ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1001P-PU17-WT 10.1-Inch White Netbook (Up to 11 Hours of Battery Life) Buy new: Too low to display
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I really like the Asus 1001p. I am typing this review on it and the non-"chiclet" keyboard feels big and spacious. Very easy to type on. I actually thought I'd miss the chiclet keyboard quite a bit, but nope. Not at all. All the keys seem to have great travel and feel sturdy, including F9 (which someone else mentioned. The "carbon fiber" treatment on the exterior shell is nice but not as readily visible as the photos on Amazon would have you to believe. It is actually quite a bit more subtle in real world lighting. It is nice though. This unit is slick. The carbon fiber look is also there on the palm rest, though not on the bottom. Screen is bright and crisp. I installed Hulu desktop and found that full screen video is choppy unless on the lowest quality setting. This might just be a result of the resources that the Hulu Desktop app is using since it requires 2GB RAM and I only have 1GB in my unit.
The hard drive comes pre-partioned into 2 local drives, C and D. C being 100GB and D being 122GB. Not a fan of this setup, but will go with it for now. I figured the Hard Drive would be partitioned since one of the advertised features is that by holding F9 during boot up you can reimage back to factory default. The unit came sort of no frills with only the battery, install CD, adapter, and warranty card in the box. Installing many programs on it under windows 7 starter has been a breeze so far.
One major gripe about the unit is that since it has such a heavy 6 cell battery that is all the way to the rear of the unit, I found the computer wanting to tilt backwards, its front feet lifting off my lap quite often, especially if the screen is pushed further away from you. This wasn't too big a deal if you have it on an absolutely flat surface, but I can see how if you are lap typing on this puppy that it would be an issue. The netbook is seriously weighted towards the rear hinge forcing you to cheat the screen angle forward in order to compensate. This gives you a slightly less viewable angle. Prior to purchasing the 1001p, I had taken a look at the HP Mini 210 and decided against it primarily because its 6 cell battery extends out and down from the rear hinge area. But now I see why their engineers chose this route, it forces the laptop back into a typeable position. I almost wouldn't mind that sort of a design now.
First full day of usage I got around 7 off/on hours of battery life with about 20% remaining. Not sure if I'll get close to the "asterix-promised" 11 hours of battery life as my battery meter seems to tell me it will be closer to 7-8 hours. I found that if you hit Fn + Spacebar, you can shuttle through the various Asus powersaving modes (S.H.E. - Google it). Only time will tell how much they add to system performance and battery life. Overall I'm pleased with the unit. My biggest gripes are the rear-weighted design and the pre-partitioned hard drive. Other than that, I think it's a fine machine. I found the trackpad to be zippy and quite responsive. I have yet to have any cursor-jumping issues. Plus the multitouch scrolling is as smooth as butter.
ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1001P-PU17-WT 10.1-Inch White Netbook (Up to 11 Hours of Battery Life)bfd53 | shopping booksmark | welcome robot | music online | bioly1
