"The only other gripe I really have with the Eee PC's keyboard is that it doesn't have an "eraser-head" pointing device. This ThinkPad throwback is a personal favorite of mine, and it's tragically under-used."

Then help bring back the Trackpoint! Here's a list of desktop keyboards with pointing sticks:

http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?t=402

but man, I'd love to have one on the eee, is there anyone at asus we can email and beg?

How does the 1.6Ghz Atom compare to the 900Mhz Celeron in older Eees? I have the sneaking suspicion that it might not nearly be the landslide (if a performance advantage at all) that nominal speed indicates...

Atom netbooks will be a lot more compelling with the proper chipset and maybe a dual-core Atom.

So basically it's the same width as a Thinkpad X61, but much thicker, much heavier, with a bunch of remaindered crap parts? Gee, let me think about it for a second.

Nope, still don't want it.

I'm really having a hard time seeing the value proposition here. Even at $550 this thing is not really cheap. It's cheaply made, yes, but not inexpensive. At this width it should have a 100% full size keyboard. As the author points out, track pads on this form factor are a joke. Track point would be dozens of times better. I could go on, but you get the idea. All of my friends who have the older Eee models leave them gather dust in the corner, next to the OLPC. They are cute, but just not useful. It makes much more sense to get a Thinkpad that has the same dimensions but can serve as a full-time, do-it-all main computer.

if the dell mininote comes out at $299 this thing is going to look way too expensive... even if it is better. that's all i have to say.

Couldn't you just remap the keys to get "your" ideal layout, or is there some inherent problem with remapping a shift key? (or ctrl or alt)

For me personally, the backslash, backspace and tab key positioning is more important than shifts, and this one has the "ideal" setup (and shape) of those.

I'm one of those "incorrect" typers that they used to smack hands with rulers to "fix", so I don't follow the usual patterns and pretty much always use the left shift regardless of which letter is capitalized. Teaching is one thing, but once you break a nice wpm limit and can actually spell, theres no need to force some BS control freak qwerty-vision on kids or anyone for that matter. (you older leftys that survived the "purges" growing up know what I mean)

I bought myself a MSI Wind a couple of weeks ago for uni. Never looked back. Greatest little beast ever. Doing visio, word, excel, email, browsing the web etc. all while at uni.

I have an eee 900, and have had problems typing due to both the up arrow/right shift problem and a similar problem with caps lock/left shift. So far as I can tell, there is no GUI tool to remap the keyboard under Linux, although it is supposed to be possible to do it from the command line. I believe there is such a tool for Windows.

It would be very helpful if some Linux guru would create and web simple instructions to:

Remap up arrow to be another right shift, remap option up arrow, or some other mod up arrow, to be up arrow.

Remap shift lock to be another left shift, remap some mod shift lock to be shift lock. This might not be needed for the 1000, with its larger keyboard.

I rarely use shift lock or up arrow, frequently use the shift keys, so this simple change would greatly increase the usability of the eee, at least for me.

If some kind person does it and wants to tell me about it, my email address is:

ddfr@daviddfriedman.com

Still too expensive. Why get this over the MSI Wind?

Screw the usual combo Atom+945G gimme Nano!

Does the 1000/1000H have built-in mic?

If the 1000H has a 1.8" (4300 rpm) hard drive I would highly recommend that prospective buyers steer clear of it. I happen to use the Thinkpad X40 for work which is the only model (I think) in the history of Thinkpads to use a 1.8" drive and it is SLOOOOOW. When this thing starts swapping I may as well get up and take a 5 minute break because I cannot get any work done anyway until it settles down.

Maybe newer 1.8" drives have improved speeds, but I will NEVER-EVER-EVER-EVER buy a computer with a 1.8" HDD again.

I have a 701. For what it is, its a decent little machine.

However, ASUS is really dropping the ball when it comes to service. I had to send it in, and it was exchanged for a whole new machine (which is apparently standard procedure with the EEEs "in order to reduce customer downtime", or so the rep I chatted with said). The machine was shipped back Fed Ex Home Delivery so I had to go back to their delivery center on a weekend to pick the machine up from them. Wireless on the replacement machine was totally inoperative. Now I have to send the 2nd machine back to them.

If they were really serious about "reducing customer down time" they'd have an advanced exchange system in place. Or actually doing service on the machines instead of just swapping them out.

The article alludes to this... If you don't like the price, get the 1000H with the conventional hard drive - $150 cheaper.

Too pricey for its segment methinks... not comfy enough to be a main computer or even main laptop, not cheap enough to be a second laptop.

I don't mind the right shift key placement. But maybe that has something to do with me being left handed and I favor the left shift key more anyways. hehe

Nice review. Thanks Geoff.

I own a 701 and seeing this, I'd love to trade it in for this one. That said, the 701 is a bit of a trooper with no pretensions and I reckon I'll be using it for years to come.

I really can't wait until new panels with even higher resolutions start getting whacked into these things. 10 inch screens are fine but I'd love a few more pixels upways.

While the Eee PC 1000 isn't exactly bursting at the seams with expansion and connectivity options, it has more of them than a MacBook Air, which is good for a chuckle.

And out among the Apple Faithful, millions of voices suddenly cried out in horror...

I confess as soon as I got to the part about the 945 chipset I stopped reading...

So how is the readability of the screen in daylight?

edit: bonus cookies if you manage to take a photograph of your 14" dell and the 1000 next to each other on a park bench <3

That shift key would be a deal breaker for me. It's not as bad on a machine that I wouldn't be using for coding, but I still use that key enough in daily internet usage that it would kill me. (Especially writing anything that required HTML tags).

Unless you can remap it. Is the keyboard a PS/2 device? If so, it's trivial to remap keys under Windows. It's probably easy to do it even with the oddball bundled Linux distro. Then you just have to pry the key tops off and swap them (assuming they fit) or just live with mislabled keys.

It's just a little too expensive to be that "chuck in the bag" computer that should be the aim of the EeePC. Also maybe a tiny bit too large. But I guess that options are good, and this will appeal to someone who has different priorities.

I think this is an Eee too far, over spec'ed & over priced for a netbook. They might try to brand this as a netbook but it's really in laptop pricing category. It's small but that keyboard would be a pain unless you were using it all the time so got used to not having a right shift key.

Having been using the 700 now for over 3 months I don't see the need for all these other models. The only think missing from the 700 is a built in webcam + mic for skype, it doesn't need anything else. A larger screen would be nice but not essential. As 7" - 10" screens are fine for short stints when looking at the web, but I wouldn't sit in front of one for more then 40 minutes before my eyes start to get really tired.

That said it's a nice piece of equipment, just a little to expensive to get me excited enough to open the wallet.