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The boyfriend and I will be going back to Singapore and Kuching in two weeks, and being the avid planners that we are, we’ve been weighing the pros and cons of whose laptop to bring back with us during this trip. Will it be my old laptop, because it’s slightly lighter and has more slots, or will it be his giant 17″ laptop?

And then my laptop started acting funny, so I got a desktop and the laptop went to servicing and then got taken over by my mom. And my boyfriend grumbled to no end about lugging a 3.3 kg desktop replacement around with him across two countries. So in the spur of the moment, I went and got us a mini Eee PC.

It wasn’t exactly an impulse buy. We had been talking about netbooks and debating their merits for quite awhile now. I had also been doing my research on netbooks, in the event of us actually getting one. We’re a very prepared couple that way haha. And according to most reviews, the best netbooks were the MSI Winds and the Asus Eee PCs. The former for power, and the latter for battery life.

I’ve been using the new Eee PC for about two weeks now, and I am very very very pleased with my purchase. Details below:

Specs on my model:

Operating System: Windows 7 Starter
Display: 10.1″ LED Backlight WSVGA Screen (1024×600)
Intel CPU & Chipset: Intel® Atom™ N270
Memory: 1GB DDR2 SO-DIMM
Hybrid Storage: 250GB HDD
Wireless Data Network: WLAN 802.11n @2.4GHz
Camera: 1.3M Pixel
Audio Hi-Definition Audio CODEC
Stereo speaker
Digital Array Mic
Input / Output 1 x VGA Port (D-sub 15-pin for external monitor)
3 x USB 2.0
1 x LAN RJ-45
2 x Audio Jack (Head Phone / Mic-in)
Card Reader: MMC/ SD(SDHC)
Battery: 8.5 hrs, 6-Cell 48Wh Li-ion Battery
Dimensions: 262mm(W) x 178mm(D) x 25.9mm~ 36.5mm(H)
Weight: 1.27Kg (with 6-Cell Battery)

I got this for $568 at JB HiFi after haggling with the guy who sold it to me. It’s now retailing there for $598 at the moment.

I was actually going to buy the older model which had slightly longer battery life but less memory, but it turns out that the previous model was almost $200 more expensive than the new one they had in stock, so naturally I settled for this model.

So….what’s the lowdown?

What I really like:

1. LONG battery life. It says that it lasts 8.5 hours, and it actually does. On the lowest power setting. ALTHOUGH, that power setting is enough for most net surfing and word processing. I usually have it on the highest setting, and it lasts approximately 6.5 hours – still more than enough time to cram in a good chunk of computer time.

2. Fast start up time – It’s running on Windows 7 Starter, which means that its functions are limited, and that I can’t change the desktop background (that’s a minor irritation), but the startup time is comparable to starting up a phone. It’s good to go in approximately half a minute, and takes another approximate half minute for the net to connect.

3. It fits into my handbags! And doesn’t break my back in the process of carrying it. Nuff sed. =D

4. Decently spaced keyboard. Another main reason I got this netbook was to be able to work and write on the go, so a good keyboard was essential to me. I tried touch typing with a couple of netbooks while I was out hunting for them, and the Eee PC was the one I was most comfortable typing with. I type pretty fast, and my fingers tend to fly across the keyboard, and this was the only keyboard that was of optimal space for me to do so. On the HP Minin0te, I kept hitting the wrong keys because they were spaced too close for comfort.

What I wasn’t so keen about:

1. The multi-touch touchpad. It’s a cool concept, and face it, it’s trying to be a Mac (take note, anyone who wants to do a Hackintosh on any netbook – try the Eee PC). BUT, I can hardly tell where the touchpad starts and ends, and have left the original sticker on so I can tell where it actually does. And it also means that I always accidentally zoom in and out without warning when I’m typing. And it just happened again while I was typing this paragraph. Plus, it isn’t immediately responsive as well. Something for Asus to iron out for its newer models.

2. The teeny screen size. Then again, I get what I pay for, so this complaint isn’t all that valid.

3. Windows Live Messenger. I know this isn’t a complaint about the computer, but it’s related. I’m (and probably half the world) a big Windows Live Messenger (previously MSN Messenger) user, and I was pretty happy when it came pre-installed with this computer. However, when I tried to tweak the options for the program, I found out that the resolution of the screen size prevented me from seeing the bottom of the screen, and to “apply” or “save” changes, I had to hit enter, and pray that everything worked. Microsoft, make your programs netbook friendly or else Google will take over!!!

4. It’s a little slow in rendering Flash sites. I played Desktop Tower Defense in slow mo last night. =P

Conclusion?

In all, I am quite pleased with our purchase. The netbook is perfect for surfing the net, and typing notes and reading e-mails on the fly. It starts up very fast, and in comparision to my old Toshiba Satellite which was plagued with problems towards the end of the first year and took 5 minutes to start up anyway, as well as having a battery life of one and a half hours, this is a massive improvement.

Plus, the Seashell looks much better than their cheaper looking older models. Call me shallow, but I like my mobile computers pretty as well as functional.

This Eee PC performs well for it’s specs, does what it’s built to do pretty well – word processing and net surfing, and for that I couldn’t really ask for more for a computer it’s size.

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Tags: asus eee pc, netbook

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 12:37 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.