If you have been following me on my blog or Twitter you will know that i have been thinking for some time about getting a Netbook. I finally decided that the time will never be right to buy and I did need one, honestly i do need one

I checked out all the normal places that i hang out in during the weekends like Harvey Norman , Noel Leeming and Bond & Bond.  They all had a great selection of Netbooks but most of them where of the hard disk variety and I wanted a new SSD version. Harvey Norman and Bond & Bond had one model with 8GB SSD that was not big enough for me . So while my partner was dress shopping at Farmers in Albany I popped down to JB HI-FI and that’s where it happened this little Netbook was sitting there calling out my name “please buy me”

After 2 Days

i have been using the Asus a lot of the last couple of days and i have found it a great little machine that performs very well for its size. The battery life seams to be very good even with the Telecom XP broadband plugged in to the USB and in constant us, the battery was still going 4 hours in and had over 1 hour remaining.

The WIFI performed well at the Albany shopping mall picking up all the local retailers and a couple of hotspots however at home where i work there is only a very low signal strength of 1 where my desk top replacement Toshiba laptop holds onto the wifi no problem the Asus keeps dropping the link. This may be a problem so I may have to invest in a better WIFI router (Any suggestions) or I may look into getting a better aerial for the Thompson router.

So far i have uninstalled the Microsoft Works software as supplied and updated the Open Office to version 8, Installed Mysql Workbench, Google Chrome and Tweetdeck, and still have heaps of space left on the SSD.

The Netbook comes in a high quality box that impressed me with there design. As you can see from the photo above the Netbook is inside the case.

Under the Netbook are all the power cables, restore CD (no CD drive on netbook) and manual etc..

top and bottom shot. The battery goes in the front of the unit unlike other notebooks i have owned where the battery is in the back.

The keyboard comes protected by the paper as normal for most laptops.

The four pictures above show the from left to right

The Asus comes with a small power cable that is multi current so will work in the USA as well as the rest of the world.

As standard you get a nice 16gb SSD card that fits nicely in the back of the Asus giving a total of 32gb of storage plus the 30GB of online storage provided by Asus. This will be more then sufficient for most storage requirements on such a small unit.

One Week In

After using the Asus for a week now I am still very pleased, it performs well on both Wifi and Telecom XT networks. The battery life is amazing giving a full 7+ hours on Wifi and a good 5 hours on the external G3 card.

The screen is very sharp and very readable from extreme angles and very usable for normal day to day usage email, web browsing and office software, however is way to small when trying to design a database schema but hell 2 full size 21 inch screens are to small for that job. overall the screen is perfect for the job !

I have chosen to go open source where possible and have installed Thunderbird for my email client and Open office for documents and spreadsheets. I am trying to use Google’s Doc’s and Gmail online however there are times when I do not want to connect to the net but still work on email.

For Twitter I have installed my favorite Tweetdeck. With all these applications running I still find the 1.6mhz CPU zips along with no slowing of performance.

I have had a couple of requests for the full spec of the Asus so here is a small dump from system information

Item    Value   
OS Name    Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition   
Version    5.1.2600 Service Pack 3 Build 2600   
OS Manufacturer    Microsoft Corporation    
System Manufacturer    ASUSTeK Computer INC.   
System Model    S101   
System Type    X86-based PC   
Processor    x86 Family 6 Model 28 Stepping 2 GenuineIntel ~1600 Mhz   
BIOS Version/Date    American Megatrends Inc. 1402, 12/06/2009   
SMBIOS Version    2.5

Would I buy it again ? YES

If you have been following me on my blog or Twitter you will know that i have been thinking for some time about getting a Netbook. I finally decided that the time will never be right to buy and I did need one, honestly i do need one

I checked out all the normal places that i hang out in during the weekends like Harvey Norman , Noel Leeming and Bond & Bond.  They all had a great selection of Netbooks but most of them where of the hard disk variety and I wanted a new SSD version. Harvey Norman and Bond & Bond had one model with 8GB SSD that was not big enough for me . So while my partner was dress shopping at Farmers in Albany I popped down to JB HI-FI and that’s where it happened this little Netbook was sitting there calling out my name “please buy me”

After 2 Days

i have been using the Asus a lot of the last couple of days and i have found it a great little machine that performs very well for its size. The battery life seams to be very good even with the Telecom XP broadband plugged in to the USB and in constant us, the battery was still going 4 hours in and had over 1 hour remaining.

The WIFI performed well at the Albany shopping mall picking up all the local retailers and a couple of hotspots however at home where i work there is only a very low signal strength of 1 where my desk top replacement Toshiba laptop holds onto the wifi no problem the Asus keeps dropping the link. This may be a problem so I may have to invest in a better WIFI router (Any suggestions) or I may look into getting a better aerial for the Thompson router.

So far i have uninstalled the Microsoft Works software as supplied and updated the Open Office to version 8, Installed Mysql Workbench, Google Chrome and Tweetdeck, and still have heaps of space left on the SSD.

The Netbook comes in a high quality box that impressed me with there design. As you can see from the photo above the Netbook is inside the case.

Under the Netbook are all the power cables, restore CD (no CD drive on netbook) and manual etc..

top and bottom shot. The battery goes in the front of the unit unlike other notebooks i have owned where the battery is in the back.

The keyboard comes protected by the paper as normal for most laptops.

The four pictures above show the from left to right

The Asus comes with a small power cable that is multi current so will work in the USA as well as the rest of the world.

As standard you get a nice 16gb SSD card that fits nicely in the back of the Asus giving a total of 32gb of storage plus the 30GB of online storage provided by Asus. This will be more then sufficient for most storage requirements on such a small unit.

Update one week in blog post

I run a speed test using my new ASUS S101 netbook and a new Telecom XT USB data card from Auckland CBD and got a nice 3.91 MB/s down and .9MB/s up with a ping rate of 78ms to a server in Tauranga. Not bad !

Update

Just run a speed test from home in West Auckland and the results speak for them self’s the XT broadband is way faster then the ADSL connection

Yes I have taken the plunge and bought a Netbook. I picked the ASUS S101 as it had 32GB SSD. So far so good i have it unpacked surfing the web and downloading the 33 security updates from Microsoft.

I took lots of photos so i plan to write a full blog with my impressions and photos in the next couple of days.

the netbook was supposed to save the PC industry. Cast your memory back to 2007. We were just on the edge of the global financial precipice. Desktop sales were flat and laptop sales were soaring. All seemed fine. But there was a problem: the laptop market was considerably different than the desktop market. Desktop PCs sat comfortably in a den and were upgraded over time. Junior wanted to play The Sims so he installed a new graphics card. Sis wanted a scanner – she added an all-in-one. Dad was going through a mid-life crisis so he bought a new case. PCs generated sales in peripherals and, once the PC was maxed out, it was relegated to the basement and a new one purchased. PCs cost a pittance to make and could be sold at a slight profit.Laptops, on the other hand, were stagnant. You bought a laptop and held onto it. For many it became a main computer, but one you never upgraded. You could add some memory and plug in a printer, but you weren’t purchasing overpriced graphics cards or hard drives.

via CrunchGear’s Ultimate Guide to Netbooks .