Asus Eee PC 1000HE Review


More Capacity than Many Laptops

eeehe-4

One of the early complaints about the early netbooks was that they didn’t offer nearly enough storage capacity. Remember when the first batch of Eee PCs hit the market and you were looking at single-digit gigabyte counts? While there are still some cheaper netbooks that stick to that range of flash-based memory, the 1000HE more closely mimics a real laptop with its 160GB hard drive. Depending where you go, this might even be bigger than a real notebook.

In addition to the 160GB internal hard disk drive, Asus is also bundling a free 10GB of file-encrypted Eee Online Storage. You can stash some of your files into this online cloud, accessing it anywhere that you’d like. You get your first year of service for free and then you need to pay after that. Then again, you could just get a free Dropbox account instead.

Surfing the Web at WSVGA

eeehe-7

Another common complaint about a lot of netbooks is the reduced size and resolution of the display. The Asus Eee PC 1000HE isn’t exactly top of the heap in this regard, because it only has a 10.1-inch screen. For me, that hits the sweet spot of portability, but there are also netbooks with screens as large as 12.1-inches. I think there’s even a 13-incher from MSI.

For me, it’s not so much about the size as it is about the resolution. This netbook gets a WSVGA display for 1024×600 pixels of visible space. This makes it big enough to handle most webpages, but you may find that your visible area “above the fold” for some sites can be quite frustrating, especially if you’re coming from a larger desktop configuration. Some newer netbooks are now doing WXGA (1320×768), so there’s still room for improvement.

Keyboard and Trackpad

eeehe-5

Are you a fan of MacBooks? Do you really like that chiclet keyboard? One of the cooler features found on the 1000HE is a very Mac-esque chiclet keyboard. It has just the right amount of key travel and key separation. It is an absolute joy to use and I’m glad to see that Asus has reconfigured the keyboard for better right shift key placing.

In previous Eees, the right shift key was placed to the far right of the keyboard, making for quite the stretch. Now, it is to the left of the up arrow, making it closer to where you would normally find that button. I also like the inclusion of the second Fn button on the right, making for quick Page Up/Down and Home/End movements.

The trackpad is also quite innovative with its inclusion of multi-touch gestures. Two fingers get both horizontal and vertical scrolling, as well as pinching and stretching for zoom. Three fingers represent a right-click. The precision and responsiveness is good, but not perfect. I’d imagine that this will get better with future generations of Eee PCs.

,