If you’ve read this blog a short while ago, you’ll know that I was looking to buy a netbook.
Anyway, I ended up getting one back in October. And what I ended up getting was the Asus Eee PC 1000HA. Here’s why:
The Asus Eee 1000HA wasn’t actually my first choice. I was going to go with the black 6-cell Acer Aspire One with the 160 GB hard drive, 1 GB of RAM, Windows XP, etc. And I actually placed a preorder for the Acer on Amazon (since I had a $100 gift certificate I wanted to use). Amazon didn’t really have a confirmed date on when they were getting any Acers in stock. I’d notice that other sellers would get the Acers in while Amazon still had no estimated shipping date. Even when they did give me a date, my order didn’t seem to be moving along at all to the next phase.
Then one day, I noticed that the status for the Asus Eee 1000H and 1000HA both changed from “preorder” to “in-stock” – whereas the Acer still had no availability whatsoever with Amazon. It seemed like everyone was so focused on the Acer that the Asus was being ignored. So I thought I’d have a better chance of getting that instead. So I cancelled my Acer order and went with the Asus 1000HA instead. And I’m so glad I did that. I luvs me my Eee.
Here’s why I love it:
- The 1000HA comes with a little neoprene sleeve to put your Eee in for travel purposes, which is awesome since from what I was reading on Amazon’s forums of people who got their 6-cell Acers from them, they didn’t come with any cases anymore. Acer’s excuse for not supplying cases is that because of the extended size of the 6-cell battery, the Aspire One would no longer fit in the case. Who knows? Maybe now that the Acer 6-cell has been out a while, maybe they’ve been able to make new cases and include them. That, I don’t really know… maybe someone who recently bought a 6-cell Acer Aspire One can leave a comment about this.
- The Eee 1000HA pretty much comes with all of the same specs as the Aspire One, except that it’s lacking in media card slots… I forget exactly which, but it’s mostly the same thing. AND… the screen is a whole 10 inches instead of 8.9″. I don’t really know how much of a difference that makes, but I really love the screen on my Asus.
- The touchpad is also wider than on the Aspire One. And something else that the Eee has that the Acer doesn’t have is a multitouch capable touchpad. That’s right, multitouch, just like on the iPhone. It can detect up to three fingers on the touchpad for performing all kinds of handy gestures. And it’s ready to use right out of the box… at least it was for me when I got my 1000HA. Check it out here:
- This is a tiny little feature over the Acer, but the 1000HA has a built-in 1.3 megapixel camera. The camera on the Acer is just 0.3 megapixels. The 1.3 MP camera has served me well for Skype video chats. 🙂
Some things that might be annoying about it initially: the placement and size of the right shift key and the stiff mouse buttons. I didn’t think the right shift key would be a problem for me since I mostly use the left shift key when I type. But for those few times when I did need the right shift key, I’d accidentally hit the up arrow/pg up key. As I started using the Eee more, I became more aware of when I needed to right shift and would quickly glance at my keyboard to see where it was and make sure I hit the correct key. There are still some times when I’d press the wrong key, but it doesn’t happen as often anymore. If you want a netbook with a better right shift key placement and size, go with the Acer Aspire One. But I think the right shift key on the Eee is something that you’d get used to after a while, or you can remap the keys if you can’t get used to it.
A lot of people complain at how hard the mouse buttons are to press. For me, at first it was really really tough. I could see why people don’t like it. They’re extremely stiff. But if you just take some time just pressing the buttons non-stop to kind of wear them in a little, they aren’t as hard to press after a while. I think after about a week or so of using my Eee, the buttons weren’t so hard for me to press anymore.
Right now, my Eee is my main computer. It’s a really awesome little machine that does everything I need it to do… I really never used my old full sized laptop much for anything except checking email going online, downloading stuff, and watching videos. The Eee works great for what I need it for.
Also remember that these netbooks do not come with optical drives! If you need some sort of DVD drive, go with something else or pick up an external USB DVD drive that you can plug into it. I haven’t found myself in need of an optical drive at all yet, but I might go out and buy a slim DVD drive later down the line.