Yeah, I know, but the headline did grab you. I’ve been fascinated by the netbook craze from the beginning. I bought one of the original Asus 701s when they came out, really not that long ago and look what’s happened. The netbook has become more of a laptop instead of a lightweight device of some sort.
For me, in order for a netbook to make sense (other than a toy) it needs to be lightweight, the screen needs to be functional, Wi-Fi, battery life, and cheap. The 701 was cheap, but other than that the novelty wore off and it became a toy. Then the 8.9” netbooks flooded the market and the craze took off. Although many of my concerns were answered by them, the 8.9” form factor was still too small to be perfect.
I thought upgrading my 14.1” HP with SSD would be a temporary answer, but after adding the 12 cell battery for long battery life, it was no longer lightweight or very portable.
Then the announcements started about the 10” netbooks. The Dell Mini really intrigued me, but then they disappointed on price and crippling upgrades on their first version. I saw a lot of good press on the Asus 1000 series, but it wasn’t until the 1000HE came out with a better keyboard that I took a closer look. The HE has a ton of high end features that would have made a Dell Mini cost as much as a Studio. Amazon consistently has the 1000HE around $390, but when I saw zipzoomfly.com have it for $349 a few weeks ago, well that’s almost impulse money for a gadget freak. Combine that with a spring break trip with the family and it was too good to be true. So I snapped one up and decided to try it out on the road trip.
When it arrived I noticed that the packaging has definitely improved since my first Asus netbook, it seemed more polished than before and I was pleasantly surprised that it included a sleeve and cloth wipe. Not great, but nice added touches. It’s a little thicker than some 10” netbooks due to it’s great extended battery, but it’s done is such a way that it doesn’t distract from the aesthetics of the pc.
The exterior has also improved since the last Eee that I had, more in line with the Dell Mini and other netbooks. The keyboard is a chick let style similar to a Sony or Apple. Typing on it is pretty comfortable and after a week, it’s second nature. Besides the re-designed keyboard, the touchpad has been updated with a multi-touch touchpad. It took a while to get use to some of the gestures, but scrolling web pages became a breeze. The wireless adapter is not G but N and in addition there’s Bluetooth.
The LED backlit screen is gorgeous and multimedia shows up in great color and clarity. Round it off with the normal number of ports and 1.3 mega pixel webcam. The one thing that’s not normal is the battery life. Besides the hype of “all day computing”, so far I have to say it’s true. The battery life has just been great, even when using Wi-Fi or a USB broadband card.
After using it on the road for almost a week, I have to say that this is maybe the perfect netbook so far. In terms of feature, function, and price this is the one to beat. I can’t wait to try Windows 7 on it and maybe replace the 160GB drive with an SSD.
You can check out more specs at the Asus site. This Tech Lust is definitely worth the price.
Posted by techstauf4 
