The leading manufacturer of netbook PCs is arguably Asus, which has been selling the affordable, capable Eee PC for several years now. Its latest model is an aesthetic improvement, trading in the traditional plastic casing for brushed aluminum. But the processing power remains the same as its earlier models, which could be a significant downside.
The Intel Atom N450, at 1.66Ghz, is an underwhelming processor — even by netbook standards. It’s a great processor for doing one simple task at a time, but its underpowered chipset will elicit a big sigh as soon as the average user opens more than a few tabs in their web browser. On the other hand, this tiny netbook comes with a solid gigabyte of RAM and an impressive 250GB of hard disk space — very respectable in terms of netbook specifications.
The redesigned Eee PC has a flat screen lid, which has helped reduce the device’s height to less than one inch. A 10.1″ screen is standard, with the 1024×600 resolution found on pretty much every netbook available today. Its small size allows the Eee PC to weigh in at a very light 2.5 pounds — light enough to forget it’s even in your bag.
The Asus Eee PC 1018PB comes with a 0.3 megapixel camera on its display bezel, and features a sliding cover for the camera lens. This will not only protect the camera lens itself from picture-blurring smudges, but also helps ease some privacy concerns for users who see built-in webcams as a source of worry.
Overall, the Eee PC 1018PB is a well-designed netbook, with refreshingly better, more-solid construction than its plastic predecessors. The internals are a bit on the low end of today’s netbooks, but performance is still solid. Its sleek design will turn heads, even if it takes a brief moment to open a new browser window.
Scott, December 3, 2010
First of all, this machine in on par with most every netbook on the market. Almost every netbook is running a 1.66ghz Atom processor and is capable. It is not meant to replace laptop speeds in any way. This is a great machine and travels well. The only thing I would opt for is a machine with an ION video processor. For most everything else, this is an excellent machine and can handle small multitasking procedures. Think about it this way....it is more powerful that most every laptop 5 years ago.
Stefan, December 30, 2010
@Scott: It is only a SingleCore version however, which places this laptop at the lower end of the netbooks performance-wise...
Hogan, February 18, 2011
Kids Toy!!!!
m4d4sb34ns, March 31, 2011
IMO, the big issue with netbooks these days is the lack of real progress. I bought An eee 901 (9" screen, 20GB solid state drive, ~4.5 hours battery) for £260 over 2 years ago. Today, if you went out with that amount of cash you would find the same processor, a larger capacity regular drive, a 10" screen and roughly the same battery life. For any real improvement, you need to spend upwards of £400, and even then you only get a dual core atom, 10 or 12" screen and a choice between better battery life and graphics power in the form of nvidia ION or AMD Fusion. The whole point of netbooks was cheap, portable computing, but the manufacturers have just smeared the boundary with ultraportable laptops, hoping to make easy money off the ignorance of consumers. Until we get a real CPU (not the Atom with it's in-order processing and dated design) with ~8 hours of battery life in a £300 machine, the netbook market is basically on hold.