ASUS Eee PC 1000HE 10-Inch Netbook

(1.66 GHz Intel Atom N280 Processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, 10 GB Eee Storage, Bluetooth, XP Home, 9.5 Hour Battery Life) Blue

List Price: $399.00 Price: $389.00 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details You Save: $10.00 (3%)

Honest Review:

1) Value for your money.,February 20, 2009 A Walker

Excellent Stuff:

- I type thirty or so pages a week between three different computers. The keyboard on this small guy works fantastic for my purposes. I’m 6’3″, 280 lb. and yeah, I have huge hands. – Minimal bloatware. Took just a couple minutes to remove the stuff I didn’t want.
- Attractive and practical design.
- It has a excellent show and decent sound… for a netbook.

[Edit] As far as sound goes, it depends on what you’re listening to. My Baroque Classical and Russian Chant sounds fantastic, as does anything spoken word. My Swedish Death Metal (and anything similar) sounds tinny and weak.

- While it was no use to me, it came with some basic office programs already loaded. Just one of many things Asus did to try and make this netbook ready to use straight out of the box.
- At least so far… the battery life is pretty close to what’s advertised.

[Edit] I’m able to get just under eight hours of operation out of it, without turning the screen brightness all the way down or wireless/bluetooth options off.

[Edit] Swapping out the 1GB Memory stick for a 2 GB Memory stick was simple.

Terrible Stuff:

- It attracts finger prints like bees to flowers. Get skins/decals/stickers for the outside cover if you’re really OCD.
- Doesn’t make coffee.
- Bulky. The wife has a 1002HA with a 2 cell battery and it is soo slim and strim looking compared to mine. Hers is a half pound lighter too. She still gets 4-5 hours of battery life out of hers even with the smaller battery.

Thoughts:

For the money, it’s one of the best netbooks out there. I looked at nearly every netbook available and read over 500 reviews before deciding on this one. I bought the 1002HA (brushed aluminized) for my wife because she didn’t need the battery life and wanted something more professional looking.

[Edit] I spent the weekend passing it around to people I know and letting them type on it, and everyone (huge or small) pretty much agreed that it was an simple keyboard to adjust to and comfortable. My father ordered the Blue 1000HE (from Amazon!) he liked it so much.

2) 80211.N Issues, Fantastic otherwise, March 4, 2009 By Mark T

As others have reported, there seems to be an issue with 80211.N and the 5Ghz spectrum. I wanted to post a quick review, and will update this as soon as I hear back from Asus. I have their Lead Network Manager working on the issue right now and he is surprised that it does NOT work.

I have tried 3 different operating systems; WinXP, Linux, and Windoz 7, and the unit never sees my 80211.N network when it is set at 5GHz. As soon as I select 2.4, all is excellent. Like a few other posters, I bought this to work with my 5Ghz Home network that is much quicker and has better range in my home than the 2.4Ghz network. If this is not a fluke, and a certain problem with this PC, then it is going back. Too terrible, because otherwise it is a clean small toy.

Updates to follow:

6 Mar 09 Update:

After waiting for 3 days to hear back from the Manager, and making several attempts to get a hold of them, I am sorry to say the small guy is going back to Amazon. I wanted it for the 5Ghz 80211.N capability, and it just isn’t ready yet. Bummer

3) Absolutely Perfect., February 25, 2009 By Max Petersen

I have had the Eee PC 1000HE for about a week now, and it has fulfilled my every expectation. Because I hadn’t started up the Eee without installing the 2 GB RAM I’d bought, this review is relevant to those who plot to upgrade, or have already upgraded the RAM in the unit. For those who don’t, I will add that it is extremely simple and inexpensive to double the RAM of this netbook. I had never opened a laptop chassis before, and it took all of 5 minutes.

Pros:
*Up front, the package is inexpensive. You certainly get the bang for your buck
*Bright, brilliant screen with an brilliant viewing angle.
*Large, more comfortable keyboard; touch typing is incredibly simple to get used to.
*Long battery life; I’ve had mine unplugged for over seven hours without a recharge.
*Exactly the amount of power and speed that I need from a computer, I’m able to run some of my favorite games (GTA: San Andreas, UT2004, and Neverwinter Nights) without breaking a sweat, edit photos and stream videos through the wireless card.
*The power-saving hotkeys are really useful. Most of the time I don’t notice the difference between ‘Power-Saving’ mode and ‘Super Performace’ mode, which means for normal usage I’m saving a lot of battery life.

Cons:

*The volume is a bit too low on the speakers, AND when I’m wearing headphones. I’ve opened up all of the volume adjusters at one point or another, and I can’t increase the volume past a certain point. I could imagine this being very irritating on a long bus ride or a plane ride.
*As really helpful the multi-touch pad is (and it truly is helpful), some of the presets are too closely linked to “scroll up and down”. For example, I find myself opening a ‘magnifying glass’ one moment, and ‘zooming out’ of a webpage the next. I couldn’t figure out why all my webpages were tiny. So disabling most of the multi-touch functions is probably a smart thought when you get started.
*This is just a quibble, but the resolution of 1024 x 600 is so specific to a very small number of machines.

Overall, the Eee PC 1000HE is something I will be using consistently. It is exactly what I need.

4) Epic Battery Life and Unbeatable Price!!!,March 2, 2009 By Knowledge Forest