jstanley1 wrote:Upgrading to 2GB of RAM is not necessarily a good idea.

The only thing I can say is it is not a 'bad' idea either. And I do have to add that it does add to the performance as well in general. Let me (try to) explain. See it as adding 'horsepower' to a car. The max speed is still simmilar, but it is the time it takes to get to that speed. Simmilar to addimg RAM. It will not nessecairly make it 'faster' but it does add to the performance as in starting things up faster. Processing things faster and gives it a smoother ride. When the computer uses all it's RAM it will start swapping to the hard drive. You can actually see this in computers with less RAM that the hard drive is working a lot more then computers with more RAM. Since the hard drive is the slowest link in the chain when it comes to operating a computer it will gain the performance instead of 'swaping' to the drive it will utilize the RAM instead, hence faster throughput, hence starting programs a little faster.

dpsaves wrote:This deal may be good for those who ONLY browse web pages with the occasional video, but in terms of functionality in modern day use I don't think I can recommend it. Video playback will suffer heavily because of a lack of a dedicated graphics card, and this thing should get nice and warm if you run too many programs/processes.

I know all too many people that spent money on netbooks (it can fit in your pocket? And it's as small as a novel?) but alas, they end up despising themselves for getting something that is highly underpowered and minimally functional. These are no-nos for anyone who will be typing a great deal, as the cramped space will be a catalyst for RSI. Plus, the undersized keyboard makes it impossible to type at a moderate speed, so any form of note taking or transcribing is near impossible.

But then, even with it, it has it's uses, but netbooks are a dying breed with more powerful phones that can do nearly the same thing.


And just to note, I wrote this not to troll (even though I believe I unintentionally did) but people who purchase this should be fully informed of what they're getting into.

While I respect your opinion, I totally disagree. I have an iPhone 4 (had a 3g before it) and I use my phone all the time. But it does not replace my netbook.

I purchased a netbook last year when I needed a bigger HD for my 12" Dell and a new battery. True to form, this netbook is not as powerful as the chipset in that old Dell. However, for what I do it is just fantastic. I will never go back to a full sized laptop.

I have stuck to XP and run full Office on it. I'll do projects and papers for work on with no problem. I use it mainly for net surfing, email, shopping and staying it touch with family when I travel. And I find myself taking this netbook with more than any other laptop I have had because it is so small and light. Mine does have a 6 cell battery so often I don't carry a power cord with it.

To me these are also idea for college kids. I got son one and he uses it more than his 15" HP! Again got him a 6 cell battery and an doesn't carry a power cord around with him.

I watch Hulu, YouTube and such with no problem (with a good fast net connection).

If you do high end gaming or video editing, look else where. But if you looking for a small compact unit that will have a good battery life, and do most of what people use a computer for just fine....netbooks are awesome!!

bummer....Friday the 13th...I was thinking there would be a Bowl of Cereal.

Is the screen glossy or matte? I wasn't able to find anything specific within the product description. (might be due to selective amnesia)

3-09 I purchased an ASUS Eee PC 1000HE Black 10.1” (EPC1000HE-BLK005X) 9.5 Hr Bat, Intel Atom N280 Processor (1.66 GHz, FSB: 667MHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB HD) Win XP for $318,
I Replaced the RAM (3-09) w/OCZ OCZ2M8002G PC2-6400 CL 5-5-5-15 DDR2 800MHz SODIMM 2GB Module $50 On 7-09 I yanked the HD out & put in a Seagate Momentus 7200 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 16MB Cache 2.5” Internal NB HD ST9500420AS-Bare (Anti Shake Ver.) Drive for $66 all from Amazon
Granted the prices have dropped a lot for a good Asus but I would spend it again. I like the smaller size as I keep mine in the kitchen It doesn’t take up a lot of counter space. I surf, watch movies & shows, itunes. It has a little lag but do-able. On trips the battery will last about 8hrs (shorter cause of upgrades). Some people have played with the software & over-clocked them (See http:// forum.eeeuser.com/)I've have kept mine about standard, I run Firefox, Adaware, SpybotSD & Grisoft AVG. Asus makes all kinds of computer components & they designed the Atom Processer. They generally do not clog up the computers with too much junk like some brands. One thing I would do before you install any factory upgrades ck w/ the eeeuser.com forums for your model, check out the feedback. Asus may remove some features that you would like to keep due to an expired license to sell/use that feature. Also if you are running or want to run any specialized software you can find out issues that may come up.

z28gal1 wrote:bummer....Friday the 13th...I was thinking there would be a Bowl of Cereal.

I was thinking the same thing. Oh well I forgot to check at midnight anyway so it would have been sold out. Great price on these netbooks though!

I have this netbook and have had it for 3 months. Anyone who is expecting anything more than a netbook shuld expect to be dissappointed. this was designed to be a browser platform. thats it. mine came pre-loaded with 7n starter and after some minor tweaks this OS and the built in linux OS works great. there are peeps out there that are expecting the performance of this box to be that equivalent to a $500 box. enough said.
For me I am able to do email, fb, stumble, and this works fine for those functions. For more robust functions users should use their normal desktop and/or laptop.

Regards,

chrismmm

benford1337 wrote:Is the screen glossy or matte? I wasn't able to find anything specific within the product description. (might be due to selective amnesia)

i purchased mine 3 months ago an it was matte.

skyemaxtrue wrote:will this netbook work for a kid in 2nd year of college to do his homework?

IMHO: No, not enough horsepower to do excel, power point, graphics, and other heavy lifting

Does the card reader handle CompactFlash cards? Want to use this to suck pictures off my cards when photo-traveling.

chrismmm wrote:IMHO: No, not enough horsepower to do excel, power point, graphics, and other heavy lifting

Ah---good to know. Was wondering if I could use it for PPT decks I have to do for work. Looking to supplement my MacBook Pro and it's such a good deal, but, if I'm asking too much of it, so be it. Thanks for the input on this & matte finish, too.

F0rSaken wrote:The only thing I can say is it is not a 'bad' idea either. And I do have to add that it does add to the performance as well in general. Let me (try to) explain. See it as adding 'horsepower' to a car. The max speed is still simmilar, but it is the time it takes to get to that speed. Simmilar to addimg RAM. It will not nessecairly make it 'faster' but it does add to the performance as in starting things up faster. Processing things faster and gives it a smoother ride. When the computer uses all it's RAM it will start swapping to the hard drive. You can actually see this in computers with less RAM that the hard drive is working a lot more then computers with more RAM. Since the hard drive is the slowest link in the chain when it comes to operating a computer it will gain the performance instead of 'swaping' to the drive it will utilize the RAM instead, hence faster throughput, hence starting programs a little faster.

I agree with you about the swap file slowing down the computer. That's what most people experience and is a valid reason to add RAM. What a difference upgrading an XP machine from 256MB to 1GB makes! It NEEDS that extra memory to avoid using the swap file for everything.

However, I do NOT agree that adding more RAM than XP needs is going to make any additional improvement in speed. A lightly used netbook with XP and 1GB is going to boot up and operate virtually identically to the same machine with 2GB. And remember the 2GB netbook will actually be slower on operations like hibernate which can be very important for some.

And if you actually put enough simultaneously running tasks on a netbook to fill up close to 2GB your 1.6GHz CPU is likely going to hit 100% usage and bring the system to a crawl long before the extra RAM runs out.

There are, of course, exceptions, but considering how most people use netbooks there is really no need to waste money upgrading from the stock 1GB to 2GB.

There are people that will max out the RAM in whatever computer they purchase, "just because", but it's really not necessary on most systems. Although the RAM upgrade manufacturers sure are happy about it!

IMO

sdallnct wrote:While I respect your opinion, I totally disagree. I have an iPhone 4 (had a 3g before it) and I use my phone all the time. But it does not replace my netbook.

I purchased a netbook last year when I needed a bigger HD for my 12" Dell and a new battery. True to form, this netbook is not as powerful as the chipset in that old Dell. However, for what I do it is just fantastic. I will never go back to a full sized laptop.

I have stuck to XP and run full Office on it. I'll do projects and papers for work on with no problem. I use it mainly for net surfing, email, shopping and staying it touch with family when I travel. And I find myself taking this netbook with more than any other laptop I have had because it is so small and light. Mine does have a 6 cell battery so often I don't carry a power cord with it.

To me these are also idea for college kids. I got son one and he uses it more than his 15" HP! Again got him a 6 cell battery and an doesn't carry a power cord around with him.

I watch Hulu, YouTube and such with no problem (with a good fast net connection).

If you do high end gaming or video editing, look else where. But if you looking for a small compact unit that will have a good battery life, and do most of what people use a computer for just fine....netbooks are awesome!!

So you feel it's a good enough 'puter to run Word/PowerPoint docs/decks for work? Just finalizing whether I should get one or not. . .Word is simple enough, but if you've done PPT on it, I'm in!

chrismmm wrote:IMHO: No, not enough horsepower to do excel, power point, graphics, and other heavy lifting

Have your tried? Excel and PowerPoint (2007) run fine on my N270 netbook (1 GB RAM, Win XP). Check out this article:

Netbooks vs notebooks: which should you buy?

"Speed-wise, we didn't experience many problems when working on Word, Excel or PowerPoint files on a variety of netbooks."

I'm not sure what you mean by "do..graphics"; if you mean Photoshop, I agree that you want something more robust. But

"Using Google's Picasa software on both the Linux version of the Eee PC 1000 and a Medion Mini E1210 running Windows XP, everyday jobs like resizing pictures, rotating them and doing simple touch-up tasks were performed relatively quickly, although not quite as speedily as on a standard laptop."

BTW, the article is a good read. Note that I linked to page 2, which contained the stuff I quoted.

These are basic/stupid questions so bear with me.

1. Does it come loaded with Office? If not, how can I get it?

2. Can we buy larger cell batteries to increase the battery life of the system? If so, any clue where?

Thank you so much!

So I'm almost completely sold on this as a secondary computer and have worked with many different brands of netbooks before. My only concern is that I've heard of a lot of problems with using wireless on them and something about having to change the security settings.
Someone help me out because I want this!

jstanley1 wrote:And remember the 2GB netbook will actually be slower on operations like hibernate which can be very important for some.

I agree with pretty much most, 'non heavy' users might not notice the difference.

As for Hybernating, personally I never use it. I have always found it to be more problematic then not. There have been times Hybernation did not work right and the hassle of then having to turn the system off and back on was not worth pursuing the issue. I use stand-by instead. But yes, the more RAM the longer Hybernation takes to write to and read from the RAM and get back up and running.

Nice to have a decent conversation actually and see opnions of others Always good to have an open mind and take in other's views!

I have a blue one that I purchased new in November from Best Buy for $250. I take it on my travels for the teacher training I do. It's a great little machine. (And it has a glossy screen.)

First thing I did to it was hackintosh it. Now it's dual-boot Win XP and Leopard.

Rather than replace the Mac-driverless wifi card, I bought a Rosewell USB wifi adapter for when it's booted up on the Mac side. This works 90% with internet apps, though I couldn't tether my iPhone with it.

I also bought a tiny BT USB adapter for $2 from Meritline.

Together with my Tablo from a previous Woot that essentially turns it into a tablet computer (Windows only), an Ipevo P2V camera as a nearly weightless portable document camera, and a USB Powerpoint remote/laser pointer, I have a killer, tiny, inexpensive presentation toolkit. I am able to do everything on this that I can do with my Macbook Pro, albeit on a smaller screen.

When I need battery life (my MBP battery doesn't hold charge), I take it to the coffee shop to work. I've tried every app other than Photoshop and movie editing on here, and they all work great.

One interesting note is that if I want to watch streaming video on Hulu or some such, basically any movie or show that uses Flash at high resolution/bandwidth, it works better on the Mac side than on Win XP. The Windows side plays choppily, but the Mac side is smooth - and this has been the case since day 1 of owning it.

The screen size is an issue when using SMART notebook software, but I just change the resolution and scroll.

Hope this helps!

flashtg wrote:If you're looking for something to "hackintosh", keep looking.

This one has a bunch of hoops to jump through to install and then the wireless card doesn't work with OS X, so you'd need to get a Dell 1510 card to get wireless networking.

See my other post - it was hard work, mostly doing the dual-boot part, but there are instructions out there that make it quite doable.

For what it's worth (possibly not much?), I think this processor and 1GB of RAM would be fine for college students that need it just for school purposes. My five year old laptop runs Windows XP with a 1.66GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, and it never gave me a problem running anything from Microsoft Works or from Open Office after I switched over. I've done heavy photoediting in an old copy of PaintShop Pro with its awful integrated graphics card, too, without any issues.


I will tell all the parents from my personal observations while at college: Most of your kids aren't going to take care of anything that you buy for them because they assume you'll just replace the item when it is lost or broken. Save some cash and buy them something like this instead of an expensive entertainment/gaming laptop. They'll be more likely to use it for the intended purpose, and you won't be out a ton of cash when they spill beer on it and fry it -- I mean, they don't know what happened to it when their roommate borrowed it, but it just doesn't work any more, Mom!

Oooooh-Midnight Blue! Lou Gramm rocks!

aerozepp wrote:No wireless N makes me sad

I got one from woot about 2 months ago. Mine has N.

I really love it, after I upgraded to Linux Mint.

Can you record video clips with the webcam ?

jstanley1 wrote:
Also be aware if you install 2GB and use hibernation, the computer will take approximately twice as long to hibernate and wake up with 2GB than with 1GB.

Not to mention that every component requires power - more RAM means less battery life. If you "need" the extra GB of RAM, then you are probably taxing the memory, which means you will see a hit in power performance.

spicedrum wrote:For what it's worth (possibly not much?), I think this processor and 1GB of RAM would be fine for college students that need it just for school purposes.

Absolutely. If your child tells you otherwise s/he is lying. It's incredible that kids show up to school every year with brand new, top-of-the-line laptops from HP, Dell, etc. Do you need at $1200 laptop to do MS Word and check email? Hell no.

Protip: All they really need is a student ID to get into the computer lab. But maybe to be nice, you can throw them a bone and get them a netbook like this. If they go all "but I need the more expensive laptop," remind them that the computer lab is there for them if they don't want the netbook.

I got the same model from woot about 2 months ago. I can boot to the XP desktop in under 45 seconds. However, I normally run Linux. It takes about 60 seconds to get to the Linux desktop.

This has 802.11.b/g/n.
It has hyper threading, which is like having about 1.5 cores.
I don't think I get much more than 2 hours of usage from the battery.
I hate the built-in touch pad/mouse thing. I keep touching it while typing and it causes problems. I use an external mouse when I can.

Thor

chrismmm wrote:i purchased mine 3 months ago an it was matte.

Thanks for the advice. If it's a matte, I'm in; I cannot personally handle glossy screens.

This post indicates that the system has a glossy screen... now I'm undecided again.
http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=4075459&PageIndex=5&ReplyCount=184#post4076276

i love that the picture of the netbook on the right is someone apparently looking at pictures of machetes on desks

I got an ASUS Eee Box from here and it NEVER worked. I have to mail it back to ASUS.

Not sure about their products.

benford1337 wrote:Thanks for the advice. If it's a matte, I'm in; I cannot personally handle glossy screens.

This post indicates that the system has a glossy screen... now I'm undecided again.
http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=4075459&PageIndex=5&ReplyCount=184#post4076276

Mine is glossy. Hard to see outside.

busyatty wrote:These are basic/stupid questions so bear with me.

1. Does it come loaded with Office? If not, how can I get it?

2. Can we buy larger cell batteries to increase the battery life of the system? If so, any clue where?

Thank you so much!

1. No. You can buy Office, but the whole suite is expensive. You can get it from many online stores (just type "buy MS Office" into Google.

However, you can download the OpenOffice suite for free from www.openoffice.org, which is compatible with MS Office.

2. Yes - you can buy 6-cell and 9-cell batteries (ebay is one place to find them).

nmparker2007 wrote:So I'm almost completely sold on this as a secondary computer and have worked with many different brands of netbooks before. My only concern is that I've heard of a lot of problems with using wireless on them and something about having to change the security settings.
Someone help me out because I want this!

Your reference to your concerns is so vague, I'm not sure how to respond.

The security settings in a netbook would be the same as those in any other computer that connects to a network wirelessly. That is, if the network is protected, you'll have to enter a WEP/WPA/WPA2 key or connect to an authentication server. You can read about types of encryption at wikipedia.

If the router you wish to connect to has MAC address filtering enabled, you'll need to provide the MAC address of your netbook's wireless adapter to the router. That's also true for any computer or wireless device that connects to the computer.

I fear that my response has already been too geeky, but I hope I've helped. The bottom line is that there's nothing to worry about - this netbook will connect the way any other computer will. And once it's connected (even if you need a bit of help from someone the first time), it will stay connected.

nanaejt wrote:Can you record video clips with the webcam ?

Certainly. The integrated webcam is only 0.3 megapixels, so it handles the video easily. Here's a video from a similar Asus model.

For a sterner test, here's how smooth a 720p video looks on a EeePC 1005HA.

cheeser1 wrote:Not to mention that every component requires power - more RAM means less battery life. If you "need" the extra GB of RAM, then you are probably taxing the memory, which means you will see a hit in power performance.

In this case, the difference in power consumption would be negligible, since you'd be replacing 1 memory stick with another (there is only 1 memory slot).

After hauling a laptop around on vacation my back and I have come to the conclusion I need something lighter. What I want it to do is
1- internet, facebook, facebook games, other browser games
2- play movies
3- play music
4- ebooks
5- skype
6- read email
7- type documents (I don't need office, wordpad works just fine for what I do.)

So my question to those of you in the "know" is - would this netbook work for what I want to do? I am also considering an ipad despite the small storage.

benford1337 wrote:Thanks for the advice. If it's a matte, I'm in; I cannot personally handle glossy screens.

This post indicates that the system has a glossy screen... now I'm undecided again.
http://www.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=4075459&PageIndex=5&ReplyCount=184#post4076276

There are several very similar models from Asus, and some have glossy screens. According to gdgt, this one has a matte screen.

"The 1005HA line comes in three flavors in the US: 1005HA-B, 1005HA-V, and 1005HA-P.
1005HA-B is the baseline configuration that does not include Bluetooth, has a matte screen, the Atom N270 processor, a 0.3MP webcam, and a 3-cell battery rated for about 4.5 hours."

aaronnk wrote:I got an ASUS Eee Box from here and it NEVER worked. I have to mail it back to ASUS.

Not sure about their products.

You're supposed to turn on the computer, and throw away the box it came in.

Seriously, I don't think that's a common experience (DOA). Is the battery seated properly, and has it been charged? If not, Asus should take care of it.

YOU TUBE REVIEW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hcc-N9asTE

AttilaTheMom wrote:After hauling a laptop around on vacation my back and I have come to the conclusion I need something lighter. What I want it to do is
1- internet, facebook, facebook games, other browser games
2- play movies
3- play music
4- ebooks
5- skype
6- read email
7- type documents (I don't need office, wordpad works just fine for what I do.)

So my question to those of you in the "know" is - would this netbook work for what I want to do? I am also considering an ipad despite the small storage.

It should do all those things fine, except that a few graphics-intensive facebook games such as Farmville may lag a bit. Also, 1080p movies could be a problem.

BTW, my netbook has very similar specs to this one's (N270 processor at 1.6GHz, Windows XP, 1GB RAM).

NightGhost wrote:There are several very similar models from Asus, and some have glossy screens. According to gdgt, this one has a matte screen.

"The 1005HA line comes in three flavors in the US: 1005HA-B, 1005HA-V, and 1005HA-P.
1005HA-B is the baseline configuration that does not include Bluetooth, has a matte screen, the Atom N270 processor, a 0.3MP webcam, and a 3-cell battery rated for about 4.5 hours."

Ah, got it. Thanks much for that helpful explanation.