I'm a week into owning an 1810TZ. I started off looking at a cheap 1366x768 Aspire One 751, but allowed feature creep (and a dislike of Atom's potentially frustrating limitations) to drag me up above £400.
First impressions were mixed. Trackpad too small, screen good (if rather shiny, shiny) but perhaps a little too cramped at normal viewing distances. But I was soon won over and forgot that I spent a bit more than I really wanted to.
1) I have maxxed the trackpad sensitivity out and adjusted to using it with my thumbs for most basic functions when typing. That way I can keep my hands in one position. And multi-touch capability is superb for scrolling etc.
2) I have increased the default font size, making the machine more comfortable to use at arm's length (with my aging eyesight). While this partially negates the point of having a 1366x768 screen, the ability to easily adjust window zoom/shrink using a trackpad "pinch" means you can constantly adjust things to suit your immediate needs. I use this all the time now.
3) Battery life, at least so far, is superb. You just don't have to worry about it for hours on end.
4) The thing is effectively silent. The fan sometimes comes on noticeably for a few seconds at boot-up, but in normal use you just never hear anything worth mentioning.
5) Gaming is, as expected, limited. Some messing about with my Steam catalogue shows Osmos working very well, Defense Grid working "ok" but not well at default settings, and older stuff like Return to Castle Wolfenstein and even HL2 working smoothly at good detail settings. Personally I'd prefer even worse gaming performance, because I wanted a machine with fewer distractions.
6) Keyboard is... ok. I like a nice satisfying keyboard to type on, but the travel on this is too shallow to give that kind of tactile feedback. It isn't a problem, and the full size layout is very easy to use, with no finger-fumbly problems, but I would happily have seen this machine a few mm deeper with that distance put into optimising the keyboard. Don't let this put you off, but also don't expect miracles.
7) Overall performance isn't a problem. The dual core does get maxxed out by some tasks, but in general use the machine feels like a 'normal' desktop device. My fear with an Atom machine was that I'd be buying a disposable device (and you are, really) leading to a "buy cheap, buy twice" thing. The 1810TZ (or anything in this class) should be a device with a much longer lifespan, and may be cheaper in the long run.
8) Build quality has no obvious problems. I wouldn't want to test how rigid the case/screen is, but then that's true of most laptops. I'm using two nested jiffy bags as a case which bulks it out a lot, but buys me some peace of mind. Hopefully the low mass/inertia will mean it's a fairly resilient machine if I ever do test its ability to survive a fall.
Anyway, I was a netbook-style virgin before this, so I was very impressed by the overall size and weight. It's so refreshing after years of lugging a much heavier laptop around. I do miss the bigger screen (my 6 year old laptop is a 14" 1400x1050) but the overall package is very good indeed, and I'd definitely buy it again.
Hope this helps someone.
Andrew McP
