Asus 1000HE - The Ultimate Netbook

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I have been using my new Asus 1000HE for about a month now and I can say without a doubt that this netbook is a winner. Everything about this machine is fantastic. It looks great, performs better than expected and has the perfect price point at just under 400 dollars.

The netbook market is very crowded. Just about every manufacturer is now making netbooks including the big boys like Dell and HP. Asus was a pioneer in this market segment and their experience has definitely paid off with the 1000HE.

The first thing you will notice is that the 1000HE is a great looking netbook. The high gloss black finish on the outside makes this machine look like a million bucks. The chasis feels very solid and there is no flex in the keyboard. Everything here is made very well. It does weigh more than most netbooks at 3.2 pounds but that includes the 6 cell battery so it is acceptable.

The 1000HE uses the new Atom 1.66 GHz (667MHz FSB) processor which is a incremental improvement over the standard Atom 1.6 GHz. Honestly, I couldn't feel a difference in performance between the 1000HE and my older Dell Mini 9. The 1000HE does perform extremely well though. Asus preloads the 1000HE with Star Office which runs great. I also installed Word and Excel 2007 and the 10000HE handled them just fine.

I mainly use the 1000HE for internet access while commuting. I have an hour long train ride each way to and from work so having the ability to go online is really nice. The 10 inch screen is the sweet spot for netbooks and the 1000HE's does not disappoint. The matte black screen looks great and is easily viewable in direct sunlight.

The 1000HE also comes standard with a 160GB hard drive, 1.3 megapixel web cam, Built-in 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for easy wireless connectivity. It also has 3 x USB 2.0 ports, 1 x VGA port, 2 x Audio input/output ports, 1 x RJ-45 port, Kensington Lock port. The new chiclet-style keyboard is 92% the size of regular notebooks keyboard which makes it very comfortable to type on.

The battery life on this netbook is phenomenal. Asus claims that it gets 9.5 hours per charge but a more realistic number is about 7.5 hours. That is still a long time between charges and plenty to get through an entire day while mobile.

The touch pad supports multi touch. You can do all sorts of neat things just by using the pad. For example, you can zoom in and out of pictures by pinching your fingers together. I am not a big fan of the multi touch though as you can sometimes trigger the wrong command by accident which is frustrating. Luckily, the options are configurable so you can shut off certain commands while leaving the ones you want to use on.

The 1000HE comes standard with 1 GB of RAM. I upgraded that to 2 GB and saw a noticeable performance boost. The 2GB chip only cost about 20 dollars at Amazon. The installation is very easy and anyone can do it themselves.

If you are in the market for a netbook then definitely give the Asus 1000HE a look, you will not be disappointed.