[gui-talk] netbook recommendation

[Wayne Merritt]

I have the Asus EEE PC 1000HE and use JAWS 10 on it. I love the
portability of the netbook and the fact that I can put the carry case
in a sleeve of my backpack and carry it wherever I go. The Asus 1000HE
has two function keys, 2 control keys, and one windows key. Between
the two function and 2 control keys, keyboard commands are quite easy
and no nonsense to use. There's no home/end or page up/down, but if
you use the function with the 4 arrows, you can memmick these missing
keys. Advertised battery life is 9.5 hours, but I've averaged around
7-8 hours. If you turn the screen off, you can gain more battery life.
You might also want to disable the touch pad, which is relatively easy
to do, since your focus will shift whenever any of your fingers
brushes against the mouse screen that's right below the keyboard. The
keyboard is very comfortable to type on. The hardest thing is
remembering the various quirks between my home computer, my work
computer and the netbook's different keyboards, grin. Over all, I'm
very satisfied with it. I'm looking forward to taking it to my state's
NFB convention next weekend and using the wireless in the hotel. Since
wireless is built in, connecting to a network is a snap, since the
netbook will pretty much go out and detect networks and then tell you
about it in a tool tip that pops up.

Wayne

On 10/19/09, Ted Shelly <tshelly at optonline.net> wrote:
> I recently got an HP 5101, which has a 10.5 inch screen.  I got the bigger
> battery and 2GB RAM.  It came with XP and runs all Windows software.  It is
> just a small, somewhat slow laptop without a CD drive and with much longer
> battery life.
>
> A weird thing about this machine is that the Fn (function) key works
> backwards from the way most laptops work.  The Fn key is to access the
> hardware features of the F keys on the top row of the keyboard.  Turning the
> volume up and down, For instance.  On most laptops you press the Fn key and
> one of the F keys to use these hardware functions.  On the HP, you have to
> press the Fn key to use the normal F keys in an application.  For instance,
> to close a window with alt-f4 you have to use the 3-key combination of
> alt-Fn-f4.  You can switch this behavior in the BIOS setup menu but you will
> need sighted help to do this.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Nimer
> Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 12:31 AM
> To: NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
> Subject: [gui-talk] netbook recommendation
>
> Hello,
>
> Sorry, I got ahead of myself and forgot to answer the original question.
> I have an acer aspire and have no issues with it. The speakers aren't the
> greatest, but they work fine for as small as the device is.
> Generally, the keyboard layout is simple. You want to check out the keyboard
> before you buy though, as some manufacturers do some strange things with
> their keyboards. Otherwise, I'd say get any brand, as I've heard good things
> about most of them. I know many recommend the acer and the samsungs, but as
> I said, as long as the keyboard feels good to you, the rest doesn't matter.
>
> Thanks
> Nimer J
>
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