Eee Pc 1000 Initial Thoughts

[flareback]

Just got my new toy today, an Asus Eee pc 1000 (newegg, B&H Photo). It's so small it really does feel like a toy. It's not to bad though, seems well built and solid. It has a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom CPU, 10 inch screen (1024 x 600), 40 gig SSD, 1 gig RAM, 7 hour battery life advertised and I'll get at least 6 tonight with wifi enabled. Keyboard's not too bad to type on. The right shift key is in a really dumb place though (newegg image).

 

I'm not crazy about the OS but it is clever and very simple to use and I think much more intuitive than Windows. It's simple enough I bet I could let my parents use it and they wouldn't have any problems (we'll find out in a couple days when I go to visit for Thanksgiving).

 

The desktop is tabbed which is a clever way to pack more onto the little screen. With the tabs they can use larger icons and put more items on the desktop. I like it better than having to go to start->all programs->etc, but that is a personal preference. There doesn't appear to be an easy way to customize the tabs though. I'm sure it's possible but I didn't find where to do it with a GUI. If there is a way they must have buried it away somewhere. The only tab you can customize is the favorites tab which still has certain items that you can't remove.

 

 

All in all I think I'm going to like this little machine. I feel it will fill it's intended role very nicely, which is as a portable device I can take notes on.

[Verran]

I just picked up a 1000H too, but mines the Windows version with a 160GB standard drive. I'm really liking it so far. I haven't tested gaming on it yet. I'm hoping it'll handle Warcraft III and Freelancer

[hardnrg]

if I didn't have an XP Pro license handy, I would have replaced the preloaded XP Home with Ubuntu almost definitely... I'd suggest checking out the netbook customised versions of Ubuntu if you are thinking about keeping it Linux/free, because I'm sure Xandros will just annoy you by being TOO simple in the end

 

I prefer having an OS that can do anything my other computers can do (apart from rendering / new games lol), so that my workflow is more streamlined

 

I prefer it more complicated lol:

 

[flareback]

@Verran: I'd love to see some game benchmarks from it.

 

I really wanted the SSD so I got the 1000.

 

I'll give the OS a few days, probably till after Thanksgiving. I'm thinking I'm going to go with Debian though, that's what I have on my main rig.

 

Nrg, that is a lot of stuff down in the taskbar. that's exactly why I don't like prebuilt xp machines. I never did figure out why you needed the touchpad icon there telling you that you're touching the touchpad and pressing the buttons.

[hardnrg]

that stuff down there isn't from the preloaded OS... I put it all there...

 

Outlook, uTorrent, MSN, XChat, WiFi, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, Last.fm, Ethernet, Safe Removal, Sony Ericsson Suite, NOD32, Realtek HD, Comodo, Daemon Tools, Super Hybrid Engine, Smart Pad... I don't see why I should compromise functionality on a portable PC

 

 

the touch pad thing is handy when you use multi touch gestures (two and three fingers on the pad)... there are something like 19 things you can do with the pad, and not have to use the buttons, but it's hard to master the three finger gestures...

 

I don't press the buttons ever

[flareback]

the buttons actually seem a bit hard to press. Seems to take more force than other laptops.

[hardnrg]

I dunno what the deal is in Xandros, but in XP you never have to use the buttons for any mouse action, which is good because the mouse buttons are stupidly hard to press

[flareback]

you don't have to press them but it's my preferred way of doing it.

[Zertz]

Yeah especially with the latest drivers the touchpad is smooth and works very well