Asus Eee Pc 4g Windows 7

Laptop Mag Verdict

An aluminum design makes this one of the sexiest and sturdiest netbooks still, only the ergonomics could exist much meliorate.

Pros

+
Attractive metallic blueprint
+
Long bombardment Life
+
Cool temperatures

Cons

-
Cramped keyboard
-
Very strong touchpad buttons
-
Murky webcam

The step of netbook innovation has slowed to a virtual crawl in recent months as nearly vendors have settled on the aforementioned one-time 10.1-inch screen, Atom N450 CPU, 1GB of RAM, modest five,400 rpm difficult drive, and Windows 7 Starter Os. The main way to stand up out in this market is through superior design and usability. The $379 All-time Purchase exclusive version of the ASUS Eee PC 1018P accomplishes the former with great aplomb, offering a sexy brushed aluminum lid and deck for an affordable cost. Still, its cramped keyboard and stiff touchpad buttons make information technology a little unpleasant to use.

Design

The ii.iv-pound, 10.three ten 7.i 10 0.9-inch Eee PC 1018P is definitely one of the thinner and lighter netbooks on the market. It's about half a pound lighter and significantly thinner than two.8-pound competitors like the Acer Aspire Ane 532h (1-inch thick), the Samsung N150 Plus (1.four-inches thick), and the Toshiba NB305 (1.iv-inches thick). The classy, raven black chassis has an bonny brushed aluminum lid and deck, with a matching brushed plastic black bezel. The ASUS logo on the hat and the power, Wi-Fi on/off, and functioning style buttons add together an attractive touch of silverish. The entire organisation is besides available in white.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard and touchpad are where the ASUS Eee PC 1018P really falls short. Even by 10-inch netbook standards, its keyboard feels cramped and uncomfortable. Not only is the right shift key undersized, only the rest of the keys are tiny and narrowly spaced. On the 10 thumbs typing exam, where we average 80 words-per-minute with a 1-percent error charge per unit, we managed only 69 words per minute with a whopping 4-per centum error rate, considering we kept missing keys.

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The 3 x 1.5-inch touchpad is certainly large plenty, but when using information technology, the cursor occasionally jumped around the screen. At several points, the accuracy of the pad was so poor that it actually dragged whorl bars or windows downward when we were moving our finger up. Worse, the single mouse button is one of the stiffest we've used, requiring us to utilise too much force. Afterwards clicking a few times, our index finger became sore. If yous practice buy this netbook, you lot'll wind up double tapping the touchpad a lot.

Heat

The Eee PC 1018P stayed pleasantly cool throughout our testing. Later streaming a video at total screen for fifteen minutes, nosotros measured the touchpad at a chilly 79 degrees, the keyboard at a mere 85 degrees, and the bottom at 98 degrees Fahrenheit. We consider temperatures below 95 degrees acceptable for any surface area on the top of the notebook and temperatures 100 degrees and below mutual for the bottom surface.

Display and Sound

Click to overstateThe x.one-inch 1024x600 glossy screen provided abrupt and colorful images, but its highly reflective surface sometimes showed what was backside us. Viewing angles were reasonable when looking at the desktop, but videos washed out at 45 degrees to the left or right. Video quality was a mixed bag.

When we played a downloaded 720p WMV of a racecar from Microsoft's Hard disk drive Showcase, the images were smoothen and abrupt. Nonetheless, when we attempted to stream a 720p episode of Fringe from Fox.com, both in the office and our home, we noticed some jerkiness and banding at full screen. A downloaded 480p QuickTime trailer for the Expendables played smoothly at total screen (with huge bars at top and bottom), only a standard def trailer of Terminator Salvation that nosotros streamed from YouTube was extremely blocky.

The speaker bar, which is built into the screen hinge, provided reasonable fidelity simply very low volume. When streaming Avenged Sevenfold's "Nightmare," sound was clear and crisp, though muted.

Ports and Webcam

Click to enlargeThe ASUS Eee PC 1018P has all the ports you'd expect from a netbook. On the correct side are a 3-in-ane carte du jour reader, sound in/out jacks, two USB ports, and a slim Ethernet port that pops open to accept a standard RJ-45 cable. On the left side are a VGA port and a third USB connecter. Though another configuration of the 1018P sports USB iii.0 ports, all the USB jacks on this Best Buy exclusive configuration are USB 2.0 only.

The 0.3 megapixel webcam provided smoothen, but dark images under the overhead lighting of our cubicle. When speaking on Skype, our facial features were nearly impossible to see. When we repositioned the laptop, colors got a flake brighter but our face was still covered in a huge shadow.

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One unique feature of the Eee PC 1018P is the sliding On/Off switch in a higher place its webcam, which slides a small comprehend over the lens and is clearly designed to ease users who are absolutely paranoid near being hacked. Every notebook's webcam is easily controllable via software and nearly notebooks have a blue or light-green status light that comes on when its webcam is agile then at that place'southward no legitimate demand for a encompass. However, some users may feel reassured that they take a means to obstruct the lens later on reading nearly the kind of webcam spying that took place in 1 Pennsylvania school district a few months agone.

Performance

The Eee PC 1018P has standard netbooks specs, including an Atom N450 CPU, 1GB of RAM, Intel Integrated GMA 3150 graphics, and a 250GB difficult bulldoze. So it'southward no surprise that this system turned in performance scores that were on par with the rest of the pack. On PCMark05, which measures overall functioning, the netbook scored a respectable 1,291. That's only slightly lower than the netbook category average of i,426 and competitors ike the Acer Aspire 1 532h (1332), the Samsung N150 Plus (1300) and the Toshiba NB305 (1383).

The 250GB v,400 rpm Western Digital hard drive stood out for its faster-than-average performance. The drive booted into Windows vii Starter in a brisk 54 seconds, 7 seconds faster than the category boilerplate. Information technology also completed the LAPTOP File Transfer Test in iii minutes and 32 seconds, for a fast charge per unit of 24 MBps, which is significantly faster than the 18.1 MBps category average and slightly ahead of competitors like the Toshiba NB305 (20.6 MBps), Samsung N150 Plus (21.6), and Acer Aspire One 532h (22.4 MBps). I odd thing we noticed nearly the hard drive is that it periodically fabricated loud ticking noises while the system was idle.

When it came to transcoding video, the Eee PC 1018P was close to boilerplate; it took 6 minutes and fourteen seconds to convert a 114MB MP4 file to AVI format using Oxelon Media Encoder. That's only a little faster than the category average of 6:19 and slower than competitors like the Toshiba NB305 (6:03), Samsung N150 (five:44), and Acer Aspire Ane 532h (v:50).

Graphics

Considering its integrated Intel GMA 3150 graphics chip, the Eee PC 1018P handles graphics tasks with about the same efficiency as its similarly-speced competitors. On 3DMark06, which measures overall graphics prowess, the netbook scored 154, which is less than the category boilerplate of 247, but on par with the Toshiba NB305 (159), the Samsung N150 (156), and the Aspire One 532h (153). When we used Google Globe to navigate the earth, the 1018P was more than capable of zooming in and out on our street, but images didn't have the same depth and 3D furnishings that they do on a standard notebook. Equally mentioned higher up, streamed videos appeared blocky at full screen though downloaded WMVs and QuickTimes were better.

Bombardment Life and Wi-FI

With its slim 4-cell battery, the ASUS Eee PC 1018P nonetheless managed a stiff 7 hours and 35 minutes on the LAPTOP Bombardment Test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-FI. That's an hour and 31 minutes longer than the category boilerplate (six:04), but shorter than competitors like the Toshiba NB305 (eight:37) and Acer Aspire 1 532h (viii:36).

The netbook's Atheros AT8132 wireless card returned a potent transfer rate of 37.nine Mbps at xv feet from our router and a slightly subpar 16.9 Mbps at 50 feet from the router.

Greenness

Click to enlargeWhen charging the ASUS Eee PC 1018P took two hours and 17 minutes to reach 80-per centum of capacity and a total of 3 hours and 33 minutes to reach full charge. During that time, the organization used an average of 21.seven watts. That gives the netbook a LAPTOP Green Efficiency rating of 10.two, which is over 50-percent better than the category boilerplate of 15.five (lower is better).

Configuration Options

Our $379 configuration of the ASUS 1018P is available exclusively at Best Buy. Notwithstanding, a higher-end version that includes USB iii.0 ports, Bluetooth 3.0, a 1.3-megapixel webcam, and an Cantlet N455 CPU is coming out soon with a price of $429.

Software

Click to overstateASUS bundles several utilities with the Eee PC 1018P. Eee Dock is a persistent navgar that remains on the top of the desktop and contains shortcuts to a number of ASUS programs. YouCam allows you to capture photos and videos with the webcam. Syncables is software that syncs your data with up to one other PC, though to use all of its features you need to purchase a paid version. Eee Splendid adjusts the monitor's color scheme to provide richer images for viewing video.

The SRS premium sound utility allows you to exert fine control over the already-high quality, only low volume speakers. ASUS Vibe Fun Center provides an bonny forepart stop for downloading trial versions of games or listening to music samples. ASUS Cloud Services provides a link to ASUS Access, a portal site where yous can buy apps or sign upwardly for a free trial of ASUS's $39.99 per month Web-based storage service.

ASUS bundles the Eee PC 1018P with a one-year limited warranty. To see how ASUS did in our tech support showdown, click here.

Verdict

Click to enlargeWhile the Eee PC 1018P is a very attractive netbok, its small keys, incredibly potent mouse buttons, and washed out webcam prove that you can't judge a netbook by its encompass. Though this machine is certainly usable, competitors offer a ameliorate feel for less coin. For $355, y'all can buy a Toshiba NB305, which has a best-in-course keyboard, a large and authentic touchpad, and longer battery life. If yous actually desire to save, get the ASUS Eee PC 1001P for $299. It's non as fashionable equally the 1018P, only it lasts longer on a charge (8:xl) and has a better keyboard.

ASUS Eee PC 1810P Specs

Brand	ASUS
CPU	1.66-GHz Intel Cantlet N450
Visitor Website	www.asus.com
Display Size	ten.1
Graphics Card	Intel GMA 3150
Difficult Bulldoze Size	250GB
Difficult Bulldoze Speed	v,400rpm
Hard Drive Type	SATA Hard Drive
Native Resolution	1024x600
Operating Arrangement	MS Windows 7 Starter
RAM	1GB
RAM Upgradable to	2GB
Size	10.three x 7.i 10 0.9-inches
Touchpad Size	3 10 1.5 inches
USB Ports	3
Video Memory	Shared
Warranty/Support	I year standard
Weight	2.iv pounds
Wi-Fi	802.11b/yard/due north
Wi-Fi Model	Atheros AT8132

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The official Geeks Geek, every bit his weekly cavalcade is titled, Avram Piltch has guided the editorial and product of Laptopmag.com since 2007. With his technical knowledge and passion for testing, Avram programmed several of LAPTOP's existent-world benchmarks, including the LAPTOP Bombardment Test. He holds a master'southward degree in English from NYU.