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Great piece of tecnologhy, very fast and reliable even with 1Gb of memory, so far I have got 6 hours of battery life working without turning off the machine. I am very pleased with the perfomance of the netbook in everyway. 1005 recommended.
The 75GB hard drive (as with most computers, the stats say 80GB, but then define "GB" as Billion Bytes, instead of Giga Bytes), is far more then enough, and I added 2 word processors, an accounting program, a graphic editor, a schedule program, Firefox and Chrome browsers, some general programs, a collection of MP3s, and of course a few games. Well, I knew getting a net book I was going down in size, in screen, in keyboard, but then again, that is what I was asking for. The only problem that arose is, since it has Windows XP Home instead of XP Pro, opening up a VPN tunnel to my network has been a problem. I was afraid that the less memory, weaker processor, and smaller hard drive them my regular laptop would be a problem, but it hasn't. I found that for most of the applications that I need a portable machine, this has more then enough power. Still working on that. Overall a great machine.
It's also handy on vacation and travel. I switched to the Asus Eee PC 1000H with Windows XP about a year ago and haven't regretted it for a moment.The 10" screen with 1024x600 resolution is enough for most things I want to do. Coupled with 2GB of RAM, I've been able to run Office applications, web browsers, email, photo editing, audio editing, and other software without any hint that I'm not on a "real" laptop. My only other complaint is that Asus has done a good job keeping most of the device extremely light, but the battery (which is at the back of the unit) is the heftiest part. Apart from that, my hands find the keyboard very touch-typable (though if I had thicker fingers I'd probably hate it).
But if you need a lot of horsepower, look elsewhere.I upgraded my hard disk drive to a 320GB 7200rpm model a few months back, not because of any problems, but because I wanted some increased flexibility. Very cool.Because the 1000H uses a low-power Atom CPU, battery life is really good. My 320GB drive now has room to boot between XP, Windows 7, and Linux as I choose. The flaws are pretty minor in the big scheme of things, but worth noting. That makes it a handy backup device for your documents should your hard disk fail. I find that carrying it with my hand wrapped around the battery area eliminates that problem, but I have to be careful when handing it to someone else.In the year I've owned it, I've found this to be a decent-performing, light, very usable, solid little machine. My 17" HP notebook runs a couple of hours before its battery is gone. While I'd stop short of saying it can do "anything", as long as you're not looking to watch high-definition video or play high-end 3D games, it will probably do what you want it to do.
The 701's screen resolution was too small for my web site content management system, and its solid-state disk was too small to store much. I could probably get longer life shutting off the WiFi and Bluetooth, but I haven't needed to do that.You'll notice I've given the machine 4 stars out of 5, so clearly I don't think it's perfect. The first was also an Asus, the Eee PC 701. The Asus gets a minimum of 4 hours of normal use (defined as basic applications, WiFi web browsing and email, and the like), with typical being closer to 6.
The built-in SD card slot is SDHC compatible, which means you can plug in an 8GB or 16GB SD card (as well as the smaller ones). Both of them in my backpack were so light I barely knew they were there. I shot pictures with the camera. This is my second netbook. The right-hand shift key is a small key next to the arrow keys. That takes some getting used to, and if I spend any time away from the netbook, I have to readjust my typing. The outer case is very shiny black, which looks good when it's clean but is very easy to muck up with fingerprints. Fortunately, I am not that worried about the appearance, so I don't do much to keep it clean.
It can't replace my desktop, and doesn't replace all the functionality of my full-size laptop (which, for example, can play World of Warcraft while the Asus can't). Occasionally I run into an application or web site designed for a higher resolution that doesn't work as well with the 1000H, but that's not common.The 1.6GHz CPU has allowed me to run Windows XP, Windows 7 Ultimate, Ubuntu Linux, and some other operating systems without any significant performance impact. But it's small, light, easy to transport, and provides the functionality I use most with excellent battery life. I took my digital camera and the netbook to a convention recently. At lunch, I pulled out the netbook, popped in the camera's SD card, used the restaurant's WiFi, and uploaded my pictures to the web. It tends to make the netbook a little "unbalanced" to carry around. I'm very pleased with it.
On most keyboards, the shift key is below the enter key so if you miss, nothing bad happens. Beware. On this machine, it was fairly often the case that when I tried for enter, I got the up arrow and it threw me into a different part of the document. Anything good in this machine is counterbalanced by a truly terrible element of the keyboard design. You'll notice that the up arrow key is just below theenter key. It was unbearable. I had to return it to Amazon.
This netbook has exceeded my expectations. One final note: Open Office is compatible with and as easy to use as the MS Office suite. I download a lot of videos for play back on my LCD TV and the image is as sharp and smooth as it is with my Toshiba Centrino notebook.
If you're concerned about the keyboard size, it's about 85% the size of a standard notebook keyboard - very easy to get used to. Mine came with a 4 cell battery, which is good for 3.5-4hours. I read reviews comparing most of the current 10" netbook offerings before deciding on this one and I have not been disappointed.
I did buy the 2GB memory upgrade, but performance was fine with the standard 1GB. Go down to your local Best Buy or Costco and take a look at their floor models. What I wasn't expecting was the performance to be as good as it is.
Purchased an after-market 8 cell off eBay and now can get 7.5-8 hours. It's also free (donations accepted)
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