Plumbing the wisdom of the friendslist.

[dkellis]

Planning to get a really, really small and lightweight notebook.

All I need is a word-processing function, sufficient hard disk space for said function, and a music player of some sort for mp3s. Internet capability will be nice, and sought after, but not completely essential

Comments

[stereophilic]

It was largely the battery life of the 900 I was concerned about, because I needed it to last several 3 hour lectures potentially without a powersource nearby. XD You have have read the battery issues in the 900's wiki - since dkellis is located in Singapore at the moment, I was referring to specifically what is obtainable locally and I'm not quite sure it's the same for you over in Canada. The 900, from what I could garner online and when I went out to buy it, comes with a 4-cell battery while the 901, which is not too different [and in particular, not too different in price which I was really up on XD], comes with a 6-cell and has around two hours more battery life than the 900 [which I think was estimated about 3-4 hours max, the length of one lecture].

I'm not a good person to talk to about Linux and XP, since I chose XP solely based on the fact I'm more comfortable with it.

A warning I do have about the Asus 901 is that the 12GB memory is segmented in a pretty silly way, and can't be combined for usage, so all my stuff are hanging around in the secondary drive. [I think that's an Asus Eee thing though.] I've also found, somewhat ludicrously, that if you don't disconnect the power plug before you switch it off, or have the plug in when you're switching it on, it hangs and refuses to start up (later on). It might just be mine being glitchy, and that's really it's only major issue in my use.

I don't know if that helps you or dkellis, but I hope it does!

[rinnegan]

Thanks, I had already read that the battery life was only 4-5 hours on the 900HA, which is something that doesn't truly concern me, as I am almost always going to be using it on AC power. I also am aware that the 120gb HD in the model I am interested in makes it less "roughneck," but since I am not particularly violent with things that I own that cost me more than a dollar, that also does not make me worry too much.

Did you get a model that has the trackpad features in it? If so, how are they? Useful? Fun for 5 minutes and then not worth playing with anymore? I think they are a great addition to an already great hardware and I'm looking forward to playing around with it.

[stereophilic]

It's good that the battery life isn't a concern for you, so it should be fine then. :D I hope you have fun with it!

I had the minimal trackpad features, though I didn't find it useful for the sheer reason that I use a USB mouse. I do like the quick-scrolling, though! The pinching zoom function doesn't work on mine, so I suspect that was left out. I did, however, download a software [that is already in the 900, if I recall rightly] that added more functions not because I wanted more functions, but because I wanted to disable the trackpad during moments of furious typing. XD [So dkellis, if you're reading this and considering the 901, there might be a program you'll have to install from an unsavoury kind of illegitimate-looking Taiwanese website to stop unhappy shifts and accidental inserts while typing...]