My carefully laid plans to upgrade upgrade my netbook in June were foiled last week when my Eee 1000HA essentially bit the dust. Since I couldn’t wait for the Acer Aspire 532G and the Asus Eee Seashell 1005PR to ship, I fell back on three other options. The Acer Aspire AS1410 came highly recommended by many, but I worried about the Celeron processor, and I wasn’t wild about the 11.6″ screen size. Buddy Brad Linder also recommended the Asus UL20A, but again that meant a screen-size increase, this time to 12.1″. Against my better judgment, I went with option three: the Asus Eee Seashell 1005PE.
I say against my better judgment because my Eee 1000HA model proved terribly unreliable over time. However, ultimately the 1005PE won me over on specs and price. It’s great on battery life, and has an Atom N450 processor, a 10″ screen, and room for 2GB RAM. With an upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium, it meets nearly all of the requirements I laid out for an upgrade months ago. It doesn’t have a high-res display, but I’m willing to sacrifice that for the eleven-hour battery life. And at $350 (plus $80’ish for the Home Premium upgrade), the price can’t be beat.
Since I’m headed off to L.A. this week for The Cable Show, the new netbook is going to get an immediate workout. Luckily the layout is familiar, and I have to admit I’m digging the new burnt-red color. Here’s hoping it’s up to the task of trade-show blogging.
it’s just too bad they replace the su2300 in the acer 1410 with that rubbish celeron M.
The Celeron processors even in the single core versions of the Acer 1410 tend to outperform most Intel Atom chips. But the Eee PC 1005PE is definitely one of the better netbooks released this year.
Incidentally, Microsoft is running a temporary promotion letting you upgrade from Win 7 Starter to Home Premium for $50: http://bit.ly/dyItnl
I got my sister a 1410 and it changed my mind on 12-inch netbooks for a couple of reasons. It’s battery life isn’t quite as good as the PineTrail netbooks like your PE, but it’s even better than my 1005HA, even with the Celeron. also, it’s not actually a much bigger footprint, even with the bigger screen.
It fit right into the same bag I use to carry my 10-inch 1005HA, it just doesn’t have the huge bezel around the screen. For the screen res and the payoff, I’m just waiting for a computer like that, with ION 2 either from ASUS or Acer before I upgrade.
my Toshiba tablet (convertable) is 12″. So I kind of laugh at calling anything that big a netbook. A netbook is my Dell Mini 9.
Sounds like a fine choice Dave. As you know I bought the Acer 1810tz for a little under $500 and have no regrets. The slightly larger screen, higher resolution, faster CPU, better ports, all good things. And its still under an inch thick. But yes, its more expensive, heavier, and bigger than that netbook you just picked up. For heavy duty blogging I would have gone the thin ‘n light route, but to each his own.
Looking forward to the Cable Show coverage. Anything about tru2way, 3D, the move to h.264 on cable, all good grist for the mill. Or even a Tivo rumor.
Oops sorry Mari. I guess I just assumed this was Dave’s post.
Glenn- That’s alright. No TiVo rumors yet, but I did hear an Echostar rumor, and a Comcast one over the weekend. We’ll see what pans out.
Well, we did already see Cox’s new guide. Wonder if I can get it in my home for a preview?
As far as my primary mobile blogging machine, I’m still on a 13″ Macbook (unibody) purchased 11/08. Many days I pine for something smaller, but then I’d have two laptops to maintain.