** Quick Review **

I hope you guys don't mind me spouting about this. I picked one up in a Walmart on Friday. Not all stores will sell them though, so you just have to show up and get lucky and hope they didn't code it for sale after “XXXX” date.

This is the form-factor I've been waiting for, even if it's not perfection in terms of hardware. Great screen and a truly full-size keyboard. The higher resolution (1366 x 768) display is a godsend. I no longer feel like I'm looking at the web through a mail-slot! It's the full picture! Great for working in MS Excel and much more pleasing for web browsing and multitasking.

And the full-size keyboard is nice. Although the keys are very flat, meaning you can't easily feel where one key ends and the next begins, you get used to it quickly. The touchpad rocker-button is not ideal, however. You have to jam your finger below the level of the case to get it to click. Honestly, it's just barely acceptable. I usually click by tapping the touchpad surface, but it annoys me when I have to use the rocker-button to click-and-drag, like when resizing windows. Also, the surface of the touchpad isn't as slick as I'd like, but if you turn up the pointer speed it works well.

I got about 3 hrs and 15 minutes of battery life on the first charge while web browsing and installing software with brightness at 2-clicks above the lowest. Very reasonable for a 3-cell. You can obviously get much better battery life from many 6-cell netbooks, but I honestly didn't want to make this computer any larger (the 6-cell version sticks out the back). Plus Walmart only sells the 3-cell version as far as I can tell.

Mine came with 2GB of RAM, 250 GB HDD, and Windows Vista. I almost didn't buy it because of Vista. But I'm quite relieved to learn that it's fine. For the most part, it feels equally 'zippy' (or equally slow) as an MSI Wind running Windows XP. It opens Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc in about 3 seconds each. Quite reasonable. The place where it feels really slow is when a major task is happening. If you are installing software for instance, and want to open the control panel, be prepared to wait! If you want to move a window while loading another program, you have to wait a few seconds. Not awful, but you can feel the “lag” a little bit more than if it were running XP. I have not tested it yet with full-screen YouTube video or with Hulu.

Overall, though the benefits of the form-factor still outweigh the imperfections of the hardware. Working on an 11.6″ screen is just worlds better working on a 10-inch 1024×600 netbook display.

One early review said the keyboard was “flexy”. I disagree. It feels on par with other netbooks I've used. That same review also said the screen was easy to distort while moving it on the hinge. I have not seen that at all. Maybe they got a pre-production unit? This feels at least as solid as the MSI Wind U100. Very reasonable for a budget computer. Aesthetically, it looks more expensive than it is.

If this machine had a flush-fitting 6-cell battery and a better rocker-bar for the touchpad, it would be nearly perfect. As it is, it's a machine with a few flaws. For me, the benefits of a larger, higher-resolution screen (1366×768) and a full-size keyboard outweigh the negatives. But that may not be a trade-off everyone is willing to take.

Pros:
- Beautiful screen with great horizontal viewing angles
- Full-size keyboard
- Lightweight (2.7 lbs with three cell battery)
- Only slightly larger than many 6-cell netbooks
- Very sharp looking system
- Reasonably solid in terms of build quality (contrary to one early review)

Cons:
- Slower 1.33 GHz processor (not very noticeable speed difference)
- three cell battery only gives a bit over 3 hrs of runtime
(and six cell battery sticks out the the rear of the case)
- touchpad rocker button is lousy
- touchpad surface has some drag
- keyboard keys are very flat
- arrow keys are small, despite full-size keyboard

Overall: It's the first 11.6″ netbook available in the U.S. and the form-factor is a winner! However, you'll have to live with some minor compromises. For me, the benefits of the larger form-factor outweigh the downsides. I can never go back to a 10″ netbook again. But, some people will prefer smaller size and greater battery life to a more usable screen and keyboard.

I saw it at Costco this morning, great form factor. I have big hands and I was thinking about getting a 10″ hp, but I think I'll go for 11.6″ now. It was $349, 1GB, 160GB, 2 year mfr warranty. Listed at 2.75 lb

high res screen looked great.

UPDATE: It seems that the slower Z520 processor with Windows Vista can't handle full-screen youtube videos. I just tried it today. According to this guy (links below), switching to Windows XP fixes this. So, if full-screen YouTube videos is important to you, get the version with Windows XP.

http://www.youtube.com/user/randysrandomreviews

Thanks for the info. It was my understanding that the problem with streaming video is with Flashplayer, which does not support full hardware acceleration of streaming videos. Supposedly they are working on this, but the plans are for sometime in 2010! That's quite a wait!

But yes, I understand that downloaded videos can be played using players that support hardware decoding.