Customer Reviews

ASUS Eee PC 1015PED-PU17-BK 10.1-Inch Netbook (Black)

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

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:\boot\bootsect /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.

8) With the USB drive plugged in, reboot machine and hit F2 to get into BIOS setting. In Boot -> Boot Settings. You will now see Boot Device Priority and Hard Disk Drives. Choosing Removable Device as the first boot priority would not work since the USB drive is actually categorized as a hard drive instead. Choose Hard Drive Disks and you will see the USB drive as well as the C: drive. Move the USB drive to the first priority and have the hard drive (C:) as second. Keep the first boot priority as Hard Disk.

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.

This is one great netbook for the world traveler.
I travel all around the world and often in third world countries.
I needed a netbook that was compact and lightweight, inexpensive yet built for real adventure.
This little guy is it.
The battery goes well over 8 hours on a full charge. And I mean full brightness and multiple programs running.

I would recommend upgrading the RAM for the $40 to 2 gb if you are going to be running photo editing software or Google sketch up. Here is a link for the CORRECT RAM (NOTE: the recommended bundle RAM is not the correct one, this one is)
Corsair CM3X2GSD1066 2GB PC3-8500 1066MHz DDR3 204-Pin SO-DIMM Laptop Memory

The dual OS is the handiest part about this netbook.
It comes preloaded with not only the user friendly Windows 7 starter but also has an Asus tuned version of Ubuntu Linux.
From a completely shutdown state, all you have to do is press and hold the button opposite to the power button (on the top) and within literally under 30 seconds you can be surfing the web checking emails.
This will be extremely handy for the fast pace lifestyle of todays international adventure travelers.

The matte black finish is a timeless design and the super compact surge protector in the power cord is great for packing.

Overall No netbook will match the quality, soundness and strong performance of the 1015PED for the same price.

This has been a problem with nearly all ASUS netbooks. yes they are ok products, but their power plug is so thin and I guarantee you it WILL break sooner or later and when that happen to you and you call the warranty be prepared to
1- Wait around 30 days for the product to get fixed
2- Pay around 50 dollars in shipping to California

so you would be paying around a quarter of your product value and waiting a whole month to get it, NO product in the entire industry has a more horrible warranty..Be careful

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.

Between the spacebar and touch pad, the plastic cover was bubbled up. I tried to simply push down but it seemed like there was something under there. I lifted it up and you can see there is a little tab that is suppose to snap into a tiny hole. I had to find something thin enough to fit under the plastic cover and push the tab into place while pushing down to snap it back into place. It was very easy to fix.

I've learned that netbooks are very picky with memory! It took me three tries to finally get memory that worked. I read that this netbook can only accept memory that has 8 memory chips on board vs 16. I purchased the CT25664BC1067 from Crucial and it worked. The Crucial compatibility website also says that particular memory will work. If windows still doesn't boot up try disabling Boot Booster as suggested by the manual. If you still have trouble try updating the BIOS.

I'm very pleased with this netbook except for the memory trouble. I spent a lot of time trying to figure it out.

Just a quick note about installing linux on this machine. Ubuntu netbook works well (the only headache is that you can't turn the wireless on/off without rebooting and playing with the bios). There are a couple of pointers to be aware of when doing this. First, if you want for some reason (i don't see one) to create a windows restore disk then you have to first install windows. Second, the driver for the wireless is in the non-free part of ubuntu which means that you will need a wired internet connection to get started. I installed the standard desktop as well as the netbook interface because I like that better. Some of the earlier versions of netubuntu (easypeasy etc) may not install as easily as the current one.

The latest open office is more compatible with microsoft word that microsoft word, and btw the latest word actually supports open office import - so maybe microsoft is realizing that it is a software company and not just an o/s company.

Unlike the earlier asus netbooks it doesn't come with a carrying sleeve or restore dvd.

I'm glad i chose this netbook over a laptop.
I was looking for a Very portable computer
and i believe i found it.
I Did Upgrade Windows 7 Starter To Premium
and i Do plan on Upgrading the Memory to
2 gig ddr3.
All In All I Am Very Pleased With The
Asus Eee Pc 1015PED-PU17-BK 10.1-inch Netbook

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.

Great bang for the buck! Battery lasts a good 10hours. Good for basic stuff, but a bit laggy for HD videos.

i bought this machine because of the positive reviews. I didnt really need a new netbook but the opportunity presented itself so why not. Overall I like the machine, Ive had it for about a week. But I am troubled but the fact to upgrade the hard drive is a major undertaking. I want to go to the 500 to 750 range and they are cheap so why not. (I hate USB drives so that is not the answer) I contacted customer support at ASUS and there is no upgrade path and they further stated that if the hard drive is changes it would void the warranty. I dont think that I have ever heard of that before about Voiding a warranty with a harddrive change.

So beware if that is importatn to you then you should looke else where. No where in the specs did I see one word about not being able to change to the hardrive if I saw it i would ahve bought another machine.

John