ASUS Eee PC 1018P

An aluminum design makes this one of the sexiest and sturdiest Thinkpad T60 Battery netbooks yet, but the ergonomics could be much better.

The pace of netbook innovation Vostro 1500 Battery has slowed to a virtual crawl in recent months as most vendors have settled on the same old 10.1-inch screen, Atom N450 CPU, 1GB of RAM, modest 5,400 rpm hard drive, and Windows 7 Starter OS. The main way to stand out in this market is through superior design and usability. The $379 Best Buy 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 price. However, its Vostro 1400 Battery cramped keyboard and stiff touchpad buttons make it a little unpleasant to use.

Design

The 2.4-pound, 10.3 x 7.1 x 0.9-inch Eee PC 1018P is definitely one of the thinner and lighter Latitude E4300 Battery netbooks on the market. It's nearly half a pound lighter and significantly thinner than 2.8-pound competitors like the Acer Aspire One 532h (1-inch thick), the Samsung N150 Plus (1.4-inches thick), and the Toshiba NB305 (1.4-inches thick). The classy, raven black chassis has an attractive brushed aluminum lid and deck, with a matching brushed plastic black bezel. The ASUS logo on the lid and the power, Wi-Fi on/off, and performance mode buttons add an attractive touch of silver. The entire system Latitude E6500 Battery is also 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 Latitude E5500 Battery cramped and uncomfortable. Not only is the right shift key undersized, but the rest of the keys are tiny and narrowly spaced. On the ten thumbs typing test, where we average 80 words-per-minute with a 1-percent error rate, we managed only 69 words Sony VGP-BPS9/B Battery per minute with a whopping 4-percent error rate, because we kept missing keys.

The 3 x 1.5-inch touchpad is certainly large enough, but when using it, the cursor occasionally Sony VGP-BPS9A/B Batteryjumped around the screen. At several points, the accuracy of the pad was so poor that it actually dragged scroll bars or windows down when we were moving our finger up. Worse, the single mouse button is one of the stiffest we've used, requiring us to use too much force. After clicking a few times, our index finger Acer Laptop Battery became sore. If you do buy this netbook, you'll wind up double tapping the touchpad a lot.

Heat

The Eee PC 1018P stayed pleasantly cool throughout our testing. After streaming a video at full screen for 15 minutes, we 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 good battery acceptable for any area on the top of the notebook and temperatures 100 degrees and below common for the bottom surface.