I've used this laptop for about 3 months now running the version of Windows Vista that came installed as well as a 64bit version of Ubuntu.First off, it is a fantastic size and is easy to carry around. The primary reason I purchased it was for its small size. For my uses (web browsing some programming and some casual media usage) the size is ideal.
The display is crisp and very bright. Colors look good, if a bit over saturated and contrasty, but it's glossy and reflects badly in a bright room. You can't use it with a window at your back it reflects too much to see.
The keyboard is slightly smaller than normal but I found it relatively easy to type on although the keys don't give great feedback and make fast touch typing difficult.
It came loaded with 64bit Vista Home Premium which took many hours of downloading and installing updates before it was fully up to spec. It also comes with a lot of annoying bundled software that had to be removed. It has a 500mb drive (465mb usable) that allowed plenty of space to also install Linux (Ubuntu). Ubuntu ran acceptably well. The main advantage of running Ubuntu on this machine is that the laptop boots to a usable state in around one minute with Ubuntu instead of the 3.5 minutes it takes to boot Vista and get it to a point where it will allow you to start a program.
The are two primary problems with this laptop. The AMD Neo processor is just slow. 64bit doesn't help it. It's simply a wimp. It feels barely faster than a netbook. The CPU winds up to 100% usage when running most programs and runs its fan speed up with it which is quite loud. The fan never really dies down and makes quite a bit of noise even when the CPU is running under 15% (which is rare). Unless your viewing a web page with no flash the processor is working at over 50% all the time. This results in the second problem which is very poor battery life. I average about 2 hours of battery life which in an ultra-portable laptop is unacceptable to me. I've been looking for an extended battery but the only one available is some non-HP import from China on *bay.
This is supposed to be a media laptop but it can't display media full screen in Vista (either movies displayed from iTunes or NBC, Hulu etc.) without jerky video. Completely unacceptable for a "wm" windows media laptop. Full screen media runs slightly better on this under Linux. Also the speakers are pathetic. Full volume requires a quiet room to hear clearly and they are both located on the left half of the front of the laptop so there is no stereo field. At first I thought the right speaker was dead then I realized the right speaker is located right next to the left speaker... sad.
More little "nits" are they shiny black plastic of the case and palm area is a fingerprint magnet and if you the least bit of a clean freak it will drive you nuts. It also has some little stupid designs silkscreened into the palm area that are embarrassing if your a hetero-male. The trackpad offers a "scrolling" region but it's very flaky and doesn't offer smooth scrolling in either Windows or Linux so it's related to the hardware. Also the trackpad is flush with the top of the laptop and you can't feel when you're moving your finger off the track area. The trackpad buttons are difficult to press and are flush with the top making pressing them with your thumb awkward.
The external CD/DVD drive is a bit kludgy and the cable is so short that it is difficult to orient sometimes if your not seated at a clear desk. I haven't tried using the Lightscribe capability of the drive yet so no comment on that however it's been very picky about the type of DVD's it will successfully write to.
Overall a very poor implementation. I wish I'd bought a netbook. A netbook would have been hundreds cheaper and offered nearly the same computing experience.
Loud Fanthat runs almost 100% of the time it is powered on
Heats up so much that you have to use it on a surface other than your lap ZERO PORTABILITY
Poor media environmentSolid product. A little slow loading up but a good product nonetheless. I was happy with purchase. It was worth the price.
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