ASUS Eee PC 1005 HA Review

memebag

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Oct 11, 2008
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I've had it for 5 days now, and I love it. I upgraded the RAM to 2GB, removed the bloatware, installed Firefox, OpenOffice and Media Player Classic. It plays 720p video flawlessly over my wireless G network. It can bluetooth to my phone. The keyboard is smallish, but my fingers are getting used to it. The track pad is great. The advanced settings let you customize all kinds of things, like sensitivity, speed, momentum, virtual scroll wheels, tap-to-drag, etc. It's big enough to type on and read, but small enough that I can easily carry it around with me. The battery life is fantastic. It just goes and goes.

Amazon dropped the price by $12 a few days after mine arrived. I sent them an email asking about their price protection policy. I got an immediate response, saying they don't provide price protection, but for me, they'd make an exception.
 

memebag

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I didn't know about the accidental warranty. Thanks for the link.

Right now, I'm using common sense to guard against viruses. At some point I might sweep it with Comodo, but for now I have nothing installed.
 

memebag

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How are you streaming your 720p over your wireless if I may inquire? Slingplayer?

I'm just playing it. The videos are on my networks storage. I play them on the netbook with Media Player Classic, but any media player will do. Slingplayer is something for Slingbox, right? I've never understood why people wanted Slingbox. That's like, live TV, right?
 

memebag

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I just installed eeebuntu. So far, it pretty much sucks. It couldn't talk to my wifi hardware without some "backporting", whatever that is. Installing Firefox 3.5 is a major pain in the ass. And everything looks goofy. Even goofier than XP.
 

DAB

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Oct 9, 2008
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I just installed eeebuntu. So far, it pretty much sucks. It couldn't talk to my wifi hardware without some "backporting", whatever that is. Installing Firefox 3.5 is a major pain in the ass. And everything looks goofy. Even goofier than XP.

I've never gotten into that, but there are those that think it is all that and a bag of chips. I am enjoying my Mac right now which is also all new to me. It almost seems strange the way it works till you get use to it.
 

memebag

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I've never gotten into that, but there are those that think it is all that and a bag of chips. I am enjoying my Mac right now which is also all new to me. It almost seems strange the way it works till you get use to it.

I've used many different flavors of Unix, going back to genuine AT&T System V in the mid 80s, so I'm familiar with the underlying technical stuff. Eeeeeeeeebuntu hid those details too well, so I never figured out why it would refuse to connect to network drives sometimes, or refuse to let me enable wireless networking other times, or refuse to upgrade Firefox. So last night I got rid of it. I also hosed my MBR and almost bricked my 1005, but eventually figured out how to restore it to factory settings and clean up the mess.

Now I get to go through all of the customization I did over the last week. Joy. I guess it isn't really yours until you break it.
 

DAB

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Oct 9, 2008
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I got rid of it. I also hosed my MBR and almost bricked my 1005, but eventually figured out how to restore it to factory settings and clean up the mess.

Now I get to go through all of the customization I did over the last week. Joy. I guess it isn't really yours until you break it.

It is truly hard to totally brick a drive, but it has been done! One thing for sure you have totally broken your ASUS in and now you know it ultimately! LOL

Thanks for the updated post, I am always interested in reading about experiences such as this. There are so many on the internet that do stuff that causes them heartache and pain, but ultimate we all benefit from it.
 

Casual Fan

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Oct 14, 2008
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I've used many different flavors of Unix, going back to genuine AT&T System V in the mid 80s, so I'm familiar with the underlying technical stuff. Eeeeeeeeebuntu hid those details too well, so I never figured out why it would refuse to connect to network drives sometimes, or refuse to let me enable wireless networking other times, or refuse to upgrade Firefox. So last night I got rid of it. I also hosed my MBR and almost bricked my 1005, but eventually figured out how to restore it to factory settings and clean up the mess.

Now I get to go through all of the customization I did over the last week. Joy. I guess it isn't really yours until you break it.

Thanks to Linux, I've "bought" both of my machines many times over. I had to give up relying on a Linux box for production work. Which sucks, because philosophically I like Linux and especially Ubuntu variants.
 

memebag

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Thanks to Linux, I've "bought" both of my machines many times over. I had to give up relying on a Linux box for production work. Which sucks, because philosophically I like Linux and especially Ubuntu variants.

All of this causes me to wonder if there is any compelling reason for using Linux. I suppose if I had a really old system with very small specs, Linux could squeeze some life out of it. But even then, you have to ask how much your time is worth compared to the cost of just upgrading the hardware.
 

memebag

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I made a vinyl skin for it:

IMGP0166.jpg
 

memebag

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Update: I just gave my wife one of these. She'd been wanting a laptop, but after watching me with mine decided a netbook was more practical. I got her the new version, with a bigger hard drive and Win 7. So far she seems to be very happy with it.
 

xan_user

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Dec 16, 2008
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Good stuff, does she get a matching Ernie skin? :rolleyes:

bert-and-ernie.jpg


List of my eee converts; mom, boss, brother, uncle, son plus lots of random folks at peet's coffee.

Just booted ChomiumOS on my 1000he, talk about fast!
 

Vargas

Molon Labe!
Oct 16, 2008
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What really is the difference between a higher end NETBOOK, such as this one and a lower end laptop? I really don't see the difference.

I'm sort of waiting for our PC to die so I can upgrade to either a laptop or a netbook but really, I don't know the difference. I've done very little research on the matter, just curious.

At home, we really dont' use our PC for anything wild. We don't run games or large programs. We really use it for internet use, to tranfer music or photo's to our portable media players and also for copying DVD's (legally, of course). Everything then gets moved to my portable harddrive. Our PC is almost 5 years old and out of the 149 gig's available on the harddrive, we have over 130 available to use. I usually wipe it clean about every 18 months and reload windows.

If I were to buy one of the higher end netbooks such as this membag has purchased would I be limited in any way?
 

memebag

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What really is the difference between a higher end NETBOOK, such as this one and a lower end laptop? I really don't see the difference.

The big differences:

1. Netbook has no optical drive.
2. Netbook is smaller.
3. Netbook runs longer on a battery charge.

If I were to buy one of the higher end netbooks such as this membag has purchased would I be limited in any way?

The screen is smaller than a big laptop. There is no DVD/CD/Blu-ray drive. Netbooks tend to have very slow processors.

We've both got desktops. I use mine to read DVDs and play games, both of which happen rarely these days. Everything else I do from the netbook.

The biggest plus is portability. It's so small and light, and the battery runs so long, that it's a no-brainer to take it anywhere I might need a PC.
 

Vargas

Molon Labe!
Oct 16, 2008
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The big differences:

1. Netbook has no optical drive.
2. Netbook is smaller.
3. Netbook runs longer on a battery charge.



The screen is smaller than a big laptop. There is no DVD/CD/Blu-ray drive. Netbooks tend to have very slow processors.

We've both got desktops. I use mine to read DVDs and play games, both of which happen rarely these days. Everything else I do from the netbook.

The biggest plus is portability. It's so small and light, and the battery runs so long, that it's a no-brainer to take it anywhere I might need a PC.

Hmm. The only negative would be the lack of an optical drive for dvd burning. I'll have to reall take a look soon.
 

memebag

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Hmm. The only negative would be the lack of an optical drive for dvd burning. I'll have to reall take a look soon.

If you need that, you can use an external DVD writer. Asus sells one for$55. I've got several on our desktops, so I've never needed one the netbook.