owing to the relative lack of empty space underneath it, and the keys don’t suffer from any flex or bouncing. ASUS claims that this keyboard is 95% the size of a normal laptop keyboard; while this may be true, anyone coming from a desktop keyboard to the 1000H’s will encounter some difficulty.

All the keys are smaller, and to maximize the amount of keys they could fit in the 1000H’s small frame, they’ve severely cut the size of some of the extra function keys. The right-shift key, for example, is smaller than any of the letter keys, and is awkwardly placed to the right of the up-arrow key. This makes it tricky to use, and you have to get used to its placement. What many users have done is used a keyboard remapping software to swap the up-arrow and right-shift key functions, and then physically swapped the key tops. If you want to, know that option is available to you. Along the top row, you have four additional keys. From left to right, there is a screen on/off key, a resolution switcher, a performance switch, and a Skype hotkey.

The touchpad is small, but it is relatively large for a notebook of this size. The 1000H uses a Synaptics touchpad, which to my pleasant surprise has multi-touch features built in. You can, for example, scroll by dragging down the touchpad with two fingers. If you tap two fingers, you activate the “mouse wheel”, and can scroll by dragging one finger. Right-click is activated by tapping with three fingers. I thought this was a great feature, and definitely was unexpected. The touchpad functions are remarkably similar to those on Apple notebooks, which leads me to believe they also contract Synaptics for their touchpads.

Input and Output Ports

The 1000H comes reasonably well-equipped in the input/output department, for a netbook. It has three USB 2.0 ports, a VGA-out port, a 10/100 ethernet jack, mic in, headphone out, and a Kensington lock slot. None of the ports are stacked, and all of them are far enough apart from each other that you could have something plugged into each one without issue.

Wireless

The 1000H has an Atheros mini-PCI Express wireless card that works with 802.11b/g/n. The reception itself is solid, and in my house I can get a strong (4-5 bars) signal from the basement when my router is on the second floor. The 1000H also comes with a Bluetooth module, which conforms to the 2.0+EDR standard. Its performance is also good; I was able to easily sync my phone with the 1000H and it transferred pictures from the phone very quickly.

Battery

The 1000H ships with a 6-cell 6600mAh battery that ASUS claims is good for up to 7 hours of computing. The bad news is that you will not see that kind of time unless you dim the screen all the way, turn Bluetooth off, turn wireless off, and take other severe optimizing steps like disabling ports and the webcam. The good news, however, is that the battery can easily go 5 hours under normal use. With wireless and BT on and the screen at half brightness, I was able to browse the web and even type parts of this review for 5hrs 43mins before the battery hit the two percent warning.

Recently, third-party vendors have begun selling extended-capacity batteries for the Eee series. For about $70 you can get an 8800mAh 8-cell battery, which I would project is good for about 7 hours of normal use and potentially over 9 hours in battery-saving mode. There is also a behemoth 11000mAh 10-cell battery on the way, which could net 8.5 hours of normal use or nearly 12 hours in battery-saving mode. Keep in mind that the tradeoff here is weight, and the early word is that a 1000H with the 10-cell battery will be in the 4.5lbs. range. At that point, you are creeping dangerously close to the weight range of mainstream notebooks, though I doubt any of them can do 12 hours of continuous operation.

Operating System and Software

The 1000H comes preloaded from the factory with Windows XP Home Edition, as part of an agreement between Microsoft and the various netbook manufacturers to be able to still ship products with Windows XP. It also comes with a recovery DVD that has a complete Windows XP installation along with all the 1000H drivers. I found this a bit strange, considering that the 1000H has no optical drive. I would have preferred an SD card or USB thumbdrive with the drivers preloaded, but I suppose that would have increased costs.

The 1000H comes preloaded with some basic software. Microsoft Works is included, as is Microsoft Powerpoint Viewer 2007. ASUS also includes their own office suite, named StarOffice 8, which is based on the Openoffice software. In addition, the 1000H comes with Skype and ECAP, ASUS’ webcam capture utility.

There is one gripe I have, however. The 1000H comes with the 80GB hard drive split into two equal partitions. My guess is that Asus assumed people would want one partition for installing programs and the other for storing files. I don’t find that very useful, but fortunately you can format the netbook and resize the partitions how you please.

Customer Support

The 1000H comes with a 1-year warranty Unfortunately the 1000H, along with all other Eee PCs, is not eligible for ASUS’ 1-year accidental damage warranty. They also have a 24/7 support center which you can call to resolve hardware issues, or you can chat with one of their customer service reps online. I’ve not had to call in the warranty, but if their warranty service is anything like their laptop quality, I’m not worried.

Conclusion

I am thrilled by this little netbook, and based on its specs, price, and reading various reviews of other netbooks on the web, I would go as far as saying that the 1000H might be the best netbook on the market. It offers nearly every feature found on similar netbooks, but takes it a step further with a 1” larger screen, as well as Bluetooth and wireless-N. The build quality is also fantastic, and upgradability is made simple with the removable back panel offering easy access.

The Eee PC 1000H is an excellent combination of performance and size, wrapped up in a usable 10” screen and a $450 price tag. I unconditionally recommend it to anyone in the market for a netbook, as I believe it to be the best one available.

Pros:

• 10” Screen affords a little more screen real estate than the other netbooks.
• Comes with an 80GB hard drive rather than a sub-20GB SSD.
• Has Bluetooth and 802.11n built in.
• Stellar build quality, and the added slipcase is a nice touch.
• Excellent battery life, and extended-life batteries available for purchase.
• Very easy to upgrade, and supports 2GB RAM.

Cons:

• At $450, a little more expensive than competitors’ products.
• Glossy finish is a fingerprint magnet.
• Hard drive comes pre-formatted into two 40GB partitions.
• Slightly larger and heavier than other netbooks due to larger frame.

 

Nice review. I bought a 1000H with the 160GB HD and am currently spending a week at a conference using this as my only computer - the work laptop was left at home. For years, I too have been searching for a lightweight notebook with long battery life at a price point I could justify and this one comes close enough in my book.

I have a few issues:

- battery is a tiny bit loose
- the 6 cell battery and with the little rubber feet makes for an awkward 'laptop' experience
- the mouse buttons are too stiff, but I don't really use them much
- there are some quality issues - one silly one is the presence of two periods and two slashes on those keys. The key labels are stick-ons and I expect they'll wear off over time.
- the off-center space bar annoys my design sensibilities
- the left shift key is oddly placed, but I don't use it
- touch typists might experience some double letters as I do during fast typing

Those things aside, this little beaut gets darned close to being main-computer capable. You can make mods to xp with apps like objectdoc to remove some of the limitations of the small screen and have a really nice portable at a great price point. Oh, and Asus made this easily upgradeable - a limitation of the Acer Aspire One that led me to give that one to my sister so I could buy the Asus.

 

Nice review m8...but a little unfair...cos I was going to review this one!

 

Do you guys suffer from the black screen problem? My 901 randomly gets a black screen every now and then. The screen will turn black and I will not be able to do anything. The only way to make it go away is to restart the computer. I have done SSD and ram tests, and they are both fine.

 

the build quality looks sick, so is the keyboard, **** i wonder how much money Asus made off this thing.

 

I do agree that the battery seems to be a tad loose, but I always engage the battery lock so I'm not terribly concerned about it falling out. I think that the rubber feet a tremendous help in allowing air circulation underneath the unit, and it hasn't hindered my ability to put it on my lap and use it. As far as the double placement of . and /, that's because they tried to recreate a number pad in that area, so in the interest of consistency they added those keys. The mouse buttons are a bit stiff, but I've read that they soften over time, and I haven't had much issue with missing keys. The keyboard is relatively large and not difficult to adjust to, in my opinion.

Hah, sorry

I hope you found the 1000H as great as I did.

Never had that issue. I suggest you head over to the Eee forum ( www.eeeuser.com) or just post in the Asus section here with your concern. I'm sure someone can help you out.

I think their profit margin must be small on these. High volume, low margin.

 

Very nice review friend.

"I'm not your friend, buddy. I'm not your buddy, pal. I'm not your pal, friend."

 

I am a member of that site and have read the threads where they talk about it, yet nothing they have offered as a solution has helped.

 

Small nitpick: StarOffice is indeed based on OpenOffice, but it is Sun's own paid version of the suite, not something that Asus made up. Whether it's better than Oo.org is another question in and of itself, but it's definitely not an Asus-only deal.

 

http://www.sun.com/software/staroffice/faqs.jsp

What are the differences between StarOffice 8 software and the OpenOffice.org 2.0?

StarOffice 8 software is a commercial product built on the open source code of OpenOffice.org to provide the best value, multi-platform Microsoft compatible office suite aimed at organizations and consumers. OpenOffice.org 2.0 is the leading open-source project aimed at users of free software, independent developers, and the open source community.

StarOffice includes licensed-in, third-party technology such as:

* Spellchecker and thesaurus
* Select fonts, including Windows metrically equivalent fonts and Asian language fonts
* Select filters, including Asian word processor filters
* Integration of additional templates and extensive clipart gallery
* Migration Tools and Macro Migration Wizard. The converted macros do not run in OpenOffice.org.
* Sun Java System Configuration Manager for Solaris, Linux and Windows

In addition to product differences, StarOffice offers:

* Updates/upgrades on CD
* Sun installation and user documentation
* 24x7 Web based support for enterprises and consumers
* Help desk support
* Warranties and indemnification guarantee
* Training
* Professional services for migration and deployment

 

Wowsa! That was an excellent review, and the pictures you provided were awesome! Kudo's!

Cin

Aww! Doc..You can do a mini-review! Yours should be arriving soon!


Cin

 

That is a very nice pricepoint! For $650 like Asus originally had them was off the charts in the netbook world, but now that they are $450 I don't see why anyone would even bother with other screen sizes than 10"...

I have an MSI Wind and <3 it to death but if I were to buy right now it would be a tough decision for me between the two...

One thing I do like about the wind is that it came with a nice leather zipper case. And I'm not a huge fan of glossy surfaces everywhere, which pushes me again to the Wind, but like I said before the price on the 1000 is going to be very appealing to many people!

Nice review though... + Rep for sure.

 

lol... I just got mine from craigslist for $300 and the specs were Intel Atom 2 GB memory and 80 GB HDD... lol. thanks for the review...

 

That's not a fair comparison considering where you bought it but... ok.

 

did it really come with a Synaptics touchpad? The one I have access to uses an Elintech touchpad.

I wish Asus would have gone with the same layout as the Acer Aspire One US keyboard with larger shift key on the right. That, to me, would have made it a great keyboard.

 

Great review!!!

I really want one of these little things, but I don't think I would have much use for it. I mean, my XPS is set up like a desktop with an external monitor and keyboard, and this is how I like my office computer. I don't travel much either, so I guess it would mainly be my "couch surfer". Although, with Microsoft Live cashback and the Asus Rebate, I can get a brand new one for only $250 (if you want to know how to do this, pm me). Can't decide if I want it.

Anybody buy this for the novelty and find out they use it a lot more than they thought they would?

 

Thanks for the comments guys

 

That's my fault. The application is actually named "Asus StarOffice", which led me to believe it was created by Asus.

 

In the 10" category those are really your only two options...the Wind or the 1000H. I took the 1000H mainly because of its price, but it also has a 6-cell battery and the Ctrl/Fn keys are in their "proper" places.

It's really a subjective decision, but I do wholeheartedly recommend the 1000H, especially since it's cheaper than the Wind and better-equipped in my opinion.

That's a great price, lol. I don't think anyone can turn it down, especially with that extra gig of RAM thrown in.

To my knowledge it is a Synpatics touchpad. And as far as the keyboard, I agree. The right shift key is too small; you have to get adjusted to its size and placement.

I didn't buy it for the novelty, but it is definitely more functional than I imagined. I had just planned on bringing it to class to take notes and the library to access online homework from, but in my opinion it's a fully functional laptop in a small and portable body.

With the 20% cashback on eBay it's definitely worth considering.

 

dude, shoelace_510, I KNOW you are just jealous. hahaha jk. but seriously...I have to say I am pretty lucky cause the receipt says bought on the mid of september... and there is 12 months of warranty... lucky just describes it...

 

Great review.. i too got mine from zipzoomfly.com for $409..for that 2 mins sale.. ^^ (also 2% live.com cash back)..

my 1000H's touch pad is Elantech..(just double checked it)..

 

Sorry, I'd read that Synaptics made the 1000H touchpads, and compounded with the fact that they make multi-touch pads, I figured this was Synaptics.

I've corrected it in the review.

 

haha whatever.

 

Yeah the final version of the Wind isn't a synaptics either. I thought mine was but it turns out that it's sentelic. Still works just fine so no harm IMO.

 

Its actualy the polar opposite. Synaptics has the patent on the side scrolling method, but if thats not there you know its another brand

I think the 2 finger scrolling and stuff is actually something that can be applied at a driver level to almost any touchpad, I have seen hacks on how to do it for a long time, but only recently has it become so easy and practical with just a modded driver.

Since I like my EEE so much I guess I will do a little review of it too. I was told NBR is not accepting any reviews currently, thats the main reason I did not do it in the first place suppose I was told wrong.

 

One other little detail.....these do not have Atheros wirelss. The wired ethernet is Atheros, but the wireless is a Ralink 2790. Kinda nit picky, but none the less a discrepency.

 

Wow, excellent review.

I sometimes wonder if I would have been able to get away with something like this for school instead of the D630, if these were around when I bought my laptop. Seems perfect. Nice size for a desk, great battery life, and it's actually affordable.

 

Unless some are different, I think that may be incorrect information.

Mine has the RT2860 I am almost positive. This could also explain why I am about the only one that has had good results with the new drivers from ralinks site after updating from the stock Asus stuff while everybody else has had bad things happen. May be some bad info floating around and people getting the wrong stuff

I can tell you for a fact I have the RT2860 drivers installed right now and they work perfectly. I also looked in my device manager and went thru all the advanced details tabs in there and research the card before I downloaded them and one of the tabs in there gave me enough info to determine in was a 2860.

http://www.ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/Support/Windows.html

same family of adapters, and the page has them in the same () and block but the link is not the same for the drivers download.

 

can you post a picture of power brick?

 

Note that the term "netbook" was not coined by the community, it was rather coined by Intel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook

This is one very nice netbook. Before the 1000H when I saw the Eee 900 I thought I would never buy one, but after they launched the 1000H I changed my mind.

10" is not a bad thing. It's a good thing, as long as it's portable.

 

There was no mention of noise (in the heat & noise section) of the review. Any comments here? Equipped with an SSD, could this little beast be totally silent for web browsing, etc? The 901 apparently can be. (Nice, but small screen.)

 

I bought one two days ago and I love it! It is so small and nice
I cant hear the noise at all if I dont put my ear ON the computer. The powerbrick is small, very small. I use Chrome as browser and it works really really well, much much faster than explorer and it is taking up less space with menues and stuff.

 

Very nice review. The 1000H blurs the line between netbook and notebook (for better or worse) and I think it suits some people's needs very well. 3.2 lbs is still very light but that's a 50% increase in weight over the typical 8.9" notebook, which is the main thing (other than the funky keyboard layout) that's kept me from snapping one of these up at that very delicious $449 price point.

One thing that I have to give Asus kudos for is their battery tech. 6600mAh is a lot more than the 6-cells competitors are offering. I wish that Acer had given me a 6600mAh instead of a 5200mAh on my Aspire One .

After thinking about it, I don't think I could live with that right shift key; it would kill me every time...haha.

 

too big as a netbook

 

I have such an ich to buy one of these babies...

 

Hm.... I think many people who say such a thing about 10" netbooks are usually uninformed. I'm not saying that you are, but really 10" is still pretty darn small, and for most people when they see my Wind think that there's no way they could use anything smaller!

So until you see a 10" netbook and an 8.9" I don't think many people have a fair concept of the sizes...

And again, I'm not saying that YOU are uninformed, I'm just saying that people with that viewpoint generally are...

 

10" is good for me, mostly due to keyboard issues, seems even just 1" smaller cause touch typing to go to hell.

So I say get a 10" like this for your ultra portable lappy and if you want anything smaller, may as well use your phone or something.

 

Thanks for the review.

So how do you use the recovery disk? Can you boot from an optical drive on an Ethernet network? A wireless network? Or does it have to be an external optical drive connected via USB?

 

External optical drive via usb I guess ...

 

Yeah, a drive via usb, unless you make a flashdrive which acts as a recovery disk.

 

You can share you optical drive over a network do do things IN WINDOWS, but I think you would be SOL for recovery like that.

Found some cheap usb optical drives on ebay.

You can also be creative and just toss your hdd in an enclosure and use your pc, or just directly connect it via a SATA cable.

Or also creative is what I did, I used Acronis and cloned the 80gb hard drive when it was brand new onto the usb stick now I can boot from my usb flash drive and just clone the original XP install to the hard drive at any time.

 

Great review!I agree with you that it's the best netbook out there at the moment.Factoring in quality,specs,and price.I'm typing on mine right now.I got the 160gb version for about $350 pending MS cashback.I've received it since last week but finally decided to open it last night.When I opened the box,it was smaller and thinner than I expected.Then I turned it on.The screen looked great crisp and bright.But I didn't like the resolution,everything looks a bit cramped.Maybe it was the first boot up,initially I was regretting that I got it.I had a bit of problem getting the wireless connected to my network.Everything seems it takes a bit longer to load than I'm normally use to.I also expected the sound to be better just cause of the dolby label,but its just good enough for me.I just was haven't a bad time using it.I guess the drivers needed to be updated.I booted it up again ,got connected to wireless without problem.It's no speed demon but it got snappy enough.The keyboard is very good for a non-full ,even for a touch typist like me.The mouse could be better tho,you really really have to push down on the left and right click.It might get better over time.Webcam is nice at 1.3 MP.Again I really like the crispness of the screen,you will not have trouble reading text on this 10" display.Watched a very funny episode of It's Always Funny in Philadelphia on Hulu with this,it was great.So after initially wanting to sell this off,I think I'll keep it around.Took me a bit to adjust to it but it grow on me.

 

Hi,
I'm new here and just bought the Asus Eee 900 notebook with Linux OS.
Now i have problems coz i realy don't know how to connect to wifi internet. I have smart broadband wifi for my normal pc here, but don't know how to esthablisch the connection for the asus?
Further i can't find the 20gb storage they told me it is in it? And last but not least i cant install yahoo messenger on it. On my own pc i work with windows XP.
Can somebody explain me in normal english what i need to do? I'm not much a computer man but just a user.

Thanks in front

 

Yeah I actually reformatted my Eee this past weekend, and installed Windows from a flash drive. It's pretty simple, and the Asus BIOS allows for you to boot from USB.

I still would have preferred if they threw in a 128MB flash key with the drivers on it, but they're all available online and flash memory is dirt cheap these days anyway.

 

My HP offers the option of booting from LAN at startup. I've never actually tried it, though.

 

I think the EEE does too now that you mention it but I do not know for sure.

 

Author please take note of this. Thanks

 

Duly noted.

 

It does, there is an option in the bios.

 

is it good to watch video ?

i would like to buy one to watch .rmvb , .avi movie