ASUS Eee PC 1000HE 10-inch Netbook (Intel Atom N280 1.66 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB HDD, 10 GB Eee Storage, Bluetooth, XP Home, up to 9.5 Hour Battery Life, Black)

The 1st review I did on this machine gave only 1 star because the machine would not boot but now after Amazon replaced it twice I've got one that works and boy was it worth the wait and aggro.
So how does it perform?
Battery life:
I tested this by using the 1000he as my work machine for a day on battery pack only. (I am a programmer and work from home by b/band connection to the office.) The machine lasted well and was used non stop (apart from 1hour lunch) all day. At the end of the day I still had an hours worth of battery life. So their "All Day Computing" slogan is on the money IMO.

Keyboard:
I did not find the keyboard cramped or a pain to use, In fact I thought the track pad better than most lap tops and I preferred the stiffness of the button click.
Screen:
I used the low res mode mostly because I prefer not to have to scroll the desktop. I did not find any problems using the smaller screen, although when I went back to my main machine the luxury of a big screen did become apparent. For Most on the move requirements you will not be aware of any shortcomings in screen size.

Wireless connection: Connects immediately and very stable

All in all this is a great machine for the price and would have earned 5 stars if it had not been let down by the two previous non bootable machines which put a question mark over Asus's QA

One other thing: it comes with a recovery CD. Now net books are marketed as mobile pieces of kit, It is unlikely that you will carry around a portable co drive on your travels, otherwise why not take a full size laptop, so if something goes wrong you are going to have to wait until your back at base to fix it. I hope that as the capacity for USB sticks and cards increases Asus and others will offer a way to recover from a crash via one of those rather than a CD
Would I recommend it to a friend : a wholehearted yes.

This Netbook is by far the best on the market currently (of 14/06/09). If you are in the market for one then buy this one, I have used several and I can state simply this is the best.

When I first got mine one of the first things I did was install Windows 7 onto it, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that it was the best thing to do. XP is fine for the average user, but with Windows 7 this netbook becomes a whole new experience. Most of the drivers worked straight away, and the ones that didn't were easily downloaded from the ASUS website; run them in compatibility mode and they're as good as ever. The only disadvantage is you do lose the ability to put the screen resolution in 1024 x 768, instead of the standard 1024 x 600. But that's an emulated resolution so I don't see it as a loss.

Anyway, to review the actual netbook. The newer N280 processor does make a difference over the older N270. It may only be a 0.06GHz improvement, but the front side bus speed has been increased as well, making this a worthwhile upgrade. I'd like to say I upgraded the RAM to 2GB, for about £15 and this is certainly worth doing, it does make a difference, especially if you get 800MHz RAM, which is the max it can take. [EDIT: Only recently realised that the FSB of the processor is 667MHz, thus getting 800MHz is a waste of money... too late for me sadly]. The 9.5 hour battery life stated is actually accurate, which is surprising, usually these estimates are grossly exaggerated. I've managed to get just over 10 hours out of the thing on full power saving mode. On sleep mode this thing will last nearly 3 weeks, which is amazing. The heat coming from the machine varies between around 34 degrees C up to about 65 under full load. This is very reasonable and certainly I don't have a problem using it on my lap for relatively light tasks such as internet browsing or email. The fan can make a bit of noise when it is on full, but I've heard much worse, and the fan doesn't come on very often as long as you're not in a hot room or asking it to play Crysis. I generally don't use the touchpad very often, I've always preferred carrying a small mouse around with me, but it is good as touchpads go, and the gesture features that have been blatantly copied from Mac's and iPhone's are generally helpful. I did disable a few as I don't need to have so many functions. I also hooked it up to a HD Monitor via the VGA/D-Sub connection and this thing can handle resolutions over full HD. I was running at 1920 x 1200 with no noticeable delay. I cannot vouch for the bluetooth or the Wireless N, as I only have wireless G at home, and have never had a need to use the bluetooth. I have it set-up, but have yet to pair anything with it. I also can't state how good the eSATA/USB port is, I presume it will be as good as any eSATA port, with blazing transfer speeds. In regards to weight, you barely know you are carrying it in your bag. 1.33KG is nothing for a laptop, and if you are going for negligible weight you'll pay the cost. The Sony P-Series weighs about 650g, but it's super-slow and costs £800. The hard drive in this netbook is certainly large enough for the standard person, I certainly will never fill it, and it's not like external hard drives are that difficult to come by.

Basically this netbook is extremely good, especially for the price. ASUS really know how to make a netbook, and the Eee PC family are all good, but this really is the daddy. If you are looking to buy a netbook (and if you're on this page you must be) then get this. You won't regret it, I certainly don't.

EDIT: I have recently purchased an eSATA cable for an external hard drive. Unfortunately it doesn't fit in the port on the side. Therefore I have no idea what this port is, it certainly looks like an eSATA/USB but it isn't. Just seems to be a plain old USB port with grooves in it, rather than being just a solid rectangle.

I'm an A-level student currently, moving onto uni next year. I've already got a suped up dual core desktop that i'm taking with me. but i needed a portable laptop to take into lectures to view powerpoints and write notes. After looking at an absolute ton of reviews the Acer aspire one and the Asus 1000 HE were the two best. after looking at the acer and seeing the frankly useless touchpad i went for the asus. it's superb, fast enough for non-gaming applications, i've tried some online video streaming and bbc iplayer works fine but higher quality video such as HD you tube is sketchy. the screen is great, really clear, really bright. The keyboard (similair to that on macs) is great, with the keys well spaced out so you're never hitting two keys at once and the only problems with it so far have been the two shift buttons which are quite small. The multitouch gesture touchpad is great, works brilliantly, 160GB HDD is superb, it's a better processor than most of the other netbook competitors too which is great! It looks cool, is slightly heavier than other noteooks but still by no means heavy, also comes with a case that's handy.

Overall this is a great netbook which i think should instead be referred to as a notebook as it's fast and relatively powerful, a great buy!