ASUS Eee PC 1000HA 10-Inch Netbook (1.6 GHz Intel ATOM N270 Processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, 10 GB E-Storage, XP Home, 6 Cell Battery) Fine Ebony

If you want a do-it-all package that is very portable, then get this machine. It is a must.

I bought this machine because I needed a new laptop and wanted something that was very portable. I opted for the 10" screen and the 6 cell battery because of recommendations from other reviews. I am not regretting the choices.

This thing is fabulous! It does everything they claim and more. The size does not get in the way, and the keyboard is hardly smaller than normal so it is very easy to use. The screen is big enough, but I must confess when I go back to my 15" Dell, I hear the theme from 2001 A Space Odyssey in my head. ;)

Speed in booting is very good. Conectivity is very good too. It can automatically connect to any wifi it has been connected to in the past as it is in range. In other words, it can and does hand off to the strongest signal it can find as you move. A handy feature when you are a passenger in a car and there are lots of hotspots along the way. I bought an external antenna for use with my larger laptop and it worked well, however this mini-laptop has better ability to bring in the signals. Case in point: I am using a wifi signal that the other machine - external antenna and all - cannot even detect.

As for the lack of bluetooth I use the USB device I have had for some time so no loss there over the other model. If I ever find I need wirelss N, I can get the external USB card too - so no worries.

I thought I would miss a drive on this thing but so far I don't - surprisingly. Anything I need I transfer with an USB drive or download from the 'net and all is fine. (With the exception of not being able to play movies well, so far... I just need to find better playback software.)

It works well with Skype and can multitask well. It is a good all-round portable machine.

The SD card adapter is more convenient than I ever thought it would be. The USB ports are fast and handy as heck. I no longer have to bring a hub with me. It is virtually an all inclusive machine for me, just what I wanted, it has enough built-ins and ports to do everything I need on the go without lugging a rat's nest of add-ons.

Now for the negatives;(I have to nit-pick to find any) I find it stutters a bit playing back movies recorded in AVI format. I suppose it must be the player software as my older, much slower machine plays them effortlessly. I'll post a comment if I find out what works for them. I watch Netflix movies on it daily, and that works beautifully! The idea is that I like to take DVD movies with me sometimes and without an internal DVD drive, I need to record them in digital memory to play them back on this machine. I have to find a good, smooth playing format, that won't eat-up the entire hard disk if I am going to do that. I simply hate jittery video. Also, the speakers are sometimes hard to hear with lower sound levels, but that is what headphones are for. Besides, what do you expect from tiny little speakers on a laptop? Well, these sound pretty good, just not all that loud sometimes (depending on source levels).

Also, the disk drive shows two partions at 80g and 60g that does not add up to 160 so I am wondering. Nothing to be alarmed about there is plenty of space. Also, the screen is a little short: as in it has less vertical space than I would like. Too many bars on the web browser and you need to scroll down just to see anything. A minor annoyance, but I suppose one must compromise somewhere. The case (in ebony) is a fingerprint magnet. I don't mind, I just clean it a lot then. Also, the buttons on the mouse pad are a lot stiffer than any others I have ever used, but one can get used to it. As usual for me, there are too many features on the mouse pad and the keyboard: one fumble and you've done something weird. I wish I could turn off a feature or two on that mouse pad, but that's just the way I look at things. I want it to do what I am telling it rather than what it thinks I want it to do.

Conclusion:
All in all I can't really fault the machine. I've been using it for about a month now, every day, and it has never disappointed me. I've never been able to say that before, in my 33 years of computer use. Hence the five stars.

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