EEE PC 1000H AHOY!
After the story that I wrote the other day about netbooks, well… how can I put this…
I BOUGHT ONE
I researched all the options at the moment and settled on the ASUS EEE PC 1000H, I’m actually writing this post on the thing right now from my loungeroom via the 802.11n connection the device supports.
It was with a little trepidation that I lashed out and bought the unit and I can happily say that it hasn’t failed to impress.
So today I went out of my way (260kms out of my way) to go and get one from Ballarat, now to give you some scope on how far this is here is a map of how far I went:
View Larger Map
That’s almost the same distance as driving directly across Belgium! (I went 130kms there and back).
Its a little different using a machine that has a native resolution of 1027×600 but you get used to the scrolling, actually its kind of nice, it breaks up websites into little chunks that you can focus on rather than have massive slabs of information that you have to wade through.
I know the usual thing to do with these is to instantly get out the camera, take 40 unboxing shots, upload a video review 30 mins after you open the box and generally gloat about the coolness of it, but I’m going to actually USE the machine and give you a running report of how its all going.
So on the the first impressions:
- Small, compact, light
- My hands hurt from the keyboard size
- The screen is way clearer that I expected
- The wireless is blisteringly fast
- Memory card slot is great
- Sound is a little quiet
- The trackpad buttons are a bit stiff
All that said, its a fantastic unit, hell I just plugged my Blue Snowball Mic into the thing and started Audacity and was recording full multi-track audio without lag or speed reductions, so for a portable podcasting setup this thing is going to rock (more on that later).
More over it plays games… now I’m not talking Call of Duty 4 or Crysis: Warhead but if you want to play some slightly older games (See this Youtube Link) on the go then it is a worthy little platform (especially if you love older adventure games).
Lastly, the one thing I want to comment on is ASUS’s packaging and extras that it comes with.
The packaging was fantastic, everything was perfectly packed, even right down to an anti-static foam sheet over the keyboard and nice touches like velcro cord holders on the power pack and a microfibre screen cloth, most of all though, they include a laptop bag, now c’mon how many manafacturers would include a freaking bag for the thing you just bought, even if its more like a soft foam dust jacket but still they didn’t need to do that, but they did.
So on the first impressions the EEE PC 1000H netbook is fantastic so far, I’ll be posting more as time goes by.
Oh and ASUS… You rock…
"I Want To Be a Celebrity"
Buy at 
Great to hear man. I think my Grandma actually purchased one of these mini PC’s because it fits in her purse and she can take it to her various classes she attends. It has worked well for her so far.
I’ve also been thinking about picking one of these up as an RSS reader with a keyboard. Portable FeedDemon!
Oh they would be perfect for the older generations (eyesight permitting of course) to get into using PC’s or even taking classes.
For that fact, anyone who requires a decent pc that is constantly on the go it is perfect.
I mainly got it because I’ll be traveling more and need to have a mobile platform.
I think these devices are fantastic for on the go bloggers and podcasters as well, especially after my tests with my Blue Mic.
Thanks Tim, nice review. I will seriously be looking at buying something similar next year (next financial year that is, I’ve already blown the school rebate for this year).
I am interested in what sort of battery life they have, as the laptop that I recently bought only has about 2 hours (but I suppose it goes with having a bigger screen and dedicated graphics card).
I’ll bet you’ll be cruising around looking for free unsecured wireless access too.
BTW with petrol at around $1.50 per litre (probably more up your way), I hope that you that you had a company car to make the trip worthwhile.
Tim, great insights thanks. This is kinda harping back to the days of the HP Omnibooks (600, 800 etc circa 1994 if I remember correctly) - they were HDD based but had fantastic portability because of their size - A4 or smaller - and they were limited in power for that reason - but still extremely useful. I think they were 10 years or more ahead of their time and it’s nice to see smaller units coming available without the price tags of the Vaio class of devices.
Oh, yes, and nice use of the embedded map…
Sweet! There awesome little machines.
Good choice tim!
@Matt - the Netbooks with 6 cell batteries normally last around 5-6 hours (correct me if im wrong Tim). If you do purchase one, make sure it has a 6 cell battery as some do not (there were battery shortages for a few months a while back due to a factory fire in china…)
I remeber when I got the 701 eee. It was the only one on the market…now the choices are endless.
Im also *possibly* looking at one of these. Im going to wait a few months to observe the prices (they’ll probably drop, demand is going to lower anyway..) and to wait for the new release Macbooks.
OOoOoOOoOOo technology and time….it’s just crazy!
Thanks for the comments guys.
@Matt - Battery life is awesome as far as I can work out, looking at the reviews online its estimated that the 6-cell battery (standard for the 1000H) lasts at absolute maximum 7 hours for a straight run, the 1000H has some nice power features like auto-power switching and user switching modes that help manage the drain.
It all depends on what you are doing I guess, text documents, blogging, web use i’m expecting to be far greater than playing games or watching movies (both which it handles really well btw)
@Cabletie - I completely agree with the Omnibooks that HP developed, its just sad that the latest HP offering the Mini-note has a weird configuration that leaves it in the dust.
Thanks for the mention of the map, I was quite chuffed I finally got it to work properly (damn you Wordpress visual editor tag stripping evil…)
I’m still looking at getting an Acer Aspire One, but I’m a bit upset that it doesn’t have 802.11n. It does have a 120 GB HD though and I can bump the RAM to 1.5 GB…
@Herne - Seriously reconsider the Acer Aspire One.
In my opinion they may fit the ‘netbook’ moniker a little better than some other offerings (my ASUS included) but they are too under power and the features suck, especially the power management side of things.
If you are worried about HDD and Ram size, 80gb is plenty for a netbook, especially if you are using it to compliment a desktop system or have a home based external storage device.
The Aspire One is only attractive because its directly in your field of vision in stores, do some research and you’ll see that it falls short of the all-rounder specs of the competition.
That and the 8.9″ screen sucks at 1027×600…
@Tim Still debating… we don’t have the 1000H in Canada yet, apparently, at least I can’t seem to find it yet.
Oh, I see the “Asus Eee PC 1000 - Intel Atom Processor, Bluetooth, 802.11b/g/n Wireless, 1GB DDR2, 160GB HDD, 10″ WSVGA, Webcam, Windows XP Home (Fine Ebony)” now at Tigerdirect.ca for $609.99… must be a recent addition, I didn’t see it before.
I’d still want to drop a 2GB RAM stick in there and at $610 Canadian, it’s running perilously close to the price of the low end full-sized laptops.
I’m still looking around for maybe a decently priced Powerbook.
@Herne
One of the netbooks has 802.11n working in Linux but now I forget. Could it be the Asus? They seem like a solid company. I think atheros and ralink are providing a new round of wireless drivers this year.
I really want to pickup a netbook for my lady but I’m still undecided. Not sure if we should wait for the dual core atom to become standard. All she wants is firefox and skype.
@Eric
The dual core atoms are going to be a stretch to be put into one of these things, the power requirements at the moment are too taxing on battery life to be actually useful, that may change in the future though.
It all depends though, if its just for Skype / Firefox then I can say from experience that these little beasts do the trick really well.
Especially if you got her a micro bluetooth headset to go with it (I’d recommend the Blue Ant Z9) so she could be a true wireless warrior.
Ha cool as Tim and thanks for keeping the light on - yes I am still here and busy as hell - things are getting to the pointy end of the extensions and things are very slowly getting back to normal.
I digress…
Tim awesome review - very practical
One question. I have only seen these once in the shop - tempting. But the one thing that turned me off was the build of the keyboard. It just felt flimsy and not as well made as I would expect. It might have been due to the fact that it was on display - you know display models 
But just wanting to know if my concerns are valid or not.
I love the idea of the eeeeee
being a great podcasting platform as well - nice. Cool that the snowball worked on it.
Thanks again Tim!
@Dave - No probs dude, thought I’d put up something since I lashed out and bought the thing.
The keyboard on this one (EEE PC 1000H) is excellent, it is consistent with standard laptop keyboards and its a dream to use (especially when compared to the 901 or the Acer Aspire One) as the keys are full size.
I was chuffed that the snowball worked great as well!
Thanks Tim.
I’ll give it a shot this December. She could use the bt headset as well.
I just purchased one today! Upgraded the ram to 2GB and should be sweet.
Hello Tim,
I’m planning to buy one Asus Eeepc 1000H to record my band playing in the garage. I have a nice Sony stereo microphone that I can plug into the mic in jack of the eeepc. (I used it with my minidisk recorder and the audio quality was great).
Weel, do you think it will work without any problems? Or the Atom processor isn’t fast enough to record stereo in real time at 16 bit - 44.100?
Many thanks,
Paulo
I don’t think you’ll have a problem, what I’d suggest is that you use an external mixer though.
If you are looking to record a band its probably better that you use a powered (phantom or not) mixer so that you can tweak the output before you record.
The EEE PC 1000H will record in real-time (this depends on the recording software and its requirements), I’d also recommend you upgrade the system to 2gb so that you can successfully run a multi-track recorder (This would also require a decent USB input audio card)
Here’s what I’d get myself:
* Extra 2gb Ram
* Sound Blaster Audigy 2 NX
* Several decent mics (I like the Blue Mics range)
* A good mixer
I understand that budget may be a factor here too, so I’d at least get the 2gb ram, ram is cheap at the moment and easy to come by. Just check around the forums and on YouTube before settling on the RAM to buy.
Hope it all works out for you!
Many thanks Tim,
I’m not planning to do multi-track recording in the eeePC (I have a desktop computer with a M-Audio Delta 1010 audio card and a Mackie VLZ 1402 mixer, and it works very well with Nuendo…)
With the eeePC I just want to make simple stereo 44.1 recording with my Sony Mic directly plugged into the mic in:
http://www.jr.com/sony/pe/SON_ECMMS907/
(I think this is a great mic by the way…I used to record my band rehearsals with a Minidisk portable walkman and this mic and it worked great…)
And I hope that I can use Sound Forge 8 in the eeePC to make the recordings (Well, if not, I can use Audacity or any lighter solution…)
I guess it’s better to buy the extra 2GB for the RAM… Thanks for your advice
Bye, Paulo
Great post! I too have been actively using my Eee, and I’m really enjoying it (I’m actually trying to use it exclusively for 100 days - I’m blogging my experiences at http://theeeepceperiment.blogspot.com). Anyway, I was hoping to find some info about using the snowball mic with the Eee. It sounds like it will be a go, so I’m going to give it a try right now! Thanks!