Buy ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005PE-PU17-BU 10.1-Inch Blue Netbook (Up to 14 Hours of Battery Life)

I ordered this PC for a family member. Thanks to quizzing on the expectations of a small laptop followed by quite a bit of research of what is available, I made the right choice. The ASUS eee won out over comparable mini PC's offered by HP and Toshiba.

FEEDBACK: The recipient family member has made numerous statements such as "I love this PC" and "It is so light to carry" and "It runs so much faster than my desktop" and "Connecting wirelessly is so simple" and "Windows 7 is nice, looks a lot like XP" and "since the battery lasts so long, I can leave the power cord at home" and "It is going to make so many things so much easier".

OPTIONS: We ordered a protective mini PC sleeve. We also immediately upgraded the RAM from the installed 1GB to 2GB. There is only one memory slot thus the original 1GB chip is around as a spare/backup. To make the laptop recognize the additional RAM, we had to go into the BIOS and save the settings again (despite not making any changes). Then all was good.

HARD DRIVE: The hard drive is advertised as 160 GB. However, the unit came with it divided into three virtual drives. Two are used for restoring the C: drive to factory settings. Thus, the C: is only about 100 GB. That is still lots of storage space unless one needs to store many videos or other such mega sized files.

BATTERY: The battery life is very good. The Windows tray icon gives the estimated battery time left in hours and minutes.

SCREEN: The 10.1 inch screen is pretty good despite its small size and low resolution. Depending on the eyes, reader glasses might be needed.

HEAT: I did encounter several reviewer comments about the unit getting warm on the legs (if you truly use it as a laptop). However, the heat is not unbearable, just noticeable.

MISSING: The only thing that is missed on this laptop is CD/DVD unit. We are looking for one that can plug into the USB ports (it will take two ports with an external unit that is not powered by other means). Speaking of USB ports, the unit has three. Targus offers on Amazon a 4-for-1 where it plugs into one USB port then four separate USB ports are available from it.

ASUS REPUTATION: From my research I found that ASUS has the best customer rating of all PC makers, period. And by quite a margin too.

BOTTOM LINE: All in all, a great choice that has generated lots of smiles and thank you's.Get more detail about ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005PE-PU17-BU 10.1-Inch Blue Netbook (Up to 14 Hours of Battery Life).