Review: Asus Eee PC 1001PX

[Xpirate]

I have finally purchased an ultra portable netbook. I chose this one because Asus made the original netbook and the price seemed good for what you get. I seriously considered buying the higher end model with the broadcom chip for HD, but ultimately decided on the lower end model. Go to the Asus web page for it to see pictures of what it looks like.

I was afraid that I might not use a netbook that much. But, I decided that I needed one to solve this scenario: The wife and child want me to be with them instead of my office. My old low end Dell does not have enough battery life to go without the cord for more than an hour. My wife uses the good chair that is right next to a power outlet while I get the couch that requires a long extension cord. Then either my wife or child would walk around the couch and get tangled up in the cord, get mad, and then proceed to chew me out. The 1001 PX has an 8 hour battery so it solves the extension cord problem.

My home office has a quad core machine mated to a 26 inch 1920x1200 Asus monitor. It's pretty sweet with a full size keyboard and mouse. I would much rather use it than the tiny little 1024x600 10 inch netbook. However, this netbook is quite nice if you need a portable computer to take with you on a vacation.

This is a good netbook. I like how the multitouch works with the touchpad mouse. All laptops should have multitouch because it makes the absence of a real mouse more tolerable. With the proper settings, the little machine will last more than 7.5 hours on a single charge. The carbon fiber look does not attract finger prints. If you hook this machine up to an HDTV, it will fill the full 1920x1080. The hardware is solid, but the included operating system is another story.

Microsoft should be ashamed of themselves for producing Windows 7 Starter for these netbooks. You need to download some third party software to change the desktop wallpaper. It also runs slow and requires several minutes to fully start up and be ready for everything. However, everything I use works without a hassle on the Win 7 partition like multitouch and switching to a HDTV screen.

I can make those statements about Windows 7 because I have put Ubuntu on it and seen for myself how much faster the Ubuntu partition runs. It is up and ready in less than 30 seconds. I have not got the mulitouch to completely work with Ubuntu, but I have not tried that hard either. Now that I'm older, I much prefer things to just work without any challenges. I tried out Ubuntu Netbook Edition with this netbook. I don't really like the Unity interface and will probably just go with the Gnome desktop. The latest Ubuntu 11.04 is going to be Unity, but that is a whole other thread to gripe about that decision.

Overall, this is good if you need a highly portable device. With its small size and weight, it is easy to take with you. Enough power to surf the Internet, e-mail, or play few simple games and enough battery life to be away from an outlet for a while makes this a good choice for a netbook. Although this is a good netbook, I barely use it because I don't travel that much and my wife and child have been allowing me more time at my desktop machine. So I would not really recommend a netbook to someone unless they really needed the excellent portability. I'm sure I will use mine on my next vacation and I do intend to make that multitouch thing work with Ubuntu.

[rgathright]

Just wait until you discover that you can take that little netbook anywhere. I often use my ASUS netbook to upload videos to YouTube or do FTP transfers because I can walk with it anywhere in my house.