Customer Reviews

ASUS Eee PC 1015PED-PU17-BU 10.1-Inch Netbook (Blue)

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

 

 

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.

I finally purchased this netbook after contemplating buying the Samsung Galaxy Tab, due out this Fall. For doing real work, on the road or as a second laptop in my living room, this netbook with a RAM upgrade made the most sense. [Edit: I too bought incompatable RAM, even though it was DDR3. A BIOS update fixes it, and you get the latest BIOS for the netbook.]

I am very impressed with the battery life, but even more so with the processing speed and the usability of the 10" screen. I have been running Office 2007 (w/ Outlook) and Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 with only slight customization to get the most out of the 1024x600 real estate. The little beast will even run Ubuntu in VM Ware.

I would have given it 5 stars except for a few things:

1. I am not the best typist (programmer by trade), but I often find myself typing in text and suddenly the cursor will jump back a few words and I'm typing in the middle of the sentence. I'm probably accidently hitting the track pad or something, but it is really slowing me down compared to my full-sized keyboard.

2. There was an annoying clicking sound coming from the hard drive periodically. I called ASUS and they immediatley wanted me to RMA it - even sent a box to me. I did a little research on the internet (Google "quietHDD") and found a solution. ASUS should really just issue a firmware fix for this rather than replace netbooks with another one that will have the same issue. It's not a problem with the hard ware, just the settings. quietHDD sets the correct APM settings on the hard drive to keep it from parking the heads every few seconds.

3. It comes with a lot of bloat ware! After uninstalling most of it, Windows Starter is actually quite responsive. I don't forsee needing to upgrade it.

FOLLOWUP 1: Latest BIOS and hard drive still clicks.

FOLLOWUP 2: Battery dead after 6 months. Had to buy a new one for $80 - ouch.

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.

Nice size, nice features, nice screen, good performance for a netbook, great little PC to carry around home and office.

All mostly good so far ... except ... hard drive clicks fairly loudly every few seconds while PC is sitting alone. It sounds like a failing hard drive to me (right out of the box). Anyone else have this experience?

I also don't see any panels to pull to replace the hard drive.

If the clicking didn't worry me, I would have given 5 stars.


UPDATE:
I found a solution. The clicking is due to hard drive head parking (way too often in my opinion). Get this app to control how often your hard drive parks (and reduce the clicing noise):

[...]

I like this PC now.

It has 2 buttons and I believe 2 different operating systems. When you start the machine using the left most button, a different user interface runs. It is like OS for iphone or any other electronic device. It is fast, and you can surf the net and do some other stuff without starting the windows!!! When you start the net-book using the right most button, the ordinary operating system starts like any computer. The hard disk already divided into 2 parts, which is very convenient.

ASUS tech support was incredibly RUDE!! Although it appeared that English might not be his native language, I could tell that he clearly understood my questions, although he would not give me an answer. He insisted on avoiding my question by trying to redirect me elsewhere. At one point, he was actually LAUGHING at me! One of the motivating factors in purchasing a computer in today's world, is performance of customer service. My first experience with ASUS tech support was the worst ever, and I've owned several other brands of computers---2 Gateways, 1 Dell, 1 Hewlett Packard. If it weren't too late, I would return this pc for a complete refund, simply because I don't want to have to deal with their (customer service???) personnel any further. I believe their advertisement for this particular model is misleading, because it insinuates that the computer has features that are not actually on it! Hence, the avoidance of answering a direct question when I presented my concern to ASUS personnel.

BAD EXPERIENCE!!!

This is a very high rated netbook including the rating by Consumer Reports. I am not impressed at all and even less impressed with ASUS Customer Service. I am now sending this back to ASUS for the 5th time for the same defect, the screen locks up in the boot process on the ASUS screen. I have lost all info on this unit 5 times and pretty much everything inside has been replaced at least once, sometimes more than once. First three times was sent to a vendor in Indiana for repairs. The fourth time directly to ASUS in California as they assurred me they would correctly fix it. Well with all the other fixes, the unit works okay for about 30 days then the same thing happens. I'm out a bunch of money for shipping (yes you have to pay to get it there)and totally frustrated with a gift I purchased for my wife being a piece of junk. Beware if you are considering purchasing this netbook.

IF you can accept that this is not a 'real' laptop, but a very handy, light, long battery life secondary to your 'real' computer, then you will love it. In my case, I added the extra memory (VERY easy, anybody can do it)and installed a full version of Windows7 (the 'Starter' version it comes with is very limited.) With the extras added, it really is a full computer, but of course it isn't the fastest thing in town. If you require performance, this will frustrate you, but if you want portability, ease of use, no need to relearn what you do on your 'real' Windows computer, need long battery life (depending of course, but an all day use is easily possible). Please note, that while I say this isn't the fastest horse in town, it isn't a slug either. Would I buy another? YES.
Oh, after digging into what the heck this particular model is, it has the newer Bluetooth version over the 'm'. As of now, I think this is the top dog in the Asus line. One more thing, I bought the blue model which is very pretty, but it sucks in fingerprints much more than I thought it would.

So far this netbook is working ok. Still debating if I should give up my laptop which runs Vista (I also have a desktop that runs XP and also contains my huge ITunes library). It starts fast, battery life is awesome I think I got more than 8 hours out of it (my laptop only gives me an hour). I have not installed any software as of yet but I did purchase an optical drive and it worked will with the netbook. I'm still using the 1GB memory, I'm not sure if it has anything to do with how slow the web pages change. I do hear the clicking sound that others have mentioned but it's not a nuisance enough to do anything about it. I am using the Microsoft Word 10 Starter and it looks just like Word 7. I don't mind the ads, I'm use to them being even 10 times more obnoxious on the internet. Now that I'm done with college I don't think I'll be using the other bells and whistles Office provides but I still have Office 7 that I can install. As long as have spell check, I'm a happy camper. Sadly, ITunes does behave sluggishly to the point almost freezing up. I do find that the screen flicks occasionally.

They did not make it easy to adjust the most annoying problem that I've come across so far: the sensitive mouse pad but I found a solution. Go to Help in the Start menu and type "Mouse properties". The "Change mouse settings" instructions should come up. Click on the hyperlink "Click to open Mouse Properties" which should have a small green arrow in front of it. I'm going to assume that all the tabs are labeled the same on these netbooks. Click on the "Elan" tab than click the "options" button. You should find on the left hand side of the window all the options you need to change the settings for the mouse pad and keys. Hope this helps.

This is my 2nd Eee PC. I still love the first one a 1005HA. But on this one the cursor jumps to any spot in previously typed text thereby inserting my current typing into completed work. Time consuming corrections make productivity impossible. ASUS has not yet responded to my request for a solution. Annoying. I saw on the reviews for the red model that another owner had the same problem. I think that Amazon should have combined the reviews for these units.