netbooking?

So I decided to buy an ASUS EEE 1000HE netbook to see if it was really all that useful. Okay, maybe it was just an excuse to try out a new electronic gadget, since I seem to have a natural affinity to them. Yesterday, I was about to boast about resisting the urge to buy things I don't need, but Keith managed to easily convince me otherwise.

And so, Staples shipped it to my door today. For once, I could actually say "that was easy". When I took it out of the box, it looked pretty sleek. The top lid was so nice and glossy (although with a gritty-looking texture, so fingerprints aren't as noticeable). It looked like a really nice oversized DS or something. However, it was a bit on the thick side when compared to my 15" Macbook Pro (around 1.4 inches vs 1 inch), although it's about two pounds lighter (3 lbs vs 5 lbs).



As a size comparison, I've stacked up a few other things. From the bottom, there's my Macbook Pro, Keith's NEC MobilePro 780, and my Nintendo DS.



As I opened up the lid......to my horror, I was greeted with.....a FRENCH KEYBOARD!! The moment I saw this, I wanted to return it. That's how much I dislike non-US keyboards. I need both shift keys to be long, I need the enter key to be long, and the "\" key to be right above the enter key.



From my few hours of use, I've already made many typos from this keyboard. Aside from that, they keys look something similar to the Macbook keyboards, although the build quality definitely feels a lot cheaper. Keys are slightly smaller, which I do notice a bit with my big hands.

I think the mouse touchpad is what I liked the most. It features something similar to Apple's MultiTouch, where you could use multiple fingers to do different gestures for, let's say, scrolling, right clicking, zooming, rotating, etc. Most of it is pretty customizable, so I made it behave as close to a Macbook's trackpad as possible. Sure, it doesn't have the same feel to it and can be a bit finicky at times, but it works.

In Windows XP, I was limited to a small 1024x600 screen resolution. This was my biggest turnoff for any netbook, as I tend to enjoy super high resolutions so I can fit a bunch of windows on a screen. When I'm severely limited in screen space, it feels very crowded and sometimes frustrating when windows are too big for the screen (ex: Windows Live Messenger, unresizable configuration menus). I wish they at least included an option in Windows to change the overall sizes of things like fonts, windows, taskbars, etc. Oh well.

Video playback was pretty impressive. I installed the Combined Community Codec Pack to watch some soft-subbed anime clips. Anything in SD would work flawlessly (like the first episode of K-On!), but started lagging once I threw a 720p Zeta Gundam opening clip. However, trying out CoreAVC allowed smooth 720p playback (presumably had better decompression algorithms). Super impressed.

Hooking up my trusty Dell 2407wfp LCD monitor, I tried video playback through that. Strangely, I couldn't set the resolution too high, or else it would result in a distorted image. When I got to a working resolution, I tried the 720p clip again with CoreAVC. To my disappointment, the video and audio went out of sync again. Meh, oh well. Wasn't expecting too much out of the integrated graphics.

I'm quite impressed that Asus created a separate backup partition on the hard drive, so you could restore your C: to factory settings easily. Most manufacturers leave you with a single install of Windows XP, and you're on your own if you need to re-install it.

Battery life is freaking ridiculous. I haven't had all that much time to test it out thoroughly, but Asus claims a 9.5-hour battery life. I'd presume with the wireless adapter on and a bunch of applications open, it would work out to about 7 hours or so. Nevertheless, I wouldn't have to worry about battery life like I did for my Macbook Pro running on an old 1.5hr battery.

Lastly, the price. I paid about $410+tax for this, which works out to be about $463. At that price, I could have gotten maybe a decent CoreDuo based laptop. Maybe not with the same features, but you get the idea--a netbook, made designed purely for the convenience of having the Internet "at your fingertips" wherever you go, is relatively expensive. I'd say it's more of a luxury thing.

Now, for the big decision: do I really need this? Definitely not. Is it nice to have? Yes. However, I already have an existing laptop, and having this would merely be just for convenience of being able to bring a small, lightweight computer around whenever I may need to use one. Problem is, I haven't had the need to do that. Sure, it could be a good laptop to bring to SLC to study, but again...I'd rather just bring my other laptop. It has more screen space, better hardware and operating system, etc.

I started to think a bit further, past the "good deal" and "practicallity/usefulness" train of thought. Why do I indulge myself in worldly things so much? After I received the netbook and used it for a bit, there was still this dissatisfaction...sort of a craving for more. It's like the law of diminishing returns. It's probably safe to say that I've been idolizing material wealth over these years. It's one of these things that I'm constantly struggling with. I could have used all that time that I spent surfing RedFlagDeals and read the Bible more, or even my baptismal books that I planned to finish by the end of the year.

Well, on that note, I think it's time to say goodbye to this nice little laptop. I'll be returning it to Staples tomorrow after the Maple Syrup Festival.