User report on the Asus Eee 1005HAB PC net book computer.
Asus Eee PC 1005HAB Net Book Computer
This review will be on Net Book (NB) computers in general. The specific model I am using may no longer be in production so I’ll try not to be too machine type specific.
I originally bought this computer because it was a refurbished net book with very good advertised battery life. It is claimed to get 8 hours from a recharge. My experience with battery life has been outstanding. I have it set up for max power saving while on battery and with occasional (5-10 min/hourly) use in the office I can usually get several days of operation per charge. Sleep mode is entered when not is use after 10 minutes. Most computers have long periods of inactivity that if not powered down, will consume battery life for no net result. I have set up this Asus NB to go into hibernate mode if not used for one hour. That is a full active system backup to hard drive and a full power down.
Sleep mode is also entered by just closing the lid. I use that a lot. The screen dims in 1 minute of no activity and goes dark in 2 minutes. Auto sleep in 10 minutes and the hard drive shuts off in 5 minutes. Every watt saved, helps.
The refurbishment seems to consist of a new battery. I think the original package had a lower capacity battery pack. The rest of the computer when received was in an unused new condition.
Please note the Net Book computers do not have a CD/DVD or floppy drive. It is the nature of the little beasts.
I bought the NB for my wife to use during her recovery from cancer surgery and through the long chemo process. That was over a year ago. She has now fully recovered and it turns out the computer was not used much by her. So I have commandeered it for daily use. I think it is best for me or anyone to use it than to let it just be forgotten.
One proclaimed use (purchase excuse) is that it would be good to take on trips to stay in touch. However, the new PDA cell phones have mostly taken care of that function. The NB is far better for typing than the cell phone. If there is something to really write, the NB is the system of choice. So yes, it is still a good light weight and compact travel companion if a full laptop is not required.
The keyboard size is very useable but is not full size. Probably more like 80%. That is a trade off for the smaller over all size than lets say an Apple MacBook and 20% of the lowest MacBook price.
A strong contender of the NB are the new tablet systems like Apple iPad and several more “me too” pretenders. The $200 NB overall cost is the deal maker. It just depends what “cool” is worth.
The operating system (OS) on the NB is Windows 7 Starter. There is a lot of Microsoft marketing effort built into the Starter version to spend more money for an upgrade version. A bigger OS is totally not required in this class of computer. My recommendation – Do not upgrade.
The standard 1GB of RAM does not need to be burdened with holding more unused OS features. The 1M is perfectly adequate for email and text editing. More memory (2GB) can be installed and should improve graphic performance. The graphics share user memory. Additional memory may slightly decrease battery time.
The price for the 2GB 200 pin SODIMM memory module is about $35.00 from Crucial ($32.99) The original 1GB memory will have to be simply discarded. There is room for only one module.
Interestingly, the motherboard will only support 2GB and this is the maximum memory that Win 7 Starter (32bit) will support. In other words 2GB is the max out limit.
I discovered some other interesting facts in the memory research. Vista Starter will only support 1GB of memory and XP Starter only supports 512MB. It’s nice that Win7 was given the generous memory increase in its Starter edition.
The most serious issue I have seen at 1 MB RAM is choppy streaming video with large formatted (HD) video played from a USB stick. I think the problem is video memory buffering with only the 1GB installed. So I have upgraded to the 2GB limit.
Yep, the video problems are gone. I have run on batteries all day today (intermittent use) to see if the new memory chips will have any noticeable effect on the battery life. I have not experienced any major decrease in battery life.
This is a dual thread processor (Atom CPU) machine and with the extra RAM space the machine does seem to perform faster. The Windows Experience Index performance rating didn’t change (2.2). That rating was determined by the low score of graphics. Most other scores are double that. Not bad for a NB.
For what a NB is intended to do, they are great investment if you get one with a cost of around $200. There are some being sold much higher than that. Many are listed at twice that amount and a few are even three times my investment. The more costly NB’s do not get my endorsement because of the price.
The tablet computers (iPad) start looking like a better investment for any extra money I have (or am willing) to spend. Even Asus has one with the “Honeycomb” OS of the Android called the Eee Pad Transformer. Yes, they are a status toy but they are the new technology. Touch screens are here to stay and the coolest software will be and is written for the touch interface.
Consider a net book if cost is the determining factor. I haven’t spent more than a couple of hundred dollars a year ago and I still feel I made a good decision.