au revoir Dell, Hola Asus
Getting a new computer is always an exciting or at least interesting event for most of us. Whilst I am arguably a bit of a geek, I also see no reason to spend money (which I usually don’t have) on the fastest, most powerful machines on the market. It’s been a long time since I could buy a computer for the sake of buying something; my last four systems have been purchased purely out of necessity.
I wont’ get into the whole laptop versus desktop debate here and now. , suffice it to say that having used laptops at school, college and everywhere in between, it was only natural that they should take their place as a primary day-to-day computer system when processing power permitted. They were smaller, more portable, and even worked on occasion out in the garden with a nice chilled beverage and the sun.
I got my laptop now residing in pieces almost a year ago. It was second-hand then, had done the rounds for a few years, and came into my possession with a 60 GB hard drive and an overclocked 1.4 GHZ processor. It was the second Dell Latitude D600 I’d owned – I found the unit reliable, rugged and light and small enough to make me very happy indeed.
Sadly, even upon arrival one of the screen’s hinges was noticeably loose. The years had not been kind to the poor thing, and yet I had very little to complain about apart from this minor hardware glitch. The mighty machine also seemed not to mind, but alas on Wednesday the second hinge decided it too would become unstable. This resulted in the entire monitor panel almost falling off, and the keypad of power and volume controls literally crashing to the floor in a shower of plastic bits. It was sad to see and even sadder to realise that this machine, for all practical purposes, was utterly busted.
Luckily the data is safe, as the hard drive is (hopefully at least) still spinning quite happily. The system still boots, of course, but pressing the power button, getting a steady picture or adjusting the volume requires almost heavenly intervention and can become rather trying on the fingers. I’d always anticipated the machine’s death, of course – it was quite old and had been in almost daily use, that just by me.
It seemed clear that I should get myself a new system, then. But which? What did I want in a computer? What were my limits?
Obviously my very first consideration was price. Being out of work and privately renting a house doesn’t bode overly well for anyone’s finances. I’d been wanting a Netbook-sized computer for months but never actually could afford one. Now I was pretty much forced into it, I decided that a Netbook was the way to go.
I didn’t really want anything overly powerful. My original purpose in getting a Netbook was to have as a secondary machine, but reflecting on it whilst typing with one hand and holding the screen to the Dell’s chassis I realised that the processing power of almost any Netbook would outdo, or at the very least match, what I already had.
I’m not a heavy gamer, and apart from the rare times I do any sort of audio editing work, tend to use my system for browsing the web, word processing or writing the odd computer program. With this in mind, a Netbook really did seem more and more viable.
I’d had my eye on the Samsung NC10 for my birthday back in December, but circumstances conspired against that plan. Now, it was out of my budget somewhat, and so I settled on this, the Asus EEE PC 1000h.
In typical fashion I didn’t take the time to go see one of these tiny machines before ordering online, and so when it arrived this morning and I took it from the courier I was immediately aware of the weight. Or lack thereof. I thought my old Dell was light – and it was, for its class and time. But the Netbooks take weight to a whole new arena and from what I understand, this Asus is heavier than many of its competitors.
Unboxing was a simple enough process; lying in its own cardboard box was the computer itself, a battery pack, an AC charger, a zip pouch for the machine and assorted manuals and recovery data disks. The first thing to strike me about the computer itself was the gloss of the thing. The plastic was shiny and bright, and I suppose I should be good enough to keep it that way if possible.
Sliding in the six-cell battery proved simple as well. It required some delicate finger work as there are both manual and automatic battery latches on the Asus’ underside, but having read the manual in advance I was aware of this fact and so came prepared, nimble-fingered and all.
From there it was a simple matter to flip up the lid, attach the power outlet and (after finding the power switch which is rather neatly positioned on the top right-hand side of the unit) to be presented with the wonderful “windows Out of The Box” wizard.
I spent a few hours this afternoon adding a few essentials. Screen reader, web browser etc – and the oddest thing I’ve found is the keyboard. Not that it’s small per se, but the wrist room is rather limited. I’m fortunate to have small wrists, really, and learned to type quite young in life which gives me a degree of adaptability. I’m word processing quite accurately and, if not up to my usual speedy standard, I’m sure eventually I’ll get there. The home, page up, end and page down keys are all accessed with the Fn key. This makes for an interesting finger dance and I’m prone to whacking enter instead of the navigation key I’m after. Furthermore, FN+insert is a numlock toggle, making insert plus any of the other keys requiring FN untenable.
The battery gave me a solid 4.5 hours on its first discharge, and as that’s easily double what I got before I’m in no position to complain. It’s hardly the 7.5 touted by the sticker on the front of the computer, but it’s better than nothing.
What else is there to say? I haven’t done enough to be as detailed as I could be – the Realtek sound card is crisp enough but the silly software mixer needs a bit of work, for instance. The system tray Asus utilities for power management and webcam/wireless/Bluetooth support work well, the screen is extremely bright and the 160 GB of space gives me a little over 2 and a half times what I’m used to.
Jawter is my work in progress at the moment so how this baby programs will be a story for tomorrow. I can’t see that evolving into a blog post of its own but even so, if I have any startling news about the system I shall comment here for the sake of historical interest.
To conclude, I like the netbook idea. I’ve seen and carried laptops that would give an elephant a spinal problem. To have something so light yet as powerful as something I’d been using already is quite nifty, methinks.
May 1st, 2009 at 9:51 pm
I like that kind of keyboard. I had what I’d call the predecessor to the netbooks, a sony vaio vgntx650p about a year back. While it didn’t have enough power for me, and honestly that particular model seemed to break like nobody’s business, I do miss the very small size and portability. As for the function key being used to do home, end, etc, you’ll quickly get used to that. I did, to the pointt that when I got this del (laditude d630), I was actually a bit annoyed not to have that feature. It was a lot faster than reaching for the actual keys, after you’re used to it that is.
May 3rd, 2009 at 10:34 am
I’ve gotten used to the keyboard and it’s really not as annoying as I thought it’d be. if anyone had any sort of difficulty with their hand or even overlarge fingers it’d probably be much more of an issue. As is, my only problems are a inclination to hit enter instead of home or end because I forget where they are, or missing the right-shift key entirely (as it’s on the far right, next to enter).
Still, the smoothness of the processor, the quietness of the hard drive and fan, and the speedy way in which it returns from standby and is so easy to carry about makes it a solid winner.
May 10th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
I have a netbook as well. It’s the Acer Aspire one. It has an eight gig SSD (Solid state drive). I got it because my old laptop was very heavy and I wanted something light and portable to browse the net with and check email with as well. My old laptop had all the features I wanted, but would have given an elephant back trouble. I now use my netbook on a daily basis. It does include WiFi which is built-in. When I get a new system, I’m always nervous about installing JAWS. However, it went well on this netbook. I’ve heard of another one called the MSI Winn. What’s it like?
Terrell
May 25th, 2009 at 5:50 am
Have a EEE 901 here. I’ve found that if you’re using Jaws and have the laptop key layout set, that you can quite happily use the caps lock key interchangeably with insert for most though not quite all purposes. It certainly works with the Fn combos you described previously.