Which Netbook Do You Have?

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

After some additional research, I think I'm going to return the HP (which I haven't received yet - it arrives Wednesday) and go with the Asus 1000HE.

Here are my reasons:

• Though I wanted the Express Card slot for my Broadband Wireless card, I have found that I can an unlocked USB version for under $100 on eBay (no need to extend my contract or pay $100-$250), I just need to move the SIM card to the new unit. That will save me money over the price of the HP and still keep it compatible with my current laptop.
  
• The Asus has a higher screen resolution than the HP.
  
• I'm very curious about the "multi-touch" trackpad.
  
• Longer battery life without having to spend more money to upgrade the battery.

On the whole, I can get more bang for my buck with the Asus. It looks like I'll be purchasing the blue one, though I wish the colors I see available on Asus website were available.

AWESOME!! I was going to get the blue one also, but have you seen the skins available at decalgirl.com for the Asus?

http://www.decalgirl.com/browse.cfm/2,278.htm

As beautiful as the blue one is, it looks like such a fingerprint magnet......but I might get it anyway!

[wodin]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

I have a mini 4-port USB hub that hangs that I can use to keep things from sticking out. If you remember where you saw the other hub, please post as I might like it better.

It wasn't a hub, it was a computer; tablet or laptop or brick or something li'dat.

I guess with the limited real estate available on a netbook that wouldn't be feasible though.

[desertgrandma]

You know, when I finally get around to buying (very soon now)

Amazon had best not be "out of stock"

I will be chasing down whoever is responsible...........

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

AWESOME!! I was going to get the blue one also, but have you seen the skins available at decalgirl.com for the Asus?

http://www.decalgirl.com/browse.cfm/2,278.htm

As beautiful as the blue one is, it looks like such a fingerprint magnet......but I might get it anyway!

I've been looking at the skins at 3apc which I like better than Decal Girl. I had found a matching set for the HP I had ordered and my K2. Now, I'll just have to change it to the Asus and K2 (I hadn't ordered either one yet).

If I can find it in a color other than black, I would prefer to buy this cover over getting a skin.

[All4Fun]

Originally Posted by All4Fun

I've had my blue Asus 1000HE for about a week or so and I'm still getting used to the multi-touch trackpad for zooming in and out in particular. Everything else I can do.

I like the multi-touch trackpad because I find that the trackpad left/right buttons quite stiff in comparison. A minor complaint I have is that there is no "right-click" multi-touch replacement when using it.

Your other reasons are very valid especially with going with a USB broadband device over an Express Card device. Personally, I would opt for USB devices where possible. I've already experienced an issue where a PC Card I own won't work in my netbook or any other device limiting me. If that PC Card was a USB device, I'd be able to use it. For the most part, USB devices work on any device for most OS platforms.

BTW, daffy4u, congratulations on your 3000th post.

I just found out that to do a "right-click" with the multi-touch trackpad, it's a 3-finger tap. I didn't know this.

Another discussion forum for information related to Asus Eee Netbooks is here: http://forum.eeeuser.com/index.php

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by All4Fun

I just found out that to do a "right-click" with the multi-touch trackpad, it's a 3-finger tap. I didn't know this.

Another discussion forum for information related to Asus Eee Netbooks is here: http://forum.eeeuser.com/index.php

Karma to you for that link!

[desertgrandma]

For all you asus 1000HE people.

Astra and I are wondering.

Would using a bluetooth mouse, use up battery life faster than just using a logitech nanovx mouse with the tiny receiver?

Can you keep the bluetooth option off, and does this save power?

If so, doesn't if follow that by using a bluetooth mouse, you need it on all the time, thereby draining your battery faster?

Forgive my ignorance.

[All4Fun]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

For all you asus 1000HE people.

Astra and I are wondering.

Would using a bluetooth mouse, use up battery life faster than just using a logitech nanovx mouse with the tiny receiver?

Can you keep the bluetooth option off, and does this save power?

If so, doesn't if follow that by using a bluetooth mouse, you need it on all the time, thereby draining your battery faster?

Forgive my ignorance.

Keeping the bluetooth option off will save power. There are function key option and a tray application option that allows you to turn off the wireless LAN, bluetooth, or webcam at any given time to save power.

As I'm not using an external mouse currently, I've turned off bluetooth and the webcam all the time. As I also have a broadband USB adapter, if I'm away from my home wireless LAN, I would turn that off as well to save battery power.

I would surmise that there's no appreciable difference between using a bluetooth mouse or a mouse with a USB dongle. Given a choice, I would prefer a bluetooth mouse for a cleaner installation and avoid another dongle jutting out of my netbook. It's definitely something that I wouldn't worry much about from a power perspective.

The 9 hour rated battery time is with all power saving options off including WLAN, bluetooth, and camera. Real-world is around 6-7 hours with these options turned on which is still amazing and should get through the day when you can recharge the netbook again. I don't think there's another netbook that has this type of battery performance.

I hope you folks are suffering from some slight "analysis paralysis".

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by All4Fun

Keeping the bluetooth option off will save power. There are function key option and a tray application option that allows you to turn off the wireless LAN, bluetooth, or webcam at any given time to save power. got this part


I would surmise that there's no appreciable difference between using a bluetooth mouse or a mouse with a USB dongle. Given a choice, I would prefer a bluetooth mouse for a cleaner installation and avoid another dongle jutting out of my netbook. It's definitely something that I wouldn't worry much about from a power perspective.

The 9 hour rated battery time is with all power saving options off including WLAN, bluetooth, and camera. Real-world is around 6-7 hours with these options turned on which is still amazing and should get through the day when you can recharge the netbook again. I don't think there's another netbook that has this type of battery performance.

I hope you folks are suffering from some slight "analysis paralysis".

Well, on my part, I'm getting this netbook regardless. I was just wondering if there was a difference in power useage with either type of mouse.

Personally, I have a real problem using the mousepad. But, again, thats just me!

Thanks for your feedback.

[All4Fun]

I guess it's no secret that I'm a fan of the Asus EeePC 1000HE. However, I'll tell you what are some of my minor gripes with it:

1. I own the blue version of this device. Yes, it's a finger-print magnet. Minor gripe I suppose.

2. The trackpad left/right mouse buttons are stiff and not very fluid. Some effort is indeed necessary to press the buttons. This is not the case with the regular keyboard however.


That's it for my very minor gripes. And they are rather minor indeed.

For the netbook segment, I don't know how much more one can expect from a netbook. I guess if they could get it from 3.2 pounds to something even lighter, that would be even more amazing.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by desertgrandma

Personally, I have a real problem using the mousepad. But, again, thats just me!

You mean the touchpad? I'm guessing the difference in power consumption would be pretty much negligible.

[wodin]

My 1000HE arrived yesterday, two days early WOOHOO! I started it up just to see if there was a restore partition, and of course was forced to go through the WinXP setup. Once I found out that there wasn’t a restore utility, I shut it down, replaced the RAM and Hard Drive, set the bios to boot from the external DVD and installed Windows 7. There are a few issues that are addressed here, but mostly everything went smoothly.

I haven’t tried everything yet, but it looks like I pretty much have the same functionality that I had with WinXP, and Windows 7 runs pretty well.

So far I’ve installed MS Office Standard, an old version of PhotoShop that I’ve been using for years, PDANet (which doesn’t seem to work), and most of the Asus utilities that came on the CD. I still have to install MS Project, and I’ll have a functional machine.

I’m considering getting a Broadband USB dongle and the local cellular Broadband service ($189 for the dongle and $34/month for the service), but I’ll try to get PDANet working first as that would alleviate those expenses.

[astra]

Originally Posted by wodin

I started it up just to see if there was a restore partition, and of course was forced to go through the WinXP setup. Once I found out that there wasn’t a restore utility

What do you mean no restore utility?
It comes with 4 partitions. 2 big chunks - Drive C: & D: and 2 smaller, invisible chunks, the bigger of the two is 5G and it was 50% full, I believe it has the whole image for restoration, the smaller of the two, 40-50M. Dunno its purpose, I didn't investigate and looked into it. I wiped drive clean, partitioned and installed XP Pro on it.

old version of PhotoShop

Are you planning to edit pics on your netbook?

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by wodin

My 1000HE arrived yesterday, two days early WOOHOO! I started it up just to see if there was a restore partition, and of course was forced to go through the WinXP setup. Once I found out that there wasn’t a restore utility

On the Amazon buy page it shows the restore utility is accessed through a button press.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by astra

What do you mean no restore utility?
It comes with 4 partitions. 2 big chunks - Drive C: & D: and 2 smaller, invisible chunks, the bigger of the two is 5G and it was 50% full, I believe it has the whole image for restoration, the smaller of the two, 40-50M. Dunno its purpose, I didn't investigate and looked into it. I wiped drive clean, partitioned and installed XP Pro on it.


Are you planning to edit pics on your netbook?

Ok, if it has a restore (image) partition it's still there on the old drive; just like I want it to be. The new drive has nothing but Windows 7 and apps on it. If I want to revert to XP, I'll deal with it then. Right now I’m interested in getting a production machine running.

If the old drive indeed has the restore partition, I might use the rest of it to hobby Linux, but I haven't decided on that yet. I might just use a thumb drive/SD card to do that instead.

I don’t plan on doing much photo work on it, but I’m sure it has enough oomph to run PS 6, after all I ran it for years on a PIII 1.5 GHZ with a half Gig of RAM.

Where did you get XP Pro? If I had a copy of that, I might decide to not deal with Windows 7 at all. After all, M$ will quit supporting that just about the time the RC expires, so I’ll need to deal with upgrades one way or another.