I helped acquire an HP G72-250US 17.3″ with Core i3 notebook for a friend of my mother. When I tested the SDHC card reader speed, I was shocked to find that read speeds would drop to less than 5 MB/sec after the first time read in Windows 7. Once I uninstalled the software using CCleaner, the card continued to work but it would maintain its 20 MB/sec read speeds.
While I appreciate Realtek going to the effort of writing extra software, they really need better quality control. I suppose I should be happy that at least this isn’t one of their silent data corruption bugs that I found a few years back. The other thing that really bugs me is their massively bloated wireless network driver that forces you to install a bunch of extra wireless supplicants (like Cisco) on top of the Windows wireless client. You’re forced to download a large EXE from Realtek which extracts and autoinstalls the driver without asking for permission. I had to note the extract folder path and then uninstall the Realtek drivers, and then manually install the drivers from device manager by pointing it to the uncompressed installation folder. It would be so much simpler if Realtek just provided the bare drivers.
HP needs to wise up and keep that software (and all the other crapware they install) off the system. The PC industry needs to look in the mirror and ask themselves why Apple completely owns the $1000+ notebook market.
I bought an MSI L1350 Netbook with a standard second-generation Intel N450 Atom processor for $230 last weekend which has an additional $30 rebate. The Ralink 802.11 b/g/n mini PCI-E adapter that comes with the netbook has some very buggy drivers that cause Wi-Fi to intermittently disconnect or fail to find any network. An even bigger problem is the fact that its drivers seem to cause Windows 7 to completely hang requiring a hard reboot.
I have found a solution that seems to have fixed the random Wi-Fi problems by updating to the latest Ralink drivers posted in March of 2010. The system hasn’t hanged due to Wi-Fi drivers in two weeks now. These are signed drivers so they are legitimate and you will not get a certificate warning. If you happen to own this netbook or something with a similar network adapter, I would highly recommend updating the drivers. It’s generally a good idea to update all your drivers anyways.
Another problem I’ve found is the Intel 3150 graphics driver blue screen of death when trying to launch Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder 3.1 (which is a very good free video capture and encoder software that allows you to broadcast high quality directly to sites like Ustream). This problem affects all netbooks with the N450 CPU. The only way to fix this was to update the Intel 3150 integrated graphics driver and you can obtain a copy of it here on Intel’s site.
It sucks to have to get a consumer product that crashes so badly out of the box. It’s even hard for me to handle and I can’t imagine the frustration that normal users would have. This blog post should help you a lot if you managed to land here after googling these problems.
MSI PineTrail-based Atom N450 Netbook for $260! Comes with 1 GB RAM, 160 GB HDD, and 802.11n.
Intel dual-core Core2 processor (Celeron E3200) with G31-based motherboard (with graphics) for $40 (and additional $10 rebate). This packaged deal is $10 cheaper than just the processor which sells for $50 by itself at Newegg.
It’s hard to believe that it was less than a year ago when higher end netbooks still commanded $600 and maybe even above. But if you bought a netbook in the last month or two for $400 or more, this is a good time to kick yourself. Last week a premium netbook should fetch well below $400, but that market just died with the arrival of cheap $400 Acer Aspire AS1410-2285 ultraportable.
The AS1410-2285 has the following notable specifications.
Two real mouse buttons instead of a cheap imitation MacBook button that works like garbage.
Did NOT see anything about BlueTooth but you can buy one of those tiny dongles for $10 or less if you get a bargain.
This is the sort of specification that would have probably fetched close to $2000 just two years ago but the “race to the bottom” has been won by Acer. While I’m sure this saddens those in the notebook industry, consumers are rejoicing. I saw an ad over this weekend for a netbook with Windows 7 “Starter Edition” for $368 so I feel for the poor guy/gal who buys it.
It’s worth noting that the HP Mini 311 netbook with NVIDIA Ion still sells for $400. While the NVIDIA Ion LE graphics chipset in the Mini 311 is about 79% faster than the GMA 4500MHD in 3DMark2006, the Atom CPU in the Mini 311 CPU is slower than a dual-core 1.2 GHz SU2300 especially for multi-thread optimized workloads. So which product is better depends on your preferred workload, but I personally don’t take gaming on netbooks too seriously.
The Asus 1008HA Eee PC netbook is one of the sleekest netbooks on the market. I first previewed the Asus 1008HA “clamshell” in June, and I called it an inexpensive miniature MacBook Air. The 1008HA comes with your slightly enhanced Intel Atom N280 processor, Intel GMA950 chipset, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB 2.5″ hard drive, Bluetooth, 802.11n and 10/100 Ethernet, SDHC flash slot, 10.1″ LCD screen, and Windows XP. Street price for the Asus 1008HA is in the range slightly north of $400.
For this particular review, I’m not going to get into the performance aspect of this netbook in terms of video playback capability since it’s identical to the Asus 1000HE. I explain in detail how well a netbook with this type of CPU and chipset configuration works in this Asus 1000HE review.
The good
The size, shape, and weight of the clamshell netbook was simply amazing. It’s something you can just toss into a backpack or purse and it doesn’t even feel like you’re hauling a laptop around. There are no breaks in the contour and even the Ethernet port uses a collapsible opening to follow the flow of the clamshell. Even the power port is tiny so that it doesn’t ruin the contour. For a netbook this light with a small and light battery, I was shocked that it was still possible to achieve nearly 6 hours of web surfing over Wi-Fi. It’s one thing to achieve 6 hours with a bulging heavy battery, getting it in such a light weight form factor is a great engineering achievement. The edge to edge keyboard is almost full size and they actually give you a full size right shift key (though I’ve long trained myself to only use the left shift). The slight keyboard flexing problem I noted in my Asus 1000HE review doesn’t affect the 1008HA keyboard and it is fairly easy to type on.
The compromises
The beautiful clamshell design does pose some interesting compromises. For one thing, there’s no immediate VGA port on the netbook because it’s too tall to fit into the side. What you do get is a dongle that connects to a miniature port hidden behind a contour cover on the side that’s tucked away underneath the 1008HA. It’s quite a clever design that makes it so that you won’t lose or forget the VGA dongle like you would on a MacBook Air, but it does take some delicate work hooking up the dongle and VGA cables. This is why I can’t wait for the day that we can drop the DB-15 analog VGA port altogether for a simple small and consolidate audio/video HDMI port, and that trend seems to be happening already with some of the newest netbooks.
The other challenge of the clamshell is that just plugging in a headphone requires you to flip open the side panel and leave it open while you’re plugged in. The power plug is so tiny that I’m sometimes afraid that I might bend or break the plug although it seems to be fairly sturdy so long as you handle it with finesse.
The bad
Every product has bad points, and the Asus 1008HA is no exception. But what kills me is that every netbook and even some notebook makers are doing the same thing. For one thing, the glossy screen just makes it hard to see in a brightly lit room or one with many windows. I know this is the trend these days, but the Asus 1000HE had an absolutely gorgeous screen with almost no glare. Why the industry is hell bent on putting in a “feature” that might look nice and shiny when the netbook is turned off is beyond me. I guess until consumers stop buying netbooks and notebooks with glossy screens altogether, our eyes will continue to be assaulted. So for this reason alone, I would declare what I would otherwise consider a great product a bad buy. I’m almost loathed to give any positive review of this netbook because I hate glossy screens that much. It is possible to put a coating on the screen or an anti-glare sheet, but it’s still not as good as a screen that didn’t have the glossy surface to begin with.
The other show stopper for me is the single bar mouse button. Reviewers and consumers alike almost universally hate this “feature”. It’s almost as if some idiot product manager decided that they wanted to emulate the look of a single-button MacBook, but the fact that you can’t actually push down the middle of the button makes these trackpad buttons unusable. There’s nothing more frustrating than pushing down the middle of the button only to find out that it’s not going anywhere. The actual area you can push is only along the left and right edges of the bar. The Asus 1000HE had it perfect and I don’t know why Asus felt it was necessary to ruin a good thing.
I don’t care much for the glossy body but that isn’t a show stopper for me. But between the crappy mouse button and the blindingly glossy screen, it stopped me from buying a 1008HA. So if you don’t like glossy screens and single bar seesaw buttons on the trackpad, this netbook is not for you. Now I understand that Asus isn’t the only guilty party here and most other notebook makers are following some of these same nasty design principles. All I’m saying is that I’m fed up with these bad design choices and you should be too.
The great battery life
The Asus 1008HA uses a non-modular lithium polymer battery that is molded to fit into the chassis to exploit every bit of space. Most laptops use lithium ion batteries that are modular and quickly detachable, but lithium ion can’t be shaped as easily and they have to be cylindrically shaped which makes them bulkier. More importantly, lithium ion has a much shorter life span and you can expect to lose around 7% of your battery capacity every year. Lithium polymers cost more and they lack modularity, but they are more compact because they can take any shape. Lithium polymer batteries also last twice as long as lithium ion which is probably good enough for the useful lifespan of the netbook.
The power consumption of the Asus 1008HA was surprisingly low. I was able to achieve 5.82 hours while refreshing two websites every minute using a Wi-Fi connection and having the LCD set to 40% brightness. With a 31 watt*hour battery divided by 5.82 hours, that translates to an average power draw of just 5.33 watts which is nothing short of amazing. By comparison, this HP DV2 netbook based on an AMD Neo platform consumes 20.1 watts under a similar workload and similar LCD brightness which forces it to sacrafice significant battery life even while carrying a larger heavier battery.
Note: This 5.82 hour result comes in slightly short of Asus’ 6 hour advertising claim which shows that Asus is very honest with their battery life claims. With the Wi-Fi off and LCD set to minimum brightness, I could achieve 8 hours of document editing or reading time which is a valid use case for business travelers on airplanes. However, I think the more common usage scenario is Wi-Fi enabled web surfing and I think Asus’ claim of 6 hours not only meets legal requirements, but it matches user expectations.
For a netbook of this class with a standard Intel Atom N280 and GMA950 graphics chipset, it almost seems that Asus was able to drop the total power consumption by 25% when compared to other netbooks with the same CPU and chipset. The Asus 1000HE which uses an identical CPU and chipset can drop down to around 5.5 watts while idling with the screen at minimum brightness. The 1008HA somehow manages to drop power consumption down to 3.9 watts. Even during standard definition DivX/XVID video playback with the LCD set to 40% brightness, I was able to achieve slightly over 4.5 hours which means the unit was drawing 6.9 watts of power on average. I didn’t think that was possible to go that low until we got to the next generation Intel PineTrail-M platform.
Summary
Very good looking and desirable form factor with the exception of the bad glossy display and bad single bar mouse button.
Keyboard is very nice, possibly nicer than the Asus 1000HE because there is less keyboard flex.
Battery life was outstanding considering the small lightweight battery you’re carrying. The Asus 1008HA is probably the smallest netbook you can find that gets close to 6 hours of honest to goodness usable battery life.
It performs like any other netbook with this type of hardware, and 720P video playback works fine so long as you’re using efficiently coded software.
Just got my hands on an Asus Eee PC 1008HA clamshell yesterday afternoon. So far, this thing is very much impressing me with its form factor. The 1008HA looks like a miniature MacBook Air at 1.1 kilogram (2.4 pounds) and no more than 1 inch thick. There are no breaks in the contour of the chassis and the unit looks very nice. I put the unit in my wife’s purse and it barely feels like there’s a netbook inside. The ladies will definitely care for the pink, red, blue, or white 1008HA.
Quick estimate on battery life looks like it will last 5-6 hours with wireless on, maybe 7+ hours with wireless off for reading/editing text, and just over 4 hours in video playback. Of course, I need to put it through an actual drain test to be sure and that will be part of the full product review.
Update June 7, 2009 – Finished battery drain test last night on DivX 4 704×396 video playback. With the LCD at 40% brightness and wireless turned off (using the convenient wireless toggle button), it achieved 4 hours and 22 minute playback time which is astonishing for a netbook weighing so little.
I’ve previously called the Asus 1000HE netbook one of the best values in the netbook market in terms of bang per buck but I had to try it out myself to see if it actually lives up to my expectations. I’ve now had the opportunity to live with the Asus 1000HE for about a month and I’ve performed a good deal of testing on it to see how it performs in common tasks that one would expect a netbook to perform.
The Intel Atom N280 CPU
The Asus 1000HE is one of the first netbooks on the market that use the slightly faster N280 1.66 GHz Atom processor with a faster Front Side Bus (FSB) whereas most netbooks use the N270 1.6 GHz Atom. The 1000HE uses two additional unofficial clock speeds of 1.25 GHz in low voltage mode and an overclocked setting of 1.75 GHz. It’s actually quite common for netbook makers to offer a “turbo” mode for their products and MSI even pushes some of their N270 netbooks to 1.9 GHz and some users even push their Atom processors to 2 GHz. At the stock speed of 1.66 GHz, the Intel Atom N280 has a super low Thermal Design Power (TDP) of 2 watts compared to the 2.5 watt TDP of the N270 processor.
The Intel Atom’s closest competitor is the Via Nano 1.3 GHz processor which has a TDP of 8 watts. The Nano 1.3 doesn’t perform as well as the Atom 1.6 or 1.66 processor. There have been many mainstream websites that have deceptively compared the Via Nano 1.8 GHz 25 watt TDP desktop processor to an Atom 1.6 and incorrectly declared the Nano the superior netbook product. But when we compare actual netbook parts and usable clock frequencies, it becomes apparent why netbook manufacturers have overwhelmingly selected the Atom. The Atom as a netbook processor simply has better performance and battery life than any other netbook processor.
The Intel 945GSE GMA950 graphics chipset
One of the disappointments in the Asus 1000HE is the continued use of the Intel 945GSE GMA950 graphics chipset when the newer Intel GN40 chipset is available. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to get use to GMA950 because even the next generation of Atom processors will have the 945GSE processor embedded on to the processor package itself as a separate die. But some good can come out of this as software makers are being forced to optimize their software again which results in better performance for everyone whether they use a netbook or high-end desktop computer. However, I see the Asus 1000HE as more of a premium netbook and I wouldn’t mind paying an extra $20 to $30 for a GN40 chipset which decodes 720P or 1080P high definition video.
Asus is coming out with the 1004DN netbook with a GN40 graphics chipset with a smaller 1.8″ hard drive and battery to make room for the optical drive but I’d rather have the bigger/faster 2.5″ hard drive and bigger battery. Optical drives are obsolete as far as I’m concerned and you can always hook up a USB optical drive and rip the movies you want on to the hard drive or just put a bunch of movies on a cheap SDHC flash card.
Glare free vivid contrast display
The first thing I noticed about the 1000HE was the gorgeous 10″ 1024 by 600 display. The display is probably one of the best netbook displays I’ve ever seen and it’s one of the few on the market that doesn’t use a glossy coating. That means you get to look at the actual content on the screen and not the bright reflection of the lights or windows. This particular matt finish display was surprisingly vivid in contrast and it has one of the deepest blacks I’ve ever seen which makes all the brighter colors pop out. The 1000HE LED backlighting is also super bright.
Tip 1: There are third party tools like eeectl can boost the LED brightness high enough to make the display very readable in broad daylight. You wouldn’t want to use that tool indoor because it makes the screen too bright and it drains the battery much faster. Eeectl can also control the fan speed, CPU clock speed and voltage settings though you should be very careful with the tool because you can lock up your system requiring a hard reboot and possibly even damage it.
Unfortunately, most netbooks (and laptops) on the market have unfortunately switched to glossy displays because it’s one of those cheap aesthetic effects that consumers seem to be swayed by. It’s refreshing to see Asus bucking the stupid glossy LCD trend. The only bad thing to say about the display is that it doesn’t have a resolution of 1280 by 800 which is typically only available on 12.1″ LCDs and rarely smaller screens with the exception of the very expensive Sony Vaio P. I could see a lot of demand for a higher priced premium netbook with higher display resolution and GN40 graphics chipset.
Video playback performance
As far as video playback and CPU performance is concerned, the Asus 1000HE is essentially not much different than any other 945 plus Atom N270 1.6 GHz netbook on the market. The N280 1.66 GHz processor makes it slightly faster than the N270 as expected because of additional 3.75% clock speed increase. I’ve managed to get good 720P video playback performance even in 1.25 GHz power save mode if the application is optimized. Adobe Flash and Apple QuickTime are some of the least optimized video playback software on the market and they fail badly at 720P playback. Windows Media Player, VLC, and Media Player Classic using the K-Lite Mega Codec pack works well with 720P playback. Luckily, I’ve found a great way to convert Apple QuickTime MOV files to AVI files which allow for very smooth playback using VLC using FFmpeg and I’ll follow up with a tutorial on that.
For browser embedded video content, Windows Media Player works the best though it only works on the Windows platform. For cross platform compatibility, Silverlight stutters slightly with 1280×720 (720P) content but runs 854×480 (480P wide screen) smoothly and barely runs 1024×576 (576P widescreen) content in 1.75 GHz turbo mode. Adobe Flash has no chance with 720P and barely handles 480P widescreen content on Hulu.com. You can compare all three embedded players here. The popularity of netbooks will hopefully get Microsoft and Adobe to optimize their video playback though Microsoft clearly has a substantial head start.
The chassis and overall design
The Asus 1000HE chassis has a glossy finish which looks great until you actually touch the darn thing. Once you touch it, it looks like you’ve been slobbering all over it because the material is a huge finger print and oil magnet. The 1000HE also has two USB ports on the right hand side which is really useful for hooking up an external USB-powered optical drive. You need two USB ports to provide enough electrical power to drive an optical drive and the last thing you want to have to do is use a USB extension cable to reach the other side of the netbook.
Tip 2: There’s a single access panel to gain access to the 2.5″ hard drive and memory slot. If you want to boost the performance of the Asus 1000HE netbook, just put in one of the fastest and lowest power 2.5″ 320 GB hard drives on the market for around $75. I took my Vista storage score from 5.3 to 5.9, doubled my capacity, improve battery life, and boosted transfer times by 50% with this relatively inexpensive investment and it’s the best improvement you can make on any laptop or netbook on the market. For another $20, you can replace the SODIMM and double the RAM which is also very beneficial especially if you’re going to upgrade to Windows 7. 1 GB will worked fine when I tested Windows 7 beta but more RAM always results in better performance. Storage and memory performance is as important as CPU and graphics and often overlooked.
The LCD lid unfortunately doesn’t quite open up 180 degrees or more which is annoying to me since I like to prop my fully opened Lenovo ThinkPad X200 on my thighs on an airplane and read it like a book. The display becomes twice as large because it’s half the distance to my eyes and I can comfortably view two pages side by side. I can still do this to a certain extent with the Asus 1000HE but it’s not comfortable because the display isn’t quite facing me. Overall, the Asus 1000HE is a slightly larger and heavier netbook because it uses a 10″ display and a huge capacity 6-cell battery but it’s a good tradeoff because the product is much more usable.
Bluetooth and 802.11n wireless
The wireless capabilities of the Asus 1000HE are impressive. It comes with both 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth out of the box when many laptops charge an extra $50 for these two features. Having 802.11n means you get to transfer files more quickly though you’ll probably want to opt for a wired interface or just using the SDHC slot to transfer larger files. Bluetooth is an absolute necessity for a wireless mouse and cell phone tethering for wireless Internet access.
The keyboard
The Asus 1000HE keyboard uses a Chiclet design which is common on Apple Macbooks. Overall, I found touch typing on the 1000HE reliable and fast so long as I didn’t accidently palm the track pad (which is why I usually prefer track points). There were some minor keyboard flex issues in the upper left hand corner of the keyboard with the F1, F2, F3, ~, 1, 2, and 3 keys but I don’t use those keys that often and it’s more of a minor annoyance than a problem. This annoyance might be attributed to the fact that this is a pre-production unit. I noticed there were even a few screws missing inside that were supposed to hold the hard drive in place, so I expect the production units to be better.
Best netbook track pad on the market
Although I personally prefer a track point over a track pad, the Asus 1000HE probably has one of the best netbook track pads on the market. It’s big enough and the buttons are correctly placed so you can operate it like a normal track pad on a full size laptop. Most netbooks track pads are frustrating to me because they put the buttons on the sides of the track pad or use a silly single wide button on the bottom that seesaws left and right. Because of the way the 1000HE mouse buttons goes over the bottom edge, your thumbs can actually press forward and down which is more ergonomically correct for a track pad of this size. It’s also a multi-touch track pad that supports zooming, two finger scrolling, and maybe some other gestures. Scrolling worked fairly well but zooming is a bit difficult to control. Most desktop operating systems and applications (including those from Apple) don’t really have good smooth scrolling/zooming interfaces like the iPhone so I place the blame on the software rather than the hardware. Modern computing hardware (including netbooks) is fast enough to play video on a 3D surface so there’s really no excuse they can’t get the scrolling and zooming on a simple webpage smooth and responsive.
Super long battery life
Battery life is one of the most important metrics on any portable device and this is where the Asus 1000HE shines. I measured the peak battery life of the Asus 1000HE to just over 11 hours if everything is set to the absolute lowest power setting. No, that’s not a typo when I wrote over 11 hours. That means the 1000HE draws less than 5.3 watts in this lowest power operating mode. That is with 802.11n, Bluetooth, and camera is turned off and the screen is set to the lowest possible brightness and nothing is taxing the CPU, GPU, or storage subsystem at all. Realistically, this is not a common usage scenario for most people but I have on occasion used my laptop in this manner when I’m reading or editing documents on a darkened airplane.
The other common usage scenario is 480P H.263 video playback which is the codec commonly found in DivX video files. H.264 would likely result in slightly higher CPU utilization and lower battery life but I used H.263 for the video playback battery drain test. I used VLC because it was the least CPU hungry playback software. On the hardware, I shut off 802.11n, Bluetooth, and the camera and set the display to 40% brightness and clocked the processor down to 1.25 GHz low voltage mode. I ran a full power drain in this configuration and managed to get an astounding 6.8 hours which is simply crazy. That means I’m drawing a mere 8.53 watts during video playback.
For most other tasks, I can usually get an honest 6 to 9 hours depending on what clock speed I’m running at, how CPU and graphics intensive my applications are, and whether wireless is running or not. Most netbooks and laptops won’t even touch this kind of battery life and you can reliably go around all day without carrying the AC adapter which makes up for the slightly bulky weight of 1000HE at 3.2 lbs. You just throw the 1000HE in your bag and never worry about untangling or tripping over the AC adapter’s wiring. Simply wake the machine when you need it and put it to sleep when you don’t. Just be aware that there is about a 25% power drain per 24 hour period in suspend mode because power is needed to keep the memory state but that isn’t a problem if you’re charging the laptop once a day.
Other features of Asus 1000HE
The webcam is a decent 1.3 megapixel camera rather than the usual 0.3 megapixel cameras you see on many netbooks. I’ve posted some samples on YouTube here and here and the performance for a built in webcam is relatively good. You’re not going to be running Skype in HQ video mode anytime soon because the processor isn’t fast enough to encode/decode 480P H.264 in real time nor is the camera capable of producing a low noise image needed for Skype HQ mode, but standard Skype video conferencing runs fine. Then again, no built in webcam on any laptop regardless of price will handle Skype in HQ mode and you would need something like the $75 Logitech Quickcam Pro.
Instant OS restore is another good feature. Simply hit the F9 at boot time and it will load Norton Ghost and restore the system image to factory settings. The 1000HE comes with two hard drive partitions so if you store all your data in the second partition, you won’t have to worry about losing any data when you invoke the factory restore and recreate the C drive.
Another good feature is the “boot booster” feature in the BIOS. Once you turn it on, the BIOS post time drops from 13 seconds down to 2 seconds so you can start loading the OS sooner and cut down the overall boot times. After system post, the system takes another 27 seconds to get to a fully operational Windows XP desktop. With boot booster on, it’s possible to finish a complete boot in just under 30 seconds though I generally use suspend mode to start up the system in about 4 seconds.
Conclusion
For a typical street price of $375, the Asus 1000HE netbook simply can’t be beat in terms of value. It is one of the best netbooks on the market at any price. The netbook is a bit bulky compared to other 8.9″ netbooks with 3-cell batteries but you don’t need to carry your charger with you and the bigger size screen and track pad is a welcome change in netbook design. You can’t put it in a large coat pocket like the Sony Vaio P but the Vaio costs $900+ and has horrible battery life and a tiny display. If you’re looking for a reasonably priced 10″ netbook with a great looking non-glare display and all-day battery life, the 1000HE is for you.
There’s a new candidate for the best netbook on the market as far as I’m concerned and it is the Asus Eee 1000HE. Had it come with the GN40 chipset like many of us thought, it would have taken the top spot but it now shares the honors with the Dell Mini 12. $375, it sets a new bar in features per dollar. I’ve posted a guest article here on notebooks.comand you can read all about it.
One interesting note is that after visiting Fry’s Electronics tonight, all of the Acer Aspire Ones have dropped about $40 in price. The entry level One costs $260 and the mid-end model comes in at $300. This makes them competitive again but the price of netbooks will continue to decline and the features continue to improve.
Wow, the Dell Mini 12 has dropped to $399(black)! If you want Red, White, or Pink, it’s an extra $30.
I discussed the pros and cons of this product here, but I think this price makes this the best NetBook deal on the market. The Mini 12 has a more energy efficient Poulsbo graphics chipset which also has much better video processing capability than the Intel 945GSE you get on most NetBooks. For this price, I was almost tempted to buy one even though I don’t even need it.
Granted, this price only comes with a 3-cell battery but at least it isn’t the bulky 6-cell. Xavier from Notebooks.com explained to me that the 6-cell battery is bulky because slim batteries are much more expensive. Still, the battery life should be alright with a Poulsbo chipset and probably just north of 3 hours at best.
It’s hard to believe that it was less than a year ago when higher end netbooks still commanded $600 and maybe even above. But if you bought a netbook in the last month or two for $400 or more, this is a good time to kick yourself. Last week a premium netbook should fetch well below $400, but that market just died with the arrival of cheap 
