I've had the Asus 1000HE for about 2 months now, and the battery life is amazing. I can get 5-6 hours easily while using the internet.

I have tried turning off the bluetooth and wifi, and it gets close to the 9.5 hours claim.

I am very happy with it, and I EDC it every day as well in a Countycomm Bug out Bag. I hardly notice the weight, and I hardly noticed the smaller keyboard.

By the way benjammin, I have successfully copied CD's to a flash drive and installed them that way. I will most likely get the external CD drive eventually too, but for now, I haven't had any problems just copying to the flash drive and then installing directly from it onto my netbook.

I picked up a Dell mini-9 about a month ago. They had a special running, so I got myself one with Ubuntu, 1GB RAM and 8GB SSD; one for the wife with XP, 1GB RAM, and 16GB SSD. Came to a little over $600 for both, after tax and shipping. So far, we love them. In fact, I was so impressed with the Ubuntu Linux distro I've gone and redone my webserver with Linux after 8 years on Windows Server.

I occasionally throw this in the bag with my 15.4" work laptop, since it gives me more flexibility. The total lack of moving parts (and noise) is very nice...

Yeah, but don't you just hate it when some non-geek asks you what :wq means at the end of the email you just sent (no, it's not a smiley!)

Like I say, the stock batt pack is good for a nominal 2.5 hours. I plan to upgrade to the 6 cell pack soon, which will give me a solid 5 hours of run time off the grid. That is plenty for my commuting and incidental work.

It does okay for Powerpoint, though embedded video could be over the top for the little fella. It will handle SVGA output for projectors quite well, although you'll have to scroll the LCD screen separately in order to see as much as the projector will show.

All in all, I find it an exquisite complement to my LGH laptop and would also do well supporting a main workstation or home desktop. It wasn't meant to replace what we'd consider a regular unit, but it fills a niche that I needed filling for a couple years now.

BTW, since I added the 3G to my existing AT&T account, I got an 18% discount on the monthly fee, so even with taxes it would still be pretty competitive.

Just snagged a Dell Vostro 15" for $650.
35% off Coupon
35$ instant off
Free shipping (called and asked)

Regular price was way more than I would have spent... I get by without a lap top but my "business" requires me to be online. Now that I like 1hr away from the city I've come to realize every time I leave my house I need to have access to a computer and the internet... so I decided to get the laptop I already have 2 air cards.

For 650 this laptop screams.. dual core 2.5ghz, 3gb ram, wxga+ anti-glare 15", etc, etc. oh, and the best part, 3yr warranty! So in 2years I can sell it for 350 or so!

Now I just need to pay my Verizon bill with my amex to save 5% off!

I may add a 3rd Air card ( I have 1 from verizon now and 1 from millinicon [uses vz network but no contract]) just so I don't go over the limit.. darn 25cent/mb overage SUCKS! And its cheaper to add more cards than upgrade.. lame.

Anyway.
Where I live Verizon is the ONLY network that gets service.. cell and internet.

Where do you get millinicon cards?

https://members.millenicom.com/members/signup.php?clienttype=18&package=53


I haven't used it much but so far so good.
Depending where you are I believe you can use Verizon or Sprint network

They say unlimited but it's a soft limit and they WILL cancel if you use a TON of transfer they said, so that part is lame... but hey no contract

I'm using a Bastard Dell Inspiron 1100, that I got for free from a friend.

I upgraded the memory, partitioned the hard drive, took out a USB slot (for more cooling on the one I kept), put in a small fan, and took out VISTA and installed windows XP and linux (which I'm still learning about) as a dual boot.

I use an At&T 3G card, and get reception everywhere here in suburban PA. And I burn things to CD rom. I have two batteries, and a 12 volt adapter.

So yeah, this I think is a useful device for a while. It crashes all the time, as it is so Frankenstein, but I can pretty much fix it without help as I know its quirks. I just hate viruses. I've spent many a night after getting infected picking through screens of process monitoring trying to find those damn DLLs.

I'd probably grab it, at least for the car in a BO situation. If I could drag up a printer, I'd have publishing capability for manuals, guides and a newspaper. Valuable trade goods.

So Ben...It has been about a month since your purchase. How is it working out? It looks I will be going back to school in the fall, compliments of Uncle Sam and the Post 9/11 GI Bill. I was looking at one of these micro/minis to use on campus for the word processing mostly.

This little unit is going great. I have been using it on the train with no problems. I use it as an alternate when my main computer is VPN connected. I am gettting used to the smaller keyboard, and the screen size. It sure is nice carrying 15 lbs less to/from work. For $50, this has been the best computer investment I think I've ever made.