Eye-Catching, All Day Netbook

By Kevin E. Johnson

This review is for: ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1001P-PU17

I like the Asus 1001p. I am writing this review on it and the non-"chiclet" keyboard itself feels large and spacious. Very easy to type. I really thought I miss the chiclet keyboard quite a bit, but nope. Not at all. All the buttons seem to have great trip and feel stable, including F9 (which someone else mentioned. The "Carbon" treatment on the outer skin is nice, but not as visible as the photos on Amazon would have you believe. It is pretty much subtle lighting in the real world. It's nice, though. This device is smooth. The carbon fiber-look is also there on the palm rest, if not on the floor. screen is bright and crisp. I installed Hulu desktop established and, that full screen video is choppy, when on the lowest setting for the video quality. This can only by the resources that the Desktop App is Hulu with 2GB RAM, as it requires, and I have only 1 GB in my unit.

The hard drive comes pre-Dropping partitioned into two local drives, C and D. C and D than 100GB 122GB. Not a fan of this setup, but will go with him for now. I thought the drive would be as one of the advertised features are partitioned, that by F9 when booting up again reimage to factory settings. The unit came with no frills type of battery, installation CD, adapter, and warranty card in the box. Installing programs on many it is on Windows 7 Starter child's play so far.

A major gripe is about the unity that, as it found such a heavy 6-cell battery, which has all the way to the back of the unit, I want to tilt the computer back, lifting the front feet in my lap very often, especially when the screen is pushed further away from you. This was not so big deal if it on a completely flat surface, but I can see how when you click on this round puppies typing, that it be a problem. The netbook is seriously backward weighted hinge force you to cheat the screen diagonally forward to compensate. This gives you a little less visible angle. Before the purchase of the 1001p, I took a look at the HP Mini 210 and decided against it mainly because of its 6-cell battery is enough, and rear foot off the joint. But now I see why their engineers chose this path, forcing them the laptop back into a position typable. I almost would have no doubt that now a kind of design.

First day of use I have about 7 off on hours of battery life with about 20% left. Not sure if I seem to get near the "Asterix promised" 11 hours of battery life than my battery meter to tell me, it is closer to 7-8 hours. I found that when you hit Fn + Space, you can shuttle through the different modes Asus power saving mode (SHE - Google it). Only time will tell how much they add the system performance, and battery life. Overall I am very satisfied with the device. My biggest gripes the rear-weighted design and pre-partitioned hard drive. Other than that, I think it is a beautiful machine. I found the trackpad to zippy and very responsive. I have no cursor jumping issues. Plus the multi-touch scrolling is smooth as butter.