As I predicted last year, my Asus Eee 1008HA has proven to be a little too fragile, although what failed wasn’t exactly as I’d thought. When I was back in Ethiopia at the end of May, the casing started to come away from the screen:
Whilst there was an unnerving cracking noise whenever I opened the lid, it still worked ok, but after another couple of weeks, the screen failed completely. The machine itself was still usable, providing I plugged it into an external monitor, but was proving to be rather useless for travelling:
So I’ve just bought myself anther new laptop, this time a Lenovo ThinkPad X220:
I’m running Ubuntu on it (11.04) and all installed very easily, no messing around with configurations/patches to get any of the hardware (webcam/wireless etc) working which I’ve had before. All the special keys worked out of the box with no extra configuration. The only very slight comment I’d have is that it has combined speaker and mic jack socket rather than a separate one for each.
Feels good to have a proper laptop rather than just using a netbook as I have been for the last 3 years or so. Although the X220 is still quite small and light it vastly more powerful!
On returning from Ethiopia (the second time – at Easter), my little Asus Eee PC 701 was really starting to show signs of wear – after heavy use for the previous 2 years, the trackpad buttons had started to go, plus the space bar was getting far less than responsive. So just before I returned I ordered a new Asus Eee 1008HA which arrived a day or so after I arrived back in the UK. The increased screen size, disk size and slightly larger keyboard have all been great, but there have been a few things that I’m not so keen on:
- the USB ports are too far recessed for some of my devices (notably the CDMA mobile internet dongle) to be properly inserted, so I end up using a small USB hub or extension lead. Plus there are only 2 USB ports
- It feels a little too fragile. The 701 was chunkier and so felt more solid, with this I feel I should be wrapping it in cotton wool before I put it in my bag. The monitor adapter (the VGA dongle) and network port, plus the covers for the USB and headphone sockets, all feel as if they’ll break easily.
- There’s not an easy way to upgrade the RAM. I had seen a video on YouTube on how you can open it up, but it’s not just a case of unscrewing a panel and popping in a new stick of RAM.
The reason I’d bought another Asus Eee was because of my experience with the first and I’d basically bought the 1008HA without having seeing one for real. Although I’ve not had any issues with the new machine in the nearly 3 months I’ve owned it, it only feels like a matter of time 
