Pros
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+ Battery life! I doubt any other model offers an 11 hour battery life at this price point (9). If you only surf the net, write reports, or do simple tasks, on a slightly dimmer backlight, you can well get up to 10.5hrs. However, other intensive tasks with a brighter view can cut the battery life in half (~6 hours), which is still good.

+ Keyboard - I like the feel of it, and it doesn’t feel as cramped. I have slightly smaller than average hands, but it works well. I prefer non-chiclet style, as this netbook is.

+Trackpad- I’m glad this one didn’t come with bumpy surface. I tried it at a local BB, and didn’t really like the feel of it. I also don’t mind the single bar layout for the left and right clicks.

+LCD- This one comes with the matte LCD style. I thought it would be less sharper or poorer viewing angles, but it seems sharp enough for me.

+Chassis- I love the latticework/non-glossy look. Doesn’t attract any fingerprints and it doesn’t look plasticy.

Cons
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- Battery Charger - I wasn’t going to order ASUS unless I was sure that the problem was fixed, but I decided to just gamble. Unfortunately, I got the worst brand. There seems to be 3 different types of chargers. One from Enertronix (high failure rate due to a overheating problem that shuts off the charger and making it unusable), one from delta (the best one- doesn’t seem to have any failure rates)- and one from PI Electronics (not sure about this one). It works for now, but many users have reported it comes DOA or fails within 1-3 months. * More about this down below*

- No N-wireless while the Acer alternative with the same price point has this option

- Windows 7 Starter. Sucks. Amazon needs to fix this; The technical details say that it comes with Win7, but the Specifications says Win XP Home.

Neutral
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- No netbook sleeve, I purchased a separate one from Amazon.

- Comes with crappy outside cardboard box.

***More about the battery charger. As I’ve mentioned, I got the crappy one. It’s specific model is Enertronix #EXA0901XH. If ASUS readily replaced this, it wouldn’t be much of a concern. But, users in various forums have reported that ASUS’s crappy customer service and lack of, as well as weeks or months of backordered chargers prevented them from getting a new one. In addition, ASUS doesn’t pay for shipping back the failed battery charger. However, if you get lucky and get any of the other two charger models, there seems to be no problem.

However, it seems that most people found a temporary solution. I’ll try to relay the knowledge I’ve gained about these solutions. First, it seems that the faulty charger lies within an overheating problem and a mechanism for turning the charger off (but not back on). So you can alleviate this problem by temporarily allowing your charger to cool down after each use and if that doesn’t work, putting it in the refrigerator for ~10-20 minutes. Other users have also mentioned that the charger will fail quicker, if multiple input locations are used. So if you keep plugging in and out the charger at different outlets, it often fails.

Despite the problem with the charger, the netbook itself is great, and even with its shortcomings, I decided to take a plunge. Whether it turns out to be a problem or not, time will tell.

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Update as of 2-13-2010/about 2 weeks into purchase

- My charger still works fine, although it runs pretty hot. I’ve attached an heatsink from an old video card (not sure if this helps any), and I haven’t really been using the charger anywhere else except in my bedroom.
- The matte screen, although great for outside, I am starting to see the lack in brightness compared to a glossy at a bright setting. The viewing angle is also pretty limited but most of the times you’ll be look straight ahead.
- I’ve also noticed that the battery is very heavy so that the weight of the whole netbook is not equally distributed, but slightly heavier towards the battery, but its not a concern on flat surfaces.
- I have used coreAVC to try resolutions of 720p on .mkv and .avi and they worked fine. However, the cpu will run at 95-100%. Also, it has much difficulty running multiple flash embedded sites (for example, trying to run youtube and omgpop or hulu at the same time).
- Battery life is still good, and I haven’t seen any noticeable decreases. One thing I’ve noticed is that it takes a while for the system to estimate your battery life depending on your usage style.
- I will be using this netbook more extensively, so more updates will be posted. So far so good.