So I think I might be able justify buying a netbook

[Bateluer]

It arrived today.

Packaging is typical from what I've seen of Eee PCs, very solid. The battery was only about 16% charged out of the box, enough to power it on but not much else.

Went through the initial set up for XP Home, but then I noticed some oddities. First, XP has SP3 installed, but still has IE6. The only .Net framework is 1.1, no 2, 3 or 3.5. There's also about 200MB worth of updates that needed to be done.

I'm going to go through and clean the Windows Live crap off, don't need that. I'll install OOo and Sumatra/Foxit.

While it wasn't very visible in the pictures, the wider bezel around the display is for the speakers, which seem to be decent for their size.

The display itself is bright, too bright, I had to turn down the brightness quite a bit so it wouldn't burn my eyes. Boot up time is pretty fast, bought 5 to 10 seconds or so. It doesn't seem to be too tiny though it looks that way in the pics because of the side speakers.

The real live test will come this weekend.

 

[IlllI]

$299 msi wind BAM !

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: clandren
$299 msi wind BAM !

Not bad, but it'll be gone in the 5 days it will take for me to transfer the funds around.

These things are using standard SO-DIMMs though, right? I know the Intel 945 chipset can take larger sticks than 1GB or 512MB, so, in theory, I could save the money, buy a 512MB version and then spend <20 dollars on a 2GB SODIMM?

 

[Zap]

The Acer Aspire One has 512MB soldered onto the motherboard and a single SODIMM slot that can handle 1GB, making the total 1.5GB. The MSI Wind has 1GB soldered onto the motherboard and a single SODIMM slot that can handle 1GB, making the total 2GB.

Note that you void the warranty if you upgrade the RAM on the MSI. Don't know about the Acer. I do know that the Acer is supposedly a PITA to upgrade the RAM as it is underneath the motherboard so you have to take the whole thing apart. The MSI is easy as all you need is to remove the bottom to expose the empty slot, which unfortunately breaks the WARRANTY VOID seal.

 

[Fayd]

this wont help, and i'm sure you already know it, but the 120 gig hdd is awfully nice. if the SSD were bigger, i'd be more inclined to do that. but going with the 120gb hdd allows you to play diablo 2 and other games while waiting for you pnp game to start

 

[Bateluer]

Thanks for the replies. I'm leaning towards the Wind. Anyone have any feedback on the Ubuntu Netbook remix?

 

[Gigantopithecus]

If you can swing the extra $$$, go with a Samsung NC-10 instead. I had the 6 cell Wind for about a month before the NC-10 became available through Amazon. I sold the Wind on Craigslist the day after my NC-10 arrived. Compared to the Wind, the screen is nicer, the keyboard is MUCH better, the build quality is better, the battery life is about two hours longer...Plus I feel Samsung is more likely to stand behind their product than is MSI.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Gigantopithecus
If you can swing the extra $$$, go with a Samsung NC-10 instead. I had the 6 cell Wind for about a month before the NC-10 became available through Amazon. I sold the Wind on Craigslist the day after my NC-10 arrived. Compared to the Wind, the screen is nicer, the keyboard is MUCH better, the build quality is better, the battery life is about two hours longer...Plus I feel Samsung is more likely to stand behind their product than is MSI.

Bit more than I want to spend, I'm trying to keep it under 375 shipped.

I'm looking at the Asus 904HA at the moment, looks decent. Most Newegg reviews seem to be positive.

Edit - I think I've ruled out the Aspire One though, I don't think I like the gap that seems to be between the keyboard and display.

 

[dud]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: Gigantopithecus
If you can swing the extra $$$, go with a Samsung NC-10 instead. I had the 6 cell Wind for about a month before the NC-10 became available through Amazon. I sold the Wind on Craigslist the day after my NC-10 arrived. Compared to the Wind, the screen is nicer, the keyboard is MUCH better, the build quality is better, the battery life is about two hours longer...Plus I feel Samsung is more likely to stand behind their product than is MSI.

Bit more than I want to spend, I'm trying to keep it under 375 shipped.

I'm looking at the Asus 904HA at the moment, looks decent. Most Newegg reviews seem to be positive.

Edit - I think I've ruled out the Aspire One though, I don't think I like the gap that seems to be between the keyboard and display.

A bit of warning here ... you should always try the netbook out, in person before you buy. I visited my local BB to check out the 904 and was really disappointed. The screen is TINY and the keys are practically unusable. I noticed the Asus 100Ha sitting next to it and was somewhat impressed. I tried it out and liked it enough to buy one off of Ebay for a little less then $300. It comes with a 1.6 GHz Atom, 160 GB HD and 1 GB of RAM (upgradable to 2 GB).

Of the other units the Wind is nice but the memory is not upgradable without voiding the warranty. IMHO anything less then 10" is too small ... but I'm a big guy.

Do your research before you buy. Don't take our word for it. Get up, go to the store and check them out for yourself. If you end up not liking what you buy you will have no one but yourself to blame.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: dud

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: Gigantopithecus
If you can swing the extra $$$, go with a Samsung NC-10 instead. I had the 6 cell Wind for about a month before the NC-10 became available through Amazon. I sold the Wind on Craigslist the day after my NC-10 arrived. Compared to the Wind, the screen is nicer, the keyboard is MUCH better, the build quality is better, the battery life is about two hours longer...Plus I feel Samsung is more likely to stand behind their product than is MSI.

Bit more than I want to spend, I'm trying to keep it under 375 shipped.

I'm looking at the Asus 904HA at the moment, looks decent. Most Newegg reviews seem to be positive.

Edit - I think I've ruled out the Aspire One though, I don't think I like the gap that seems to be between the keyboard and display.

A bit of warning here ... you should always try the netbook out, in person before you buy. I visited my local BB to check out the 904 and was really disappointed. The screen is TINY and the keys are practically unusable. I noticed the Asus 100Ha sitting next to it and was somewhat impressed. I tried it out and liked it enough to buy one off of Ebay for a little less then $300. It comes with a 1.6 GHz Atom, 160 GB HD and 1 GB of RAM (upgradable to 2 GB).

Of the other units the Wind is nice but the memory is not upgradable without voiding the warranty. IMHO anything less then 10" is too small ... but I'm a big guy.

Do your research before you buy. Don't take our word for it. Get up, go to the store and check them out for yourself. If you end up not liking what you buy you will have no one but yourself to blame.

Thanks for the reply, disheartening though it is. I use AT as a sounding board to bounce ideas off. Sometimes I take posters advice, but more often I use it to refine my own opinions and wants.

I'll see how the 904 goes, if I dislike it, it'll go on ebay.

 

[lxskllr]

You just have to try it for yourself. I have the Eee 900, and I"m happy with the performance and size. I'm 6'4" 215lbs, and I don't have issues with the size. I occasionally fat finger keys, but I do that anyway. I'm not much of a typist :^D

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
You just have to try it for yourself. I have the Eee 900, and I"m happy with the performance and size. I'm 6'4" 215lbs, and I don't have issues with the size. I occasionally fat finger keys, but I do that anyway. I'm not much of a typist :^D

Well, in all fairness, I won't be doing much typing on the 904. Probably some note taking and entering some data in character sheets and thats it.

 

[Jschmuck2]

The 904 and 1000HA's have the same keyboard.

 

[Pliablemoose]

I think you'll like it, I have a 901 and enjoy the hell out of taking it with me.

I bumped the ram to 2GB, purchased a huge ass battery, installed Office, Garmin GPS software (I use it as an extra large car based GPS) and have a runcore 64GB SSD coming for it.

 

[Bateluer]

Bump for my initial impressions in the original post.

 

[MustangSVT]

I've had aspire one which I sold and got 904HA.

#1. those side bezels are NOT speakers, although that would be a much better choice, the speakers are on the front bottom of the unit. (which cuts down sound considerably).

#2. I really enjoy the 6 cell battery . 3cell battery on aspire lasted only 2 hours for me even with the fan control program. But this one lasts 5 hours easily on every charge. and the fan is not as loud.

#3. ram upgrade is really simple (so is hdd upgrade). screws on bottom and you are in. On aspire, you have to remove keyboard and mobo from the chasis.

#4. only thing I wished I could have waited would be for 10" screen. with the prices going down, it would be a nice thing to have. but then those units have 3~4 cell batteries... hmmm.

#5. Also the VGA out to a 22" monitor is MUCH better on EEE over acer. on acer I could see some issues with colors bleeding and text not being sharp. On 904ha, I dont see any of color bleeds and text is as good as any other vga out.

Overall it was a great deal ($230) for 904ha but if there is a similar deal for 10" netbook, I'm jumping ship

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: MustangSVT
I've had aspire one which I sold and got 904HA.

#1. those side bezels are NOT speakers, although that would be a much better choice, the speakers are on the front bottom of the unit. (which cuts down sound considerably).

Seems you are correct. They just look like speaker grills. Though, I never expect good sound from the speakers of notebooks, netbook or DTR.

I wiped all the Windows Live and MS Works junk off it and installed the usual Internet apps, FF, Thunderbird, OOo, Pidgin, etc. Seems to be solid and fairly zippy. Battery life is below what was advertised on Newegg/Amazon, around 6 hours vs the advertised 7. Asus' site also lists 6hrs for battery life as well. Good job Newegg and Amazon.

Hehe, the hard drive is nearly entirely empty. Need to fill it with some crap.

 

[LeetViet]

I bought an Asus N10 and love it! I have the 250GB HD/2GB memory/GeForce 9300 GS variant. Battery life is a little over 4 hours with the 9300 GS -- I haven't tried turning off the discrete graphics and using the Intel integrated video card. My Atom overclocks nicely to 2Ghz (166FSB) with a 5~C increase.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: LeetViet
I bought an Asus N10 and love it! I have the 250GB HD/2GB memory/GeForce 9300 GS variant. Battery life is a little over 4 hours with the 9300 GS -- I haven't tried turning off the discrete graphics and using the Intel integrated video card. My Atom overclocks nicely to 2Ghz (166FSB) with a 5~C increase.

The N10's high cost edges it into pricing with traditional and more full features notebooks though. It looks like a solid machine though.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: LeetViet
I bought an Asus N10 and love it! I have the 250GB HD/2GB memory/GeForce 9300 GS variant. Battery life is a little over 4 hours with the 9300 GS -- I haven't tried turning off the discrete graphics and using the Intel integrated video card. My Atom overclocks nicely to 2Ghz (166FSB) with a 5~C increase.

The N10's high cost edges it into pricing with traditional and more full features notebooks though. It looks like a solid machine though.

I just tried an N10 at Staples. I didn't like the keyboard on it, and it seemed to run sluggish compared to the other netbooks that were there. It certainly didn't seem worth $200-300 more than the other netbooks. The Acer Aspire One was the easiest to type on. They had a new Toshiba netbook and the keyboard was so bad that I couldn't type on it whatsoever, and I have small hands!

 

[Bateluer]

Okay, maybe I am blind. I don't see anyway to increase the amount of ram that is allocated for the IGP on this 904. I've looked in the BIOS, the Asus utilities, and in the Windows/Intel software, nothing.

 

[Jschmuck2]

So would you have gone with the 1000ha if you could do it over again?

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Okay, maybe I am blind. I don't see anyway to increase the amount of ram that is allocated for the IGP on this 904.

I believe it is pretty much automatic on Intel IGP. This dates back to Intel's only discrete video card offering, the i740 (AKA Real3D). It used AGP texturing... think of NVIDIA "Turbo Cache" or ATI "Hyper Memory."

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Jschmuck2
So would you have gone with the 1000ha if you could do it over again?

The 1000HA and 904HA are so similar, with the only difference being the slightly larger screen on the 1000HA model, though they still have the same resolution.

Most netbooks have identical specs and hardware so as to perform similarly. I would have liked to get the Asus NC10, but its price was nearly double the 904HA.

 

[LeetViet]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Okay, maybe I am blind. I don't see anyway to increase the amount of ram that is allocated for the IGP on this 904.

I believe it is pretty much automatic on Intel IGP. This dates back to Intel's only discrete video card offering, the i740 (AKA Real3D). It used AGP texturing... think of NVIDIA "Turbo Cache" or ATI "Hyper Memory."

Ask here:
http://forum.eeeuser.com/

I searched briefly and could not find anything.