OK lets get to it. Here are the positives listed below.
Speedy for a netbook (2 to 3 times the speed of standard netbooks)
1366 x 768 resolution.
light weight
comfortable to type
hdmi, can output 1080P Blu Ray no problem
1 x USB 3.0
Was able to swap the HDD from a 320GB to a 1TB 9.5mm
OK now here are the negatives.
Memory not upgradable, onboard and not removable.
Pain in the A to access the hard drive.
No Bluetooth
Not a dual band internal wireless card
No gigabit lan : (
Did not boot from USB/used acronis 2013 to clone drive.
Before this model was released, I was so close to buy the Asus 1025CE model that featured bluetooth and removable ram. However I am glad I waited as the CPU speed and a nice 1366 screen resolution out weighs the other features of the 1025CE model. I am more than happy to sacrifice bluetooth and extra ram for a nicer screen and increase in cpu speed. For the money you cannot go wrong with this model. I would highly recommend this model or the next model 1015E-DS02 which will have 4GB of onboard ram.
Update 5/6/13
I have been using this netbook for a week and it works great. It has exceeded my expectations. At times however it can run a little warm and the battery life is not as advertised. On a full charge it will last me about 5-5:30 hours on the lowest dim screen. To me this is acceptable as many new ultrabooks do not even last that long. This will definitely hold me over for 2 movies during a plane ride.
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I got this to replace my wife's Dell Mini 10 netbook. It just arrived today, so I haven't had much time to play around with it yet. Usually I don't buy Amazon products without reviews, but I took a gamble on this recently-released Asus laptop... and I'm glad I did.The first thing I noticed was keyboard. It's definitely easier to type on compared to the Dell Mini 10. Having the separation between the keys helps a lot. The cursor keys are a little cramped, but what do you expect on such a small laptop.
The second thing I noticed is how much I dislike the touchpad. Seems to be par for the course on many netbooks. I frequently use the tap-to-click feature (quickly tapping to register a left-mouse click) on the touchpad instead of actually pressing down in the bottom-left corner. It would only register my taps about 80% of the time which was really annoying. I figured that this could be solved by trying different touchpad drivers. The laptop came preinstalled with the latest drivers from Asus' website. I tried the generic Synaptics drivers from their website. That helped with the tap-to-click, however, the pointer speed was way too slow, even when set to the highest speed. Also, I lost the Windows 8 gestures with the those Synaptics drivers. Next I tried the Elan drivers (did a Google search for 'elan touchpad driver windows 8', and it's the first link on asus.com). The Elan drivers did the trick. Everything works great... tap-to-click works 99% of the time, pointer speed is good at the default speed setting and the Windows 8 gestures work.
At first, when I read that this had a Celeron CPU, I was a bit wary. However, after using the Atom CPU-equpped Dell Mini 10, I have to say that this Asus is a bit faster even at a lower clock speed, but I'm sure the dual cores helps quite a bit. This machine also came with Windows 8 64-bit which I was surprised to see. I'm used to seeing 32-bit operating systems on netbooks. I'm sure that replacing the HDD with an SSD would make this a lot faster, so I might have to invest in that later.
The only thing I've really tested so far is streaming Youtube videos. This thing doesn't skip a beat, even with HD (all the way up to 1080p) videos running at full screen. The frame rate is smooth. I'm pretty impressed. Screen looks decent too. Speakers can get pretty loud without much distortion.
I'm happy with the build quality as well. There's a nice texture on the plastic surrounding the touchpad below the keyboard and on the bottom of the laptop. There's very little flex to the keyboard... it's pretty solid.
If you're looking for a 10" laptop for basic web browsing & productivity, definitely consider this one.
UPDATE 2013-04-30
After using this laptop for a few days, I'm still impressed. No new issues to report. Once my wife started using it, she would frequently trigger (by accident) the Windows 8 gestures on the touchpad. If you swipe in from the left, top or right sides, it triggers a gesture. I didn't see an easy way to disable these gestures. There are registry keys that you mess around with, but I found an alternative. There is another set of Elan touchpad drivers that work even better than the previous ones that I found. Just do a Google search for 'Elan touchpad drivers', and it's the link for station-drivers(dot)com. The driver version at the top of the list provides a bunch of configuration settings in the Mouse application for disabling gestures as well as many other touchpad settings.
I also read the other review about the difficulty in upgrading the RAM and swapping out for an SSD, which is unfortunate. However, the speed is decent enough as long as you have the proper expectations.
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How to make this notebook run smooth and real fast:0.(Optional).Search on google for classic shell and install.It will make windows 8 with a classic interface.
1. Search on google for "asus elan drivers" find the site, choose windows 8 64 bit click the link below "touch pad" then download and install from the 2nd link called "global" REMEMBER USE 2 fingers to scroll up and down.
2. Go to control panel > Programs and features and uninstall every single thing from asus everything! Including that hybrid crap that makes the notebook run 20 degrees hotter , don't worry windows 8 and nvidia has everything that you're going to uninstall.You'll have to reboot several times.
3. Go to control panel > Power options it should be set on "Balanced" below there is a link "More options" click on it and choose "High Performance". Close window.
4. Go to control panel and open " Mouse" click on top on the panel "Choose pointer speed" and move the setting to a higher point.
5. You're done. Enjoy the fastest notebook available.
I was skeptical at first about this little thing but I am blown away. I own a few laptops including a last generation vaio. For what you pay here 250 bucks you get a really nice machine. I am running 3ds max with no issues in this thing.I saw some people writing in these reviews stuff like it can be better or whatever. its the perfect machine for this money. Its comparable to the ultrabook I have at speed and that's got a solid drive in it! I thought for sure I was going to replace the hard drive in this one with a solid but it is not necessary at all. Boot time is around 30 seconds . Windows 8 interface sucks but the os itself is way better than anything on the market extremely stable , I install classic shell and run it with a classic interface. As for the people who complain about this product spend a hundred more and get the 350 dollar ultrabook from asus for heaven's sake. the battery is as they say around 7 hours .Screen is excellent I seat outside on the patio and I can see it perfectly. the keyboard very responsive and adequate for your hands. The mouse pad is big enough and responds accordingly as in the instructions. the built is solid with a nice piano finish on top. It is not thick just perfect. The fan blows warm but if you know about computers celeron chips run a little hotter. but nothing weird. if you complain about that get yourself a laptop with an atom processor at less than half the speed. I bought a pink one for the wife today. Overall a fantastic product. Thumbs up to Asus
Honest reviews on ASUS 1015E-DS01-PK 10.1-Inch Laptop (Pink)
I have 4 other computers including an ASUS HD monster gaming machine. I have a 'smartphone' but I purchased this little 10 inch ASUS to fit in-between. This is my 'SURVIVAL computer'. No joking. My intent is to have a computer I can 'grab on the go' and have video phone, Radio, and Internet access just about anywhere. If Internet and Cell is out, there is still a large archive of info I have transferred to read. All my eBooks are available in the Amazon Cloud but I still download them to the Hard drive in case the 'cloud' and my account is unavailable.I hooked it up to my 1Gb home network and transferred (at 100Mb) all kinds of important files, books, maps, 'Kindle for PC program' from Amazon, Email program, program archive, etc, etc.. My disk drive has 2 partitions (which is good). Drive C contains Windows 8 (I hate) and other programs I've installed. Drive D, I use to save data. It's just one physical drive but you treat it as two.
You have a slot for SD memory card (on the right side near front. It comes with a plastic DUMMY card that you remove to use) and I decided to use mine as a location for the cache of Internet Explorer and Firefox and reduce the writing to the hard drive. This seems to work well.
ASUS again for some screwy reason provides you with 3 USB ports but only one is the new Superfast USB 3.0. The other 2 are standard USB 2.0. I don't know why they don't make them all 3.0 as they are backwards compatible even on the cables. (Look for BLUE USB cables and a BLUE insulator in the USB Jack/Plug for fast 3.0 speeds)
The Ethernet port as is the old speed of 100Mb. I want 1,000Mb so I use a 'USB 3.0 to Ethernet 1Gb adapter. Now I can use my home network at the superfast 1Gb (1,000Mb) speed. USB 3.0 to Ethernet 1Gb adapter such as "Anker® Uspeed USB 3.0 to 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN Network Adapter [ASIX AX88179 Chipset, USB to RJ45, LED Indicator, 18 Months Warranty]' for appx $22. REMEMBER to use Cat6 Ethernet cabling for 1Gb connection or everything falls back to 100Mb. Yes, file transfers are faster from computer to computer and to my network storage drive.
Windows 8 as in previous versions of Windows has an option to add extra memory (for some things) called 'ReadyBoost'. It utilizes a (high speed) USP memory drive (aka Flash Drive). Not all USB drives are useable for ReadyBoost and Windows will let you know. Appx $45 I use the SanDisk Extreme 32 GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive SDCZ80-032G-X46. Other Flash drives can be used. I like this one as I know it works, has a light indicating activity and I used the on my Gaming ASUS larger machine that runs Win7. There is a limit as how much memory can be used and I notice in mine Windows set aside a little over '30Gb for ready boost'! ReadyBoost is very easy to setup because you just plug it in to a USB port.
Like others here, I also downloaded a free 'Classic Shell' program that gives me back my bottom left 'Start' button and displays things more like Win7 or even XP. I still have access to the new format in the Win8 desktop if I want it. Its the best of both Worlds. Notice how Microsoft calls small programs 'apps' to appeal to the cellphone folks I guess.
You can't add more memory in the traditional fashion as in swapping out or adding new chips. You are limited to the 2Gb of RAM. (But you can use ReadyBoost and USB FlashDrives).
I can 'Tether' my SmartPhone to a USB port and use the SmartPhone as an Internet source. I measured 10Mb download this way.
BTW I had an Internet outage a few weeks ago and learned about 'Tethering' which kept me from going crazy without Internet. This added to the decision to get something with a larger screen than my SmartPhone.
I also have installed MagicJack on this mini-laptop which also has Skype. So now I have several means of communication if necessary. I keep all of this in a tote bag and will get an extra battery as backup.
Only thing left for me to get is an automobile to laptop charger and perhaps a small Solar charger, perhaps fold-able.
I have no problem with the mouse pad that comes with the machine I did purchase a small wireless Logitech 'couch mouse' which makes my life sooooo much easier. Someone commented about the built-in pad causing problems when using an external mouse if you accidentally touch it. It's true you will be running BOTH at the same time HOWEVER pressing the 'fn' (special function key left lower side) and f9 at the same time will toggle OFF (or on) the built-in pad and no more accidents.
My wireless works great at 'N' speeds and performance is the same as my other computers. Ethernet will always be a better connection than wireless. They both have their uses. Have NOT tried any of the local 'hot spots' yet.
I wish it had handles. Handles would make carrying it around safer and easier to tote. Perhaps I'll look for some straps for carrying when I don't want to use the bag with all its paraphernalia.
I'll be looking into the ASUS boot sometime as someone recommend increasing the amount of memory to the graphics 'card'. The only problem I have had was when it tried to run a super big business security program and there was zero CPU left. I still had RAM but no CPU available, so I need to watch the CPU intensive programs.
The Power Cord fits fine and does NOT fall out. I thought it did when it slipped out but discovered if you apply a bit of pressure it will actually 'snap' and give a firm connection. Amazing.
This is the second week and I plan to update this review from time to time.
I hope my comments were of help to you.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for ASUS 1015E-DS01-PK 10.1-Inch Laptop (Pink)
You CANNOT add RAM or upgrade the Hard Drive to an SSD in this computer. Amazon description is misleading if you read the specs, it says SODIMM under memory type. But this computer contains no capacity for user upgrades. Even if it did have an SO-DIMM slot as Amazon mistakenly says in their specs, there is no access door on the back.I purchased this Asus 1015E to replace my Acer A1410 which my wife decided she liked so much she took it away from me to use for herself! The A1410 used an older version of the Celeron chip (SU2300), similar to the one in this Asus.
This 64-bit chip allows you to do everything a more powerful processor can do, and even has the virtualization feature, unlike the Atom processors found in most netbooks this size. This puts this computer on a higher level than most of the other netbooks, with either Atom or AMD processors.
I really like the Asus, but I ended up returning it after I discovered that it cannot be upgraded. My A1410 had come with 2GB of RAM just like this Asus, but I upgraded it to 4GB and put in a faster hard drive.
The Amazon description said the Memory type in this Asus was SODIMM, so I assumed it could be upgraded also. After I received it, I discovered that this Asus did not even have an access door on the back to access the memory and hard drive. More research on the internet revealed that similar Asus models come with RAM soldered onto the motherboard and cannot be upgraded.
This does not make it a bad netbook. If I thought that 2GB of RAM and a slow 320GB hard drive were sufficient, I would have been very happy with this choice. But for me, I always like to have more than enough RAM, and 2GB is just barely adequate in my opinion for running Windows. I am a power user and the small size of this unit was the main attraction, but I was planning on having 4GB and an SSD.
I am still giving the 1015E three stars because it is a well designed unit that has a better processor in it than other netbooks comparable in size. If this is what you are looking for and are not doing things that require a lot of RAM, this unit has excellent battery life and instant-on features too.
Asus could be more clear in their literature and specs about upgradability, and of course Amazon could too. At least my review might prevent others from making the same mistake I did.
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