Comments on: What Does 1 Million Thin and Lights from ASUS Say About the Notebook Market?

By: EwanG

EwanG — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:17:43 +0000

I can read articles easily, but that’s partly due to the 10 inch screen (more than the Fujitsu) and the fact that it comes with a driver that supports rotation. So it’s nice when I have an image that’s in “page” format that I can jump to portrait and really fill up the screen.

I’ve seen folks on the forums say that they can use OneNote, though I gather there is some tweaking involved to get the best results. Since I use mine more as a mouse replacement so I can work one-handed (occasionally am on the bus, or wanting to do a little mail when I’m in line), it more than suits my needs.

I got mine through Amazon, who fulfills orders for PCMicroStore who actually ships them. Was just more comfortable knowing Amazon would be involved if there was an issue.

By: SAM

SAM — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 00:14:59 +0000

Ewan, I have seen some articles on this computer.

Can you write on the screen?
Will Onenote or a similar application allow you to handwrite notes?
I read quite few pdf documents, I have to reflow and
zoom on my Fujitsu’s 6″ screen, are you able to read
the articles easily on your Gigabyte?

Also, where did you find this computer? (if you are
in the US)

The high resolution & 5 hours battery life sounds great!

By: EwanG

EwanG — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:55:08 +0000

SAM -
Well my Gigabyte T1028 (yes, I finally bit the bullet and went with that instead of the Asus or Viiv offerings) has a nice 768 pixels tall. That and the touchscreen are what sold me on going ahead with the “netbook” route. Particularly with the approx. 5 hours of battery life I’m getting on the six cell even with most of the power options set to Max Performance.

If you need the active digitizer, you might take a look at the Fujitsu 2020. Not exactly a netbook, but at least reasonably light and compact.

FWIW…

By: SAM

SAM — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:12:43 +0000

I’m curious as to the equivalency of an
Atom vs Pentium 3 chips?

We were able to compute just a few years ago on these
“ancient” chip with Photoshop, Excel, etc

I have a Fujitsu u810 with a 800 mhz Pentium(sorry forgot the type) processor
and it will compute most anything I have thrown at it.

(Rendering video, huge complex photoshop files is for the desktop)

The main objection I have against netbooks, is the short
screen resolution. It seems to be stuck at 600 pixels
tall. Some programs dialog boxes get cutoff and you
can’t see them, or end up scrolling.

Waiting for an active digitizer, high res tablet netbook

By: James Kendrick

James Kendrick — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:54:43 +0000

I usually do leave the heavy tasks at home for one reason- battery life. I don’t carry adapters around during the day and I don’t like my battery sucking down by heavy computational stuff. Just my 2 cents.

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:12:32 +0000

True, you don’t *have* to leave heavy computing tasks for other, more capable devices. It definitely depends on what specifically you’re looking to do, how quickly you want to get it done, etc… Some activities are more effective and efficient on larger, more capable devices, but your point is well taken.

By: EwanG

EwanG — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:46:08 +0000

Not sure I’d say that you have to leave Heavy tasks behind at the office. Just wrote up some tips on how I’ve been optimizing my netbook, and I have to say that there isn’t much that I don’t feel comfortable doing with it now. I know you’ve mentioned you wouldn’t want to depend on one for video editing, and that’s one area I suspect I wouldn’t want to either (though I haven’t tried it, so maybe…). But for almost everything else, I’m hard pressed to say I’d prefer my old Core2Duo notebook or even my Core i7 desktop to what I can do with my netbook.