Asus EEE Netbook Computer

As many of my classmates have noticed (and been told many, many times), I just recently purchased a $350 10" netbook computer. Its specs include the new Intel Atom processor, a 160 GB standard hard drive, 1 gig of RAM, a 6 cell battery (claiming up to 7hrs of battery life), and it runs Windows XP. Even though the keyboard is not quite full-sized, I haven't had issues touch typing on it, except that the right shift button is positioned to the right of the up arrow which causes issues sometimes.

Rather than utilizing precious real estate, the keyboard employs a function key much more heavily than many I have seen. In fact, there is a full number pad contained within the standard keyboard activated by the function key. Other function keys include sleep, volume controls, screen settings, and internet activation.

The newest feature for me is the slightly increased versatility of the trackpad. The "Smart-Pad" which is protected by IP and owned by Elantech Devices Corporation offers "The magic of Multi-Fingers." It's nowhere near the capabilities of the iPod touch and iPhone, but since I don't own any multi-touch technology until now, the littlest features are somewhat exciting. So what are the capabilities?

1. Taping - 1 finger (left button), two-finger (middle button), and three-finger (pop-up menu, or right click)
2. Scrolling - using 2 fingers in a dragging motion will activate either vertical or horizontal scrolling
3. Zooming - a 2 finger gesture towards or away from each other will activate shrink and expand buttons which can be set to minimize/maximize windows, page up/down, zoom in/out
4. Rotation - a 2 finger rotation gesture can activate clockwise and counterclockwise buttons that can be set to rotate, page up/down, or minimize/maximize windows
5. Drag and Drop - gesture to drag an object
   
6. Magnifying Glass - a complicated two finger gesture (tap and hold with 1 finger, tap twice with the second) will activate a magnifying window on the screen
7. Swipe Page - a 3 finger gesture swipe either left or right will perform page up and page down operation
8. Fast Keys - a 3 finger gesture swipe either up or down will activiate the My Computer folder or tab between windows

My 17" laptop that I've had for 1.5 yrs, and even my laptop before that one, had the capability to allow clicking to be accomplished using the trackpad, but the feature annoyed me so much that I turned it off. I would consistently click things when I didn't mean to, and it would ultimately slow me down. But, I'm giving it a try on this new computer. I'm still accidently clicking when I don't intend to, but I'm getting better at it.

While I've being try to get used to the single tapping instead of clicking, many of the other touch-pad functions, while they seem somewhat intuitive, are very hard to keep straight. When trying to learn them, I often use the wrong number of fingers or the wrong direction. There has to be a better way to do it, I'm just not sure what it is.

Also, since I have the touchpad clicking on one computer and not the other, sometimes I get frustrated when it doesn't work on my 17" computer until I realize that it's not turned on and I don't want it to be.

Lastly, on the new netbook, the mouse buttons that are located just below the trackpad are actually clicked from the front of the netbook instead of from the top. I've found this, so far, to be much more ergonomic and comfortable.