Soldato
- Joined
- 15 Nov 2008
- Posts
- 5,060
- Location
- In the ether
I thought I'd share my views on my recently purchased Asus 1005HA netbook.
Firstly the keyboard is good, responsive and a decent size to enable touch typing without the error rate encouraged by my last netbook an early MSI wind. The touch pad is outstanding, especially on such a tiny netbook, basically the case is "glossy" and the touchpad is no different bar slightly raised dimples, honestly the trackpad is a joy to use.
Mine came with Windows XP which like any true techy I replaced with Ubuntu NBR within half an hour. The screen is excellent and definitely on par with my main monitors (a pair of 19" widescreen viewsonic's) if not even a little sharper. Battery life is strong at around 5-7 hours with Wifi enabled and medium usage.
The design is good, mines in black and it looks a lot better than those terribly designed Acer's / Toshiba's and Dell's. As many reviews point to, this is a really stylish netbook. In terms of ports, the Asus is okay, two USB ports is a little bit of a let down as is the exclusion of a multi format smart card reader, but the Webcam is nice extra. The range of the Wifi is weaker than on my very very old Toshbia Portege laptop.
It's reasonably well built, but suffers from the normal netbook feeling of not being entirely trust worthy, it's clearly a little "delicate". So whilst build quality is good compared to other netbooks, it's not in the class of IBM / Lenovo Thinkpads for a second.
Pros:
Excellent screen and keyboard
Truly outstanding touchpad
Great battery life
Super hardware support from Ubuntu NBR
Classy design
Runs cool even when charging
Cons:
Wifi range is poor
Only two USB sockets and no smart card reader
God awful internal speakers
Overall an excellent notebook offered at a remarkable price. IMO much nicer than the popular Sammy NC10, and a worthwhile purchase.
Highly recommended - 8/10
Firstly the keyboard is good, responsive and a decent size to enable touch typing without the error rate encouraged by my last netbook an early MSI wind. The touch pad is outstanding, especially on such a tiny netbook, basically the case is "glossy" and the touchpad is no different bar slightly raised dimples, honestly the trackpad is a joy to use.
Mine came with Windows XP which like any true techy I replaced with Ubuntu NBR within half an hour. The screen is excellent and definitely on par with my main monitors (a pair of 19" widescreen viewsonic's) if not even a little sharper. Battery life is strong at around 5-7 hours with Wifi enabled and medium usage.
The design is good, mines in black and it looks a lot better than those terribly designed Acer's / Toshiba's and Dell's. As many reviews point to, this is a really stylish netbook. In terms of ports, the Asus is okay, two USB ports is a little bit of a let down as is the exclusion of a multi format smart card reader, but the Webcam is nice extra. The range of the Wifi is weaker than on my very very old Toshbia Portege laptop.
It's reasonably well built, but suffers from the normal netbook feeling of not being entirely trust worthy, it's clearly a little "delicate". So whilst build quality is good compared to other netbooks, it's not in the class of IBM / Lenovo Thinkpads for a second.
Pros:
Excellent screen and keyboard
Truly outstanding touchpad
Great battery life
Super hardware support from Ubuntu NBR
Classy design
Runs cool even when charging
Cons:
Wifi range is poor
Only two USB sockets and no smart card reader
God awful internal speakers
Overall an excellent notebook offered at a remarkable price. IMO much nicer than the popular Sammy NC10, and a worthwhile purchase.
Highly recommended - 8/10
