ASUS Eee PC 1015PEDPU17BU 10.1Inch Blue Netbook Up
Powered by the iconic and groundbreaking Intel Atom N475 processor paired with ASUS's Super Hybrid Engine (SHE) to yield 13 hours of battery life on a single charge, the ASUS Eee PC 1015PED-PU17-BU Netbook is the perfect way to stay connected over the course of your travels. It's beautiful molded design appears to step right out of nature itself, masking a host of technical features: 1GB of DDR3 memory, 250GB hard drive, and integrated 0.3MP webcam. ....read more Average Customer Rating
Brand: Asus Model: 1015PED-PU17-BU Price: $379.99 |   | |
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4 out of 5
Great netbook with long battery life and a matte screen
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Before I go into the details, let me just say this is a great little netbook. I am very happy with the purchase. So here we go…
First, this netbook DOES NOT have USB 3.0. Asus has done a great job of confusing everyone about this. Some early reports indicated it would have USB 3.0. The Asus website says, “Availability is dependent on selected model, country or operator support. Check with your local ASUS website for more details.” Say what?!? And to top it off, the Asus support site has a USB 3.0 driver. Well, USB 3.0 ports are blue and the 1015PED I purchased does not have any blue ports. When I load the USB 3.0 driver, it says “No USB 3.0 chip found”. I would love to be wrong about this but I don’t think I am.
Next, there is an option to backup the recovery information to a USB stick when you hit F9 at boot. WARNING: Restoring the backup from the USB stick DOES NOT create a true factory hard drive image. It DOES NOT restore the recovery partition or Express Gate! If you restore from the USB stick, you lose the recovery partition for good! You can no longer hit F9 and restore from the hard drive and the Express Gate button will not work. You will only be able to restore from the USB stick and it will create one big partition with Windows 7 Starter and all the wonderful bloatware. Also, the manual says you need a USB stick greater than 16GB. False… The backup only takes 10GB.
I needed to run some legacy apps so I dumped Windows 7 Starter and loaded Windows XP Pro. Although I download most of my drivers directly from the chip manufacturers, I still have to give Asus credit for putting all XP drivers on their support site! Well, almost all the drivers… As of this writing, there’s no BlueTooth driver. However, I discovered the Dell DW375 BlueTooth module driver will work fine. (Broadcom doesn’t make their Widcomm BlueTooth drivers available to end users. Lame…)
So, have you ever loaded XP from a USB stick??? 1) Write zeros to the 1015PED HD with WDC DLG. 2) Create a bootable BartPE USB stick and don’t forget the AHCI drivers or the ramdisk from Windows Server 2003 SP1. 3) Slipstream the AHCI drivers into XP SP3 using nLite and copy the i386 directory to the BartPE USB stick. 4) Partition the HD using diskpart and format with A43. 5) Install XP, load the drivers and updates and you’re done. Congratulations! You now have a masters degree in computer science!!!
Now for some pros/cons/etc.
Battery life – Wow! It’s kind of impossible to say how many hours it will last for you because people will use this machine differently. That said, I’m very impressed with the battery life for my application. It doesn’t come close to 13 hours but I didn’t expect it to. The application I’m running is continuously CPU and graphic intensive.
The matte screen – Very nice. I specifically wanted a matte screen because I plan to use it outside quite a bit. The screen is still washed out in sunlight but it’s much better than a glossy screen which you can barely see at all.
Speed – Not sure. It’s hard for me to compare the performance to other netbooks. Obviously, a clean copy of XP blows away the bloated version of Windows 7 Starter that it came with. I would guess all Atom netbooks are fairly close. For what it’s worth, I’m happy with the performance.
Touch pad – It’s great! It’s large and the touch pad software supports quite a few gestures that make it easy to navigate.
Keyboard – Ummm… I’m ultra picky on my keyboards. I like keyboards with concave, textured keys with a long travel and weak finger pressure compensation. Needless to say, I hate this keyboard. However, I don’t hate it anymore than any other netbook I’ve used.
No LED for caps lock! Yet we have TWO power LEDs?!? Asus uses a program called CapsHook to alert you when the caps lock key is pressed. Just what we need… another program to take up memory and CPU on a resource limited netbook.
Video performance – Weak by design. YouTube 480 full screen at best. Forget about 720. But this netbook wasn’t designed for video. You already knew that, right?
As someone else mentioned, the outside of the case is matte and the inside is shiny. Asus should have stayed with the matte theme throughout.
I actually like some of the function (Fn) buttons Asus puts on the keyboard. In particular, they have one for Task Manager and one to cut the LCD backlight.
All the stickers where you rest your palms came off fairly easy with no residual residue. The Atom and Windows 7 stickers put up a fight but they eventually came off.
So yes… I got what I wanted: A netbook with long battery life and a matte screen with decent performance. If this is what you’re looking for, I highly recommend the Asus 1015PED.
barely passing
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
just bought this red ASUS Eee 1015PED-PU17(-RD).
BLUF:
goods – so far unbeatable battery life, good size and light weight, blutooth ready
bads – horrible speaker (cannot overcome with earphone), awkward keyboard positions (prone to typos), poor at picking up weak wifi signals….
detail:
i bought it for travel purpose and not been happy carrying larger laptop (recently been using HP and macpro 15″) due to carrying weight.
much happier about this little guys weight and size. i’m also nicely surprized about battery life. most of times reviews focus so much on technical aspects that combined use (heavy video playing>> web surf, and word processing) dont typically give practical info on “true” battery life. however i’m totally happy about battery life which i havent gone <50% battery life on typical 6 hours of heavy use.
i’m disappointed about audio problem. i read previous review about poor audio but i thought i could overcome by using earphone like my other laptops but i couldnt (even adjusting audio control to various recommended environment without a hope). just cant get loud enough. so bad enough for me to consider not buying ASUS again since i would have to carry an additional amplified speakers so that i can hear the media.
i would imagine keyboard issue is similar to using other netbooks – i’m keeping missing the shift key on right side and pushing arrow keys due to their proximity.
also i often work in areas with weak signals and often i would have hard time picking up signals when other laptops have lesser of an issue. since other netbook brands are not having similar problem (or lesser maybe), i think it’s ASUS issue just like audio.
Excellent netbook. Meets all expectations!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Much has been said in many great reviews on this product so I will try to limit my remarks to my own experiences that may differ from the others.
I’ll just say that I love this computer! Small, lightweight, fast, looks great, does the job.
I am running Microsoft Office Pro 2010 without a glitch. Works great.
I am also running Firefox 3.6. Fast. Streams video with only an occasional hiccup, but I even get that with my main computer at home. Otherwise, video streaming is smooth. Same with streaming Netflix movies.
Was going to upgrade the memory to 2GB, but because 1) Amazon’s suggested memory upgrade was the wrong one (I returned it) and 2) because the netbook is already very speedy, I don’t need it.
This thing boots up in 26 seconds from hibernate! That’s 26 seconds from pressing the button to seeing my desktop and it ready to go.
I use bought this for its Bluetooth and I love using the Microsoft Mobile BT Keyboard. Check it out.
I find the keyboard to be surprisingly good for effective typing, but I do love the MS BT Mobile Keyboard as it is near full-sized, skinny and light. It’s great for when that tabletop is a little high and I have this portable keyboard on my lap just tying away.
Screen is wonderful. Construction is good. I really like the white color.
Who needs an iPad? I’m a happy iPod touch 3G owner, but a netbook really beats out an iPad. iPads are cool, but for work and real computing, a good netbook beats it hands down. And it’s cheaper, too!
Battery life–amazing! Surfing the net, running Office Pro 2010 32 bit…I’m getting a minimum of 11 hours on this. I may be actually getting in the high 12′s!
I’m buying one for my son who is in college. YOU SHOULD GET ONE, TOO!
Good for surfing web but video playback customer support poor
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I am going to Europe in a few weeks and thought a Netbook would be great to take along to conect to Internet and watch videos on planes and trains. I have to admit that I am somewhat disappointed in this product. I had hoped for more. I had thought about buying a iPad but decided instead to get a Kindle (a truly awesome device that I am so glad that I purchased} and a Netbook.
Pros
Choice of colors. Will PC makers ever learn from Apple, that people like some style in their PC.
Matte screen finish allows use outdoors in daylight.
Great for surfing the web and checking e-mail
SD slot so it is easy to upload pictures and video.
Long Battery life
Cons
Customer Support is a laugh. I went to the website to troubleshoot some issues. I checked the FAQ’s there was one question posted–that was the entire FAQ for this item. I want to upgrade to the 2GB memory. Nowhere on the site does it tell me exactly what memory I should buy or how to install it.
I connected an external DVD drive, installed the software tried to play a DVD with WinDVD software included with the DVD drive. Got message that the DVD was not the right region to play on the computer. Computer was set to US and DVD was US DVD. Tried playing it in Windows Media Player got a message that Codec was not present to play. I went out on web found a lot of folks with the same problem. Some said that Windows 7 was not able to play DVD’s and you had to upgrade to the premium Windows 7. I kept searching and found someone who gave a link to some freeware that had worked for some folks but not for all. Thankfully after I downloaded and ran the program, I was able to play the DVD in both programs. [...]
I Tried to play a video in iTunes. The screen kept freezing and sound was intermittent.I Have not found much of a fix for that–reducing the screen resolution improved problem to where it was more or less watcheable. This seems to be a Windows 7 issue across the board with Netbooks–not just this one. One site suggested watching the video in Quicktime instead of on iTunes but I did not see any improvement. Very disappointing. I did not want to have to travel with an external DVD drive.
If a little tiny iPod can play movies, why can’t a Netbook?
Extremely Satisfied
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
After owning this netbook for about 3 weeks, I can safely say I am very happy with it.
PROS:
- Matte display and case.
- Cool on/off webcam switch.
- Perfect ergonomic keyboard.
- Mouse button requires perfect amount of pressure to click.
- Great battery life.
- RAM EASILY ACCESSIBLE THROUGH 1-SCREW SLOT ON BOTTOM OF NETBOOK!
CONS:
- Glossy texture, instead of matte, around the screen and between keys can be a fingerprint magnet. Not sure why they made that design choice.
- I am used to my Core i7 desktop with 6 gigs of RAM, so of course it seems a little slow to me.
I didn’t really have any complaints about Windows 7 Starter; the only annoyance is that you can’t change the background image. I upgraded to 2 gigs of RAM and noticed a major difference in the boot-up time. Be careful which type of RAM you choose as they will not all work. Crucial’s memory advisor pointed me in the right direction.
Asus includes some bloatware that can easily be uninstalled. If you really want to pay for the upgrade to Win7 Pro, I would recommend using the Windows Anytime Upgrade program. It’s quick and keeps all your programs/drivers intact using the same procedures as Windows Update.
For some reason the hard drive comes partitioned into the Win7 boot drive and a 100+ gig backup drive. What I did was delete the backup partition and expand the Windows 7 partition to include all of the hard drive space. Then, I installed Jolicloud next to Win7 at 125 gigs each. Now, at start up, I can choose to load either Win7 or Jolicloud!
I hope that helps!
Perfect Netbook. Fast, Just right Size, Quiet, Cool.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I am planning some trips for next summer including Vegas. I was looking for a small netbook which still is fast in which I can upload pix and check accounts and such.
I bought this thinking I would give it a try, and return it if I wasn’t happy with the speed. I must say, I was very supprized. Even with just 1gig memory, it still has some kick to it. I do however still plan on upgrading to 2gig, but out of the box, I was very happy with it.
It is a perfect size, fast, very solid machine. The only thing I hated right out of the box was Windows 7 Starter. It is very limited as to what you can do. My biggest gripe about Windows 7 Starter is you can’t even change your desktop background. It only has a blue Windows logo. Such a simple and stupid thing not to allow us to change. I did however upgrade to Windows 7 Professional. I did this using the Windows Anytime Upgrade. It was simple and fast.
So, now that my Asus netbook as Windows 7 Professional, I tried to adjust all options to push it to the limits. I activated transparency with all windows and the taskbar, adjusted the color, power settings, everything. It ran flawlessly. I was very supprized. Windows transparency noticably slows down particular laptops. This netbook ran it smooth and accurate.
Also I was amazed with the battery life. When I first put the battery onto the netbook out of the box, it seemed a little on the heavy side, but still lighter than your adverage laptop. They say this netbook will last up to 13 hours. I believe it. I even adjusted the power settings to preformance and I brightened the screen settings and it still lasted for a very long time. Now I used it basicly for surfing. So someone else watching a Netflix instant watch movie may use more juice than I did. Still, for it’s size, battery life lasts a long while.
The sound is decent, about what you would expect from a laptop/netbook. The screen is LED lit and looks beautiful. Very sharp bright colors. Battery life is saved using LED lighting.
PROS:
~Fast
~Super quiet
~Perfect size
~Stays very cool, even after hours of use.
CONS:
~Windows 7 Starter is not very user friendly. Those of us used to Windows 7 Home or Professional will get frustrated easily and you’ll want to update to a regular Windows 7 OS. But that is how Microsoft makes their money.
~I hate using laptop/netbook touch pads instead of a mouse. This one is nice and responsive, but still I prefer an actual mouse. But this will work on the go.
Of all the available netbooks out there, I think this is one of the best. I have looked around, tested some out, and this one by far is the fastest and most smooth running one I have had the chance to try. The price is a little higher than some of your more basic ones. However if you have tested those out and were disapointed with speed, this netbook is well worth the extra money.
May be a decent computer, but service is poor.
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
A couple of months ago, I received the precursor to this netbook, and was fairly impressed with it. What happened to me is important for potential buyers of the current item, as well. Bear with me, as any potential purchaser should be aware of what may happen should there be any defect in the ASUS item they receive.
At the beginning of my review, let me recommend the review by “Turtle James,” which is currently the top review for ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005PE-PU27-BK 10.1-Inch Black Netbook (Up to 14 Hours of Battery Life). He includes much helpful information about the setup of this netbook, and I find his information to be quite flawless, though I’m not sure it is necessary to combine the partitions of the hard drive. The computer itself seemed to run well, and was not nearly as slow as some people make it out to be, but it is with regret that I must tell the tale of the defective charger, which turned the computer into an expensive paperweight.
I followed the instructions in the manual (which matches Turtle James’s review well) regarding the charging of the netbook, and I think I would have discovered a quite long battery life as a result, if I would have kept it long enough to evaluate that part. However, I encountered a problem with a small defect that made the netbook unusable.
The charger, the AC adapter that plugs into the power outlet was unusual from the beginning. After the first charge, I noticed that the blue light that lights up on the charger would stay lit for a while after unplugging from any power source. Not having any experience with this particular adapter before, I was not sure if that was normal, and in fact am still not sure.
After going through two cycles of charging and depleting the battery, as instructed, I attempted to charge the netbook for the third time, and behold, the charger did not work at all. When this happens, one cannot charge the netbook, and therefore cannot use it until one obtains a new charger. Buying a new charger after only two charges is in my opinion ridiculous, and to be avoided on principle.
So, I set about to rectify the situation, first calling the manufacturer, ASUS (pronounced ay-soos’ by the service personnel). After messing about for some time trying different things with the technician, it became apparent that the charger must be defective. They said I could begin the process for an RMA, if I like, and I did like that idea, until I got further into the details.
It came as a surprise to me that ASUS would require me to send the defective part back to them first, upon receipt of which, they would begin the process to send me a new part that functioned correctly. I was informed that the RMA process at that point would take 10 – 14 business days. I asked what shipping method would be used to send the new part to me, and was informed it would be Fed-Ex…Ground.
The entire process, therefore, would take about a month to get what was rightfully mine in the first place for having purchased the device, after which I would not be able to return the device.
So, I chose to return the device to Amazon instead, because I learned the valuable lesson of what it is like to deal with the ASUS service department. I cannot thank ASUS enough for clarifying to me what type of company I was dealing with when purchasing their magnificent piece of . . . gadgetry.
I also made the mistake of ordering RAM and a case for the netbook at the same time, accessories I had no further need of, so I returned those as well. Amazon, being a company with integrity, refunded the entire amount. This has also been a valuable lesson on the folly of purchasing accessories before being certain the main product is stable.
A natural evolution for an excellent line of netbooks
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is a gorgeous netbook and it’s a fine successor to the 1005 line. Since this bears so much in common with the past 1005 series Eee PCs I’m just going to list the positives and negatives since they are talked about at length elsewhere.
Pros
Chassis
The netbook looks great, it’s definitely something you can carry around proudly and the matte lid is really easy to clean and keep in good condition.
Keyboard
The chicklet keyboard is solid and it’s large enough for touch typers to be right at home (The only negatives are the small right shift key and the cramped arrow keys)
Speed
This is at the upper end of netbook performance. It can handle multitasking and doesn’t see any significant slowdowns in day to day use. This can’t match up to netbooks that are packing dedicated graphics cards, but it is snappier than the N450 toting 1005s.
Battery Life
I haven’t throughly tested this, but the battery got close to 8 hours off a full charge and normal use, with some adjustments to the power settings it should be able to reach 9/10 hours of runtime while still being useful for work. This blows away much of the competition.
Cons
Bloatware
This thing comes packed with a ridiculous amount of software that you’ll want to uninstall and disable from the startup list. It’s a pain and you’d think Asus would know better than to load a Netbook with so much useless software (Including a video screensaver advertising the netbook you’ve just purchased).
Windows 7 Starter
Windows XP or Ubuntu would’ve been more feature rich and cheaper. W7 Home is a bit resource intensive for a 1GB ram Netbook, but W7 Starter is a pointlessly gimped OS (You can’t even change the wallpaper) and there should be an option to save some cash and buy this netbook with a more capable OS.
Touchpad
It’s just not great, it’s short vertically which makes it a bit more difficult to maneuver the OS, and it’s flush with the rest of the chassis, making it really easy to accidentally put an extra finger on a corner which prevent navigation
Overall
It’s a great Netbook, the main cons can be fixed within a few hours of unboxing it and apart from the slightly annoying touchpad it’s easily among the best netbooks available now.
Fantastic Netbook except the Touchpad
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I was looking to buy a netbook for my upcoming travels as I did not want to bring my 14″ laptop as well as planning on doing some writing outdoors.
After doing quite some research and reading, I narrowed down to Acer Aspire One AO533 and Asus Eee PC 1015PED (there are so many models within Asus that could get quite confusing.) Finding a Youtube video of over 500K+ views on how to install the 2GB memory on an Acer definitely discouraged me as how easy one might break a wire, in addition to automatically void the warranty as soon as you open up the case.
I am aware of those who have issues with Asus customer service as well as buying a lemon. But the usability and the really long battery power really made me decide to take a chance / leap of faith.
The matte shell and screen make the machine a perfect companion on the road, especially when using it outdoors. There are a lot fewer fingerprints and a lot less glare which are more suiting for the eyes.
The machine boots up very quickly and has a very bright screen. I was initially a bit worried about the chiclet keys, whether there might be too much space among the keys but it turned out the space was minimal and works well for me. The location of the special keys is similar to my SONY VAIO so it did not take much time for me to get adjusted to the smaller keyboard.
After successfully installing the final part of pre-installed Windows 7 Starter and confirming the machine was working correctly (took about 10 to 15 minutes), I went ahead and downloaded all the drivers from Asus Download site, including the latest BIOS as I would be reformatting the drive and installing Windows 7 Professional. At the time the direct BIOS upgrade from the internet did not work but downloading and installing the file did. Also note that the drivers are not always sorted by the version and you have to look at each one carefully to download the latest version.
The machine runs quite well even with just 1GB memory except with the more frequent hard drive access.
I then upgraded the memory to 2GB with Crucial DDR3 1333. Crucial Memory Advisor tool will guide you to the right memory and I like how the company guarantees the compatibility. I had tried a few others (Super Talent and Hynix) and my machine either would not recognize and boot up, would not boot up after restarting the machine, or I had to wait for a few minutes after shutdown before being able to reboot. The Amazon’s “Frequently Bought Together” incorrectly picked DDR2 memory as part of the package. It should have been DDR3 instead. There is a separate door just for the memory so the upgrade was a breeze and you just have to make sure you push the memory all the way into the slot (seating.) To confirm I also hit F2 when starting the machine to validate it is loaded with 2GB memory. The additional memory did not dramatically increase the performance though it definitely significantly decreases the usage of the hard drive.
While the machine works overall very well to my needs (internet and a few MS apps), I did find the touch pad to be overly sensitive. I downloaded and installed the latest ELAN and Synaptics TouchPad drivers and was then able to change the Palm Tracking Setting to less sensitive. The large smooth touch pad that causes the accidental and easily palm over makes the touchpad almost useless unless you have the netbook way sitting below your palm when typing.
Battery wise it’s about 7 to around 10 hours of normal usage (surfing, documents, installing and running software, etc.) which is extremely good. Though I did find the machine was getting quite warm after about 5 hours of usage and when charging the battery. The battery charger also gets quite hot after a few hours of charging. The battery meter is somewhat accurate on the overall percentage but does fluctuate every few minutes or and can easily go up and down +/- 10 to 20 minutes.
The following were the steps I took to install Windows 7 Professional that should work in general:
1) Use a 4GB USB drive (any drive that has 3GB or more), format it through Windows Explorer with NTFS
2) Download and install MBRWizard. Open up command prompt and type: mbrwiz /list
3) Find the Disk number that belongs to the USB drive (usually 1 or higher as 0 is most likely your system / primary drive. Run the command: mbrwiz /disk=1 /active=1
In this case 1 is the USB drive. Type “Y” to confirm. Run this command again to confirm the drive is active: mbrwiz /list
4) Run the following command to set the USB drive to be bootable:
e:bootbootsect /nt60 D:
E: being the Windows 7 CD drive and D: being the USB drive
5) Copy all Windows 7 Professional files to the USB drive.
6) Copy all contents from the current netbook C: drive to the USB drive as a backup.
7) Download all drivers from Asus Download site to the USB drive. Also download anti-virus / firewall software such as AVG and ZoneAlarm to the USB drive.
9) Follow the Windows formatting and installing. Make sure you unplug the USB drive when Windows restarts after completing the installation and hit F2 to change the BIOS setting back to using C: as the first hard drive.
10) Install all the drivers especially the screen resolution, ELAN and Synaptics touch pad devices, latest BIOS, firewall and anti-virus programs.
11) Install the LAN driver and you should be good to go.
Very happy!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I chose this netbook primarily because of its weight (2.8 lbs without charger), power (speedy!), battery life (over 13 hours), SD card slot, built-in Webcam and ability to use 500GB of Asus’ WebStorage. We plan to use this on an upcoming trip, uploading pictures along the way . . . and I think it will be great!
After charging it for 8+ hours, I watched it run through its set-up and was thrilled when there was no noticeable noise from the unit. (See previous review.) Also, the 1015-PED was able to access our home wireless network without a hitch. I then took it to the local library to see how it did and again, there was no problem with access or response time. Only when I tried to its “Express Gate” (essentially a Windows bypass meant to boot up frequently used apps very quickly without starting the Windows 7 OS) did I notice that I could not access the internet. It seems it was looking for a LAN instead of my home network — so I need to check that function out more. I rebooted with Windows using the top right power button, turned the LAN off and it found my network again.
I really like the keyboard, the variety of function keys, the large touch pad and the ability to scroll up or down using two fingers (a la Macs). The screen has great color and is easy to see inside and out. Frankly, I think the response time beats my 4-year old MacBook Pro on my home Linksys Wireless-N Router. I have not installed the second GB of DDR3 RAM — but I think I’ll wait until I see a successful review on that one.
All in all, I think this is a terrific little netbook and am thrilled with the purchase!
Disappointed
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
I bought this netbook in anticipation of an upcoming 3 week trip to Europe, as I needed a light, easy-to-carry computer with good battery life for my travels. I knew that going with a netbook, I would have to make some sacrifices in screen real estate and performance, but I was assuming I would get a computer that actually works well for everyday tasks. Sadly, this particular one did not…
First the pros:
* Size: The unit is quite compact and light. It is very easy to carry around and feels good in the hand. I think this would have been an excellent traveling computer.
* Screen: The screen is very nice… and it is a matte screen! Matte screens are excellent for airplanes and outdoor use, and the matte screen on this unit had nice black levels and a bright, crisp display. The color reproduction seemed a bit off and viewing angles weren’t great, but it is good for the price.
* Keyboard: I really like the keyboard. I don’t use the right shift key very often, so the smaller size of this key doesn’t bother me. The keyboard is very easy to type on with an excellent feel. The keyboard is definitely one of the best features of this model.
The cons:
* The left speaker is defective: The first thing I noticed when I initially began using this Eee PC was how loud the unit appeared to be. It seemed to have an irritating fan-type noise coming from the left side. I tried to ignore it, but the sound is really loud (louder by far than the CPU fan at its highest setting), and it becomes intolerable with any prolonged use of the PC. I was then looking at the bottom of the unit and saw the outline of the left speaker beneath a vent grille — that was the exact source of the sound. After disabling the speakers in Device Manager, the sound went away instantly. I then deleted and reinstalled the audio drivers from the Asus website, and the sound returned. As a last resort, I tried drivers from Realtek’s site — same thing. Given that only one speaker has the noise, I believe the left speaker has a hardware defect. Interestingly, audio comes out from the left speaker okay, but the noise is surprisingly intolerable. This problem alone was more than enough to sour me on this model…
* A host of network issues: For some reason, the Eee PC did not want to connect to my home network. I have a Belkin Router using WPA2-PSK security, and it took an hour to get the Eee PC to connect to the router and successfully obtain an IP address. Three other computers in the house as well as my phone had no issues whatsoever. After the nightmare of getting the PC connected, I’ve noticed that it has somewhat poor reception. While my Dell Studio XPS 16 will get 4 bars in the kitchen (2 rooms away from the router), the Eee PC will get 1 or 2. The connection then drops frequently, which leads to many issues with downloading files. The most frustrating issue, however, is that the Wifi connection will occasionally (and inexplicably) become limited to 0.3 Mbps with long latencies (>400 ms). I confirmed this finding with multiple runs of online speedtests. Resetting the wireless connection does not work. Shutting off the wireless adapter and then restarting it does not work. Only if I completely shut down and reboot the computer will this problem temporarily go away.
* Was unable to upgrade memory: The final straw for me was that I was trying to upgrade the memory to 2GB yesterday, and after the new 2GB module was installed, the unit would not boot. I thought the memory was not seated properly, so I tried multiple additional times, and I was unsuccessful. I also checked the BIOS settings to be sure I successfully disabled the Boot Booster (and I had). The computer would not even post to BIOS after the new memory was inserted! Reinstalling the old unit restored functionality, so I concluded that the memory module was likely defective. The 2Gb module is now on its was back to Amazon, and a new one is en route. After all the other problems I’ve been having with this Eee PC, however, I no longer know if I think the memory is defective.
Conclusion: My particular unit is clearly defective to some degree, and so anyone reading this review should consider that these problems may not exist in other PCs. I gave the 1015PED 2 stars because the problems I’ve had have been very frustrating and time consuming, and I am no longer interested in owning this computer. The left speaker is definitely defective, but I don’t know if the network issues are due to my defective PC or to poor component selection or driver design. I may have received a faulty memory module, so I don’t know what the problem is with the memory either.
If you are considering this unit, I advise you to be wary. Maybe because the unit is so new, all of the kinks may not yet be worked out, but I, for one, will not be taking another chance on this model…
very bad experience! very slow, and finally it crashed on its 3rd day!
Rating:1 out of 5 stars
I got my white 1015PED last friday. I was so happy since it was a super cute netbook. But the nightmare began at the moment I initiated it.
1. after booting up, I entered my password to entering my account. However it showed a black screen for over 15mins.
at first I was thinking it was common, but after over 15 mins, I lost my patience and restarted it. alright, now, things seemed fine.
2.I downloaded firefox, adobe flash and open office. I was so happy that I can use it now. Then I opened firefox. I waited almost one minute to see the firefox frame coming out (don’t mention the contents). I was thinking this just because it is a netbook. can’t be so fast.
3. yesterday (Sunday night), I found its default anti-virus software was always updating. So I uninstalled it. after that, everything seemed working well. However this morning, It crashed!!! Asking me to reboot it up!! And I have stored so many pictures in it!!! HOLY!
I am going to return it~
Works great but some design flaws
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I just bought this computer after reading many many online reviews. It was chosen for long battery life, under $400 and a fast processor. I intend to use this for international travel. I am happy with my purchase and have installed full version of Microsoft Office Professional with no problems. Not sure about this Windows 7 Starter for Netbooks, but will give it a go for awhile. I have not used the online storage but really appreciate the included 500GB online storage. As my first Netbook I have to say that it is so small and light, yet I can type with no problems. The smaller shift key on the right side is a little bit frustrating, but not a deal breaker. I am not sure why people complain about the touchpad, just buy a mouse, which I will. I noticed that when I first turned it on and off it had to updated each time, which was annoying. This went away after like 5 reboots, so don’t worry about that. There is an included SD card slot on the side and I missed it in the specs before I bought it and was happily surprised.
Now for some cons:
1) My other laptop can open almost all the way and this one only opens to about 120 degrees. For someone taller then me seeing it properly while its in their lap requires the screen to open almost all the way to 180 degrees.
2) My other main con is while on the internet the tool bars from the internet browser take up almost a third of the screen. I removed as many as I could but still had to zoom out of the window several times to see a whole page. The zoom in and out using the touchpad has not worked for me while web browsing.
I am overall very satisfied with this Netbook and my only complaint is that ALL Netbooks under $400 now come with Windows 7 Starter and the screens don’t open more.
lots of stuff in a small package
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I bought this for a project at work and took it home to evaluate it. I really didn’t think I would like it, but I was surprised. Put in another gig of ram and this is idea for sitting on the couch surfing the infomerials or getting your email. Great battery life.
Not something I would use for hours of programming, but idea for the living room when you need a quick google.
We will be buying more for the staff.
Netbook is OK, but memory upgrade is a hassle
Rating:2 out of 5 stars
The Netbook itself is OK. Pretty much what I expected for a cheap small computer.
I’m only giving this netbook, as purchased on Amazon, 2 stars because the memory upgrade is such a pain. After ordering 2 different modules I still don’t have the right one. I spent much longer on this than I should have. The Asus support site is not helpful at all. I would not recommend this netbook to anyone until the correct memory is described accurately, and available for sale.
Excellent Netbook
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have used this netbook for a couple of days and it has being excellent. The support is not as good as we desire but is a very good netbook. Some person has had problem upgrading the memory. You should buy the correct memory for it. I bought in Amazon a crucial 2GB 204-PIN SODIMM DDR3 PC3-10600 ? CL=9 ? UNBUFFERED ? NON-ECC ? DDR3-1333 ? 1.5V ? 256MEG X 64 ? and it work excellent for me..I recommend this netbook because it has 250 GB of disk and you can upgrade the memory to 2 gb, in adition to others characteristics.
It’s ok
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
It’s ok for surfing but if u want to load it up with programs as microsoft office and photoshop you are going to run slow. Other than that its fine for internet traffic.
Overall Good.. One nagging issue however.
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
Ok, here’s the deal. When typing on this beast, I often hit the space bar. The space bar is right next to the top of the mouse tracking zone. If you even glance it, your cursor will end up where your mouse is pointed. This is really anoying when trying to type anything. I’m not sure how Asus could get around this with the form factor … Maybe a quick lock button for the track pad? Hmmmm.
Amazing Little Netbook
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Bought this netbook awhile ago for class (college) and I love every moment I’ve spent with it.
PROS:
-Battery Life,I get about 10 hours which is phenomenal…no other netbook has been closer to Asus’ EEE battery life thanks to the Super Hybrid Engine.(I mainly use it for surfing web while typing text documents @ 87% right now, its reading 9 hours and 45 minutes.)
-Charging Speed, it takes only 2 hours or a little more to fully charge this netbook. That’s quick in return for 10 hours of battery life!
-Keyboard, though smaller than standard desktops and laptops, is still pretty large in general. If you’re a very skilled typist this keyboard will have no problems for you. (I’m typing this review at full speed on this netbook.) While the SHIFT key to the right is smaller, it’s not a very significant problem for me because I always use the left SHIFT key regardless of the keyboard.
-Performance, though its specifications aren’t anything to get excited about, for ordinary usage, it’s surprisingly fast. Even on 1GB Ram. You should understand that netbooks are not laptop replacements. And it also means you should use lighter, less resource hogging softwares.
-Matte Screen, prevents glare indoors and outdoors. Most computers still have glossy screens that are practically mirrors, but this netbook doesn’t. It saves you from annoying glare and reflections.
-Matte Shell still attracts grease but fingerprints are hardly seen. A significant improvement to previous EEE netbooks.
-Touchpad, is a significant improvement from the old dotted grid that Asus used in previous models. Its sensitivity can be customized to your liking so for me, it’s just as good as any other laptop’s touchpad. The right/left click buttons aren’t too stiff so it’s just right.
-Speakers are surprisingly loud and audio quality is decent.
-Webcam shutter is not really necessary but it’s a nice thing to have. If you’re webcamming someone and want to do something really quickly but privately (like fixing a wedgie or changing) you can just slip the shutter over to “off” and then shift it back over to “on” when you’re done. No need to physically log off or turn off your webcam.
CONS:
-Windows 7 Starter has its limitations, but that can be changed with the provided “Windows Anytime Upgrade” which upgrades your Windows quickly.
-Webcam is only 0.3 megapixels. That’s not very clear, but you shouldn’t be constantly webcamming on a netbook anyway.
-Comes with unnecessary stickers boasting about it’s battery life and other specs, but you can take them off if you’d like to.
-There’s a bunch of secondary shortcuts (fn+F1,2,3…etc.). They’re handy to have, but they’re not really explained…even in the manual. But you can figure them out rather quickly after the first or second use.
So overall if you need to surf the web on the go and type up documents or even for social networking (email, IM, Skype/Oovoo, etc.) this netbook does the work quickly and perfectly.It’s battery life is alone, a reason to choose this netbook over all the others on the market. Asus has perfected the art of netbooks and incorporated it into the EEE 1015ped-p.
only bad thing is win7 starter
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I love this little netbook , its by far the lightest laptop i have owned and the battery life is great , if you turn down the led backlight(which is still very bright) then you can get the 12+ hours advertised , you can get more but that would require you to turn off everything your not using. The only drawback to this laptop is windows 7 starter , it works but its not the best, but if your a student you can upgrade to pro for only 30$ which i did and its great deal.
i would, and have recommended this netbook to friends, and i dont really see a need for the extra gig of RAM , i can easily run mediaplayer, chrome , photoshop, and visualstudio 2010 all at the same time without any lag.
Great unit, but…
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
Just received my ASUS Eee PC 1015PED and am doing fairly well with it. I removed most of the bloatware installed by ASUS, tuned Windows 7 and performance is “ok” with the standard 1GB of RAM.
This is a great little netbook, but as with all Intel Atom based machines (running Windows,) it REALLY needs 2GB of RAM! And that’s where my problem lies. According to Amazon, ASUS and [...] (and others) the unit accepts SODIMM, DDR3 PC-3 8500 memory modules. However, I’ve found none that actually work!? Those listed in Amazon’s “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” are incorrect and apparently [...] has incorrect data on the unit because what they supplied is incompatible as well.
In summary, I feel this is an outstanding product and assuming I can upgrade the memory — SOMEHOW — I’d give it a glowing review. That said however, if the unit cannot truly accept 2GB of RAM as advertised, it’s virtually useless to me. I SO hope that is not the case!!!
Great netbook with long battery life and a matte screen
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Before I go into the details, let me just say this is a great little netbook. I am very happy with the purchase. So here we go…
First, this netbook DOES NOT have USB 3.0. Asus has done a great job of confusing everyone about this. Some early reports indicated it would have USB 3.0. The Asus website says, “Availability is dependent on selected model, country or operator support. Check with your local ASUS website for more details.” Say what?!? And to top it off, the Asus support site has a USB 3.0 driver. Well, USB 3.0 ports are blue and the 1015PED I purchased does not have any blue ports. When I load the USB 3.0 driver, it says “No USB 3.0 chip found”. I would love to be wrong about this but I don’t think I am.
Next, there is an option to backup the recovery information to a USB stick when you hit F9 at boot. WARNING: Restoring the backup from the USB stick DOES NOT create a true factory hard drive image. It DOES NOT restore the recovery partition or Express Gate! If you restore from the USB stick, you lose the recovery partition for good! You can no longer hit F9 and restore from the hard drive and the Express Gate button will not work. You will only be able to restore from the USB stick and it will create one big partition with Windows 7 Starter and all the wonderful bloatware. Also, the manual says you need a USB stick greater than 16GB. False… The backup only takes 10GB.
I needed to run some legacy apps so I dumped Windows 7 Starter and loaded Windows XP Pro. Although I download most of my drivers directly from the chip manufacturers, I still have to give Asus credit for putting all XP drivers on their support site! Well, almost all the drivers… As of this writing, there’s no BlueTooth driver. However, I discovered the Dell DW375 BlueTooth module driver will work fine. (Broadcom doesn’t make their Widcomm BlueTooth drivers available to end users. Lame…)
So, have you ever loaded XP from a USB stick??? 1) Write zeros to the 1015PED HD with WDC DLG. 2) Create a bootable BartPE USB stick and don’t forget the AHCI drivers or the ramdisk from Windows Server 2003 SP1. 3) Slipstream the AHCI drivers into XP SP3 using nLite and copy the i386 directory to the BartPE USB stick. 4) Partition the HD using diskpart and format with A43. 5) Install XP, load the drivers and updates and you’re done. Congratulations! You now have a masters degree in computer science!!!
Now for some pros/cons/etc.
Battery life – Wow! It’s kind of impossible to say how many hours it will last for you because people will use this machine differently. That said, I’m very impressed with the battery life for my application. It doesn’t come close to 13 hours but I didn’t expect it to. The application I’m running is continuously CPU and graphic intensive.
The matte screen – Very nice. I specifically wanted a matte screen because I plan to use it outside quite a bit. The screen is still washed out in sunlight but it’s much better than a glossy screen which you can barely see at all.
Speed – Not sure. It’s hard for me to compare the performance to other netbooks. Obviously, a clean copy of XP blows away the bloated version of Windows 7 Starter that it came with. I would guess all Atom netbooks are fairly close. For what it’s worth, I’m happy with the performance.
Touch pad – It’s great! It’s large and the touch pad software supports quite a few gestures that make it easy to navigate.
Keyboard – Ummm… I’m ultra picky on my keyboards. I like keyboards with concave, textured keys with a long travel and weak finger pressure compensation. Needless to say, I hate this keyboard. However, I don’t hate it anymore than any other netbook I’ve used.
No LED for caps lock! Yet we have TWO power LEDs?!? Asus uses a program called CapsHook to alert you when the caps lock key is pressed. Just what we need… another program to take up memory and CPU on a resource limited netbook.
Video performance – Weak by design. YouTube 480 full screen at best. Forget about 720. But this netbook wasn’t designed for video. You already knew that, right?
As someone else mentioned, the outside of the case is matte and the inside is shiny. Asus should have stayed with the matte theme throughout.
I actually like some of the function (Fn) buttons Asus puts on the keyboard. In particular, they have one for Task Manager and one to cut the LCD backlight.
All the stickers where you rest your palms came off fairly easy with no residual residue. The Atom and Windows 7 stickers put up a fight but they eventually came off.
So yes… I got what I wanted: A netbook with long battery life and a matte screen with decent performance. If this is what you’re looking for, I highly recommend the Asus 1015PED.
barely passing
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
just bought this red ASUS Eee 1015PED-PU17(-RD).
BLUF:
goods – so far unbeatable battery life, good size and light weight, blutooth ready
bads – horrible speaker (cannot overcome with earphone), awkward keyboard positions (prone to typos), poor at picking up weak wifi signals….
detail:
i bought it for travel purpose and not been happy carrying larger laptop (recently been using HP and macpro 15″) due to carrying weight.
much happier about this little guys weight and size. i’m also nicely surprized about battery life. most of times reviews focus so much on technical aspects that combined use (heavy video playing>> web surf, and word processing) dont typically give practical info on “true” battery life. however i’m totally happy about battery life which i havent gone <50% battery life on typical 6 hours of heavy use.
i’m disappointed about audio problem. i read previous review about poor audio but i thought i could overcome by using earphone like my other laptops but i couldnt (even adjusting audio control to various recommended environment without a hope). just cant get loud enough. so bad enough for me to consider not buying ASUS again since i would have to carry an additional amplified speakers so that i can hear the media.
i would imagine keyboard issue is similar to using other netbooks – i’m keeping missing the shift key on right side and pushing arrow keys due to their proximity.
also i often work in areas with weak signals and often i would have hard time picking up signals when other laptops have lesser of an issue. since other netbook brands are not having similar problem (or lesser maybe), i think it’s ASUS issue just like audio.
Excellent netbook. Meets all expectations!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Much has been said in many great reviews on this product so I will try to limit my remarks to my own experiences that may differ from the others.
I’ll just say that I love this computer! Small, lightweight, fast, looks great, does the job.
I am running Microsoft Office Pro 2010 without a glitch. Works great.
I am also running Firefox 3.6. Fast. Streams video with only an occasional hiccup, but I even get that with my main computer at home. Otherwise, video streaming is smooth. Same with streaming Netflix movies.
Was going to upgrade the memory to 2GB, but because 1) Amazon’s suggested memory upgrade was the wrong one (I returned it) and 2) because the netbook is already very speedy, I don’t need it.
This thing boots up in 26 seconds from hibernate! That’s 26 seconds from pressing the button to seeing my desktop and it ready to go.
I use bought this for its Bluetooth and I love using the Microsoft Mobile BT Keyboard. Check it out.
I find the keyboard to be surprisingly good for effective typing, but I do love the MS BT Mobile Keyboard as it is near full-sized, skinny and light. It’s great for when that tabletop is a little high and I have this portable keyboard on my lap just tying away.
Screen is wonderful. Construction is good. I really like the white color.
Who needs an iPad? I’m a happy iPod touch 3G owner, but a netbook really beats out an iPad. iPads are cool, but for work and real computing, a good netbook beats it hands down. And it’s cheaper, too!
Battery life–amazing! Surfing the net, running Office Pro 2010 32 bit…I’m getting a minimum of 11 hours on this. I may be actually getting in the high 12′s!
I’m buying one for my son who is in college. YOU SHOULD GET ONE, TOO!
Good for surfing web but video playback customer support poor
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I am going to Europe in a few weeks and thought a Netbook would be great to take along to conect to Internet and watch videos on planes and trains. I have to admit that I am somewhat disappointed in this product. I had hoped for more. I had thought about buying a iPad but decided instead to get a Kindle (a truly awesome device that I am so glad that I purchased} and a Netbook.
Pros
Choice of colors. Will PC makers ever learn from Apple, that people like some style in their PC.
Matte screen finish allows use outdoors in daylight.
Great for surfing the web and checking e-mail
SD slot so it is easy to upload pictures and video.
Long Battery life
Cons
Customer Support is a laugh. I went to the website to troubleshoot some issues. I checked the FAQ’s there was one question posted–that was the entire FAQ for this item. I want to upgrade to the 2GB memory. Nowhere on the site does it tell me exactly what memory I should buy or how to install it.
I connected an external DVD drive, installed the software tried to play a DVD with WinDVD software included with the DVD drive. Got message that the DVD was not the right region to play on the computer. Computer was set to US and DVD was US DVD. Tried playing it in Windows Media Player got a message that Codec was not present to play. I went out on web found a lot of folks with the same problem. Some said that Windows 7 was not able to play DVD’s and you had to upgrade to the premium Windows 7. I kept searching and found someone who gave a link to some freeware that had worked for some folks but not for all. Thankfully after I downloaded and ran the program, I was able to play the DVD in both programs. [...]
I Tried to play a video in iTunes. The screen kept freezing and sound was intermittent.I Have not found much of a fix for that–reducing the screen resolution improved problem to where it was more or less watcheable. This seems to be a Windows 7 issue across the board with Netbooks–not just this one. One site suggested watching the video in Quicktime instead of on iTunes but I did not see any improvement. Very disappointing. I did not want to have to travel with an external DVD drive.
If a little tiny iPod can play movies, why can’t a Netbook?
Extremely Satisfied
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
After owning this netbook for about 3 weeks, I can safely say I am very happy with it.
PROS:
- Matte display and case.
- Cool on/off webcam switch.
- Perfect ergonomic keyboard.
- Mouse button requires perfect amount of pressure to click.
- Great battery life.
- RAM EASILY ACCESSIBLE THROUGH 1-SCREW SLOT ON BOTTOM OF NETBOOK!
CONS:
- Glossy texture, instead of matte, around the screen and between keys can be a fingerprint magnet. Not sure why they made that design choice.
- I am used to my Core i7 desktop with 6 gigs of RAM, so of course it seems a little slow to me.
I didn’t really have any complaints about Windows 7 Starter; the only annoyance is that you can’t change the background image. I upgraded to 2 gigs of RAM and noticed a major difference in the boot-up time. Be careful which type of RAM you choose as they will not all work. Crucial’s memory advisor pointed me in the right direction.
Asus includes some bloatware that can easily be uninstalled. If you really want to pay for the upgrade to Win7 Pro, I would recommend using the Windows Anytime Upgrade program. It’s quick and keeps all your programs/drivers intact using the same procedures as Windows Update.
For some reason the hard drive comes partitioned into the Win7 boot drive and a 100+ gig backup drive. What I did was delete the backup partition and expand the Windows 7 partition to include all of the hard drive space. Then, I installed Jolicloud next to Win7 at 125 gigs each. Now, at start up, I can choose to load either Win7 or Jolicloud!
I hope that helps!
Perfect Netbook. Fast, Just right Size, Quiet, Cool.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I am planning some trips for next summer including Vegas. I was looking for a small netbook which still is fast in which I can upload pix and check accounts and such.
I bought this thinking I would give it a try, and return it if I wasn’t happy with the speed. I must say, I was very supprized. Even with just 1gig memory, it still has some kick to it. I do however still plan on upgrading to 2gig, but out of the box, I was very happy with it.
It is a perfect size, fast, very solid machine. The only thing I hated right out of the box was Windows 7 Starter. It is very limited as to what you can do. My biggest gripe about Windows 7 Starter is you can’t even change your desktop background. It only has a blue Windows logo. Such a simple and stupid thing not to allow us to change. I did however upgrade to Windows 7 Professional. I did this using the Windows Anytime Upgrade. It was simple and fast.
So, now that my Asus netbook as Windows 7 Professional, I tried to adjust all options to push it to the limits. I activated transparency with all windows and the taskbar, adjusted the color, power settings, everything. It ran flawlessly. I was very supprized. Windows transparency noticably slows down particular laptops. This netbook ran it smooth and accurate.
Also I was amazed with the battery life. When I first put the battery onto the netbook out of the box, it seemed a little on the heavy side, but still lighter than your adverage laptop. They say this netbook will last up to 13 hours. I believe it. I even adjusted the power settings to preformance and I brightened the screen settings and it still lasted for a very long time. Now I used it basicly for surfing. So someone else watching a Netflix instant watch movie may use more juice than I did. Still, for it’s size, battery life lasts a long while.
The sound is decent, about what you would expect from a laptop/netbook. The screen is LED lit and looks beautiful. Very sharp bright colors. Battery life is saved using LED lighting.
PROS:
~Fast
~Super quiet
~Perfect size
~Stays very cool, even after hours of use.
CONS:
~Windows 7 Starter is not very user friendly. Those of us used to Windows 7 Home or Professional will get frustrated easily and you’ll want to update to a regular Windows 7 OS. But that is how Microsoft makes their money.
~I hate using laptop/netbook touch pads instead of a mouse. This one is nice and responsive, but still I prefer an actual mouse. But this will work on the go.
Of all the available netbooks out there, I think this is one of the best. I have looked around, tested some out, and this one by far is the fastest and most smooth running one I have had the chance to try. The price is a little higher than some of your more basic ones. However if you have tested those out and were disapointed with speed, this netbook is well worth the extra money.
May be a decent computer, but service is poor.
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
A couple of months ago, I received the precursor to this netbook, and was fairly impressed with it. What happened to me is important for potential buyers of the current item, as well. Bear with me, as any potential purchaser should be aware of what may happen should there be any defect in the ASUS item they receive.
At the beginning of my review, let me recommend the review by “Turtle James,” which is currently the top review for ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005PE-PU27-BK 10.1-Inch Black Netbook (Up to 14 Hours of Battery Life). He includes much helpful information about the setup of this netbook, and I find his information to be quite flawless, though I’m not sure it is necessary to combine the partitions of the hard drive. The computer itself seemed to run well, and was not nearly as slow as some people make it out to be, but it is with regret that I must tell the tale of the defective charger, which turned the computer into an expensive paperweight.
I followed the instructions in the manual (which matches Turtle James’s review well) regarding the charging of the netbook, and I think I would have discovered a quite long battery life as a result, if I would have kept it long enough to evaluate that part. However, I encountered a problem with a small defect that made the netbook unusable.
The charger, the AC adapter that plugs into the power outlet was unusual from the beginning. After the first charge, I noticed that the blue light that lights up on the charger would stay lit for a while after unplugging from any power source. Not having any experience with this particular adapter before, I was not sure if that was normal, and in fact am still not sure.
After going through two cycles of charging and depleting the battery, as instructed, I attempted to charge the netbook for the third time, and behold, the charger did not work at all. When this happens, one cannot charge the netbook, and therefore cannot use it until one obtains a new charger. Buying a new charger after only two charges is in my opinion ridiculous, and to be avoided on principle.
So, I set about to rectify the situation, first calling the manufacturer, ASUS (pronounced ay-soos’ by the service personnel). After messing about for some time trying different things with the technician, it became apparent that the charger must be defective. They said I could begin the process for an RMA, if I like, and I did like that idea, until I got further into the details.
It came as a surprise to me that ASUS would require me to send the defective part back to them first, upon receipt of which, they would begin the process to send me a new part that functioned correctly. I was informed that the RMA process at that point would take 10 – 14 business days. I asked what shipping method would be used to send the new part to me, and was informed it would be Fed-Ex…Ground.
The entire process, therefore, would take about a month to get what was rightfully mine in the first place for having purchased the device, after which I would not be able to return the device.
So, I chose to return the device to Amazon instead, because I learned the valuable lesson of what it is like to deal with the ASUS service department. I cannot thank ASUS enough for clarifying to me what type of company I was dealing with when purchasing their magnificent piece of . . . gadgetry.
I also made the mistake of ordering RAM and a case for the netbook at the same time, accessories I had no further need of, so I returned those as well. Amazon, being a company with integrity, refunded the entire amount. This has also been a valuable lesson on the folly of purchasing accessories before being certain the main product is stable.