Schprlock,

Cold boot times (mm:ss)

1. 00:00   Turn on device
2. 00:47   Windows logon screen
3. 01:01   Logon (swipe finger print)
4. 01:21   Desktop (still loading services and systray icons)
5. 02:37   Finished loading systray icons (desktop ready for use)

Wake up from sleep

1. 00:00 Turn on device
2. 00:16 Desktop ready for use

Notes

• I've set paging file to 1488MB for both min & max size, and then used Sysinternals' PAGEDEFRAG to get a single paging file.
• Visual effect is set to best performance.
• Have not turned off system restore for all drives (may get faster due to less disk activity)
• Additional systray icons/services loaded are Symantec Antivirus Corp Edition client, next to ASUS's default services/tools.

One or two times I have use hibernation, but that didn't give me a comfy feeling. I had to reboot the device to get rid of unexpected behaviour (slow device).

Sleep mode - For now I'm to eager to use the R2H; Can't let it 'laying' around doing nothing ;-)

Roel

Thanks a lot for your reply.

2 minutes is a long time... It's ok for a laptop, and it will be fine when I use it as a laptop, but a long time for a quick check.

16 seconds sounds very useful, if the battery holds sleep mode for a while.

Anyway, I can't wait to get my hans on mine. I think optimizing boot time will be my first priority.
Was that after a clean installation? As I add software to it those times will probably increase.
That's a pitty about the problems with hibernation. Maybe further upgrades will help fix that.

As for battery time in sleep mode, I totally understand you. I think the same thing will happen when I get mine.

On a different subject, has anybody seen any details on the 4hr battery? It's specifications appear on asus site, but I am curious about price and form factor.

Hello to you all,

Quite unexpected i could buy the R2H at a small local computer shop. They recieved just two models and i could lay my hands on the first one.

I have the device for three days now and i am quite impressed. It took me quite some time to configure it the way i like it and to discover the different aspects of it, but i am very happy now.

For a device like this i considder it quite snappy. Especially when the programs are already loaded, or were loaded a while ago. I have not removed Norton internet security suit yet, because i am going to do al lot of surfing and i want the maximum protection. On my other computers i use this suit also and never had any problems with virusses or the like. Even with the suite it is snappy enough. When you have no internet connection, you can temporarily disable it.

I have installed the following applications until now:
- Complete microsoft office.
- Mindjet Mindmanager
- OneNote
- Inscribe from Illium Sofware
- WinTasks
- SpeedUpMyPC
- Notebook Hardware Control. (NHC)

I am still busy further configuring the device. According to NHC, it looks like the device is not using the speedstep function. The processor is constantly running 900MHZ. Maybe it is possible to do something in the BIOS. The manual says something about this.

With WinTasks you can disable the startup of some processes. The point is, wich processes are neccesary and wich not. Want to investigate this further.

With SpeedUpMyPC you can for instance free up RAM or speed up your internet connection.

The hibernation function is working very well in my situation. I have no problems with it. It takes about 40 seconds to get out of hybernation. I am happy with that, because a cold start takes certainly about 3 to 3,5 minutes. (without the NORTON suite about 2,5) 

I like the OneNote application very much. You can use the specific tablet features very well here.

I was disappointed by the Phatware 'PenOffice' product. The inking experience is not good.

I like the handwriting possibillities. Even when there is no dutch dictionary, it recognises the handwriting quite well. I will build up my own dictionary gradually, so the handwriting will be recognised better.

Well, that is it for now. When i discover interesting things i let you know.

Regards,
Henri

 

 

The reason you are seeing a constant 900Mhz is because the celeron doesnt have the speedstep functions. It does not have the power management like the pentium m.  I think it feels snappier as a result. my q1 is the same. I get 5.5 hours battery with the extended and low backlight s i am happy.

Roypierce,

Congratulations with your R2H. Just curious, did your's come with a webcam and/or bluetooth?

R

R,

No, my R2H also does not have bluetooth and a webcam. Would have been nice, but not really a big problem. I like the USB-keyboard more, but would have been very nice if more RAM was included.

I used to take a laptop with me to my work. It seemed to get heavier every day. Now i carry the R2H with me and i must say it allmost feels like carrying an empty bag. Excellent.

Regards,
Henri. 

I would like to know if the r2h makes noise when it is on (fans, harddisk)? It would be brilliant if the it is very silent.

Mark

Mark,

It depends on how much other noise there is. If it is very silent, you can hear the soft sound of the fan and sometimes a soft (click?) of the hard disk. In the office for instance, where there is always some other noise, you almost hear no fan or hard disk.

Further, i like to say, that Asus did a good job with the controls on the device. With the page up, page down, control-stick,'line up line down, left mouse button, right mouse button, fingerprint Sensor, it is very convenient to control the Asus without the stylus. Also, i would like to mention, that you can very good write on the screen with the stylus. You can lay your hand on the screen, without the problem of disturbing the writing process. For me this is important, because i want to use the tablet functions of the R2H as much as possible. I am very impressed by the handwriting recognition. It recognizes my handwriting for about 99%. I wrote this reply with my stylus and had to make all most no correction.

Regards, Henri

Congrats! They really are useful little machines.

After using it for a week and a half or so, I find it very useful. It does everything I'd do on my laptop and the added tablet functionality adds an extra dimension. Taking notes with the pen is very natural and I use it all day. I used to carry around a biiiig binder with documents, notes, etc. Now I can do it all on the UMPC. I don't lose my notes, I can easily cross-reference between documents and applications... and best of all, it's fun to use.

I also got a ton of positive comments - and weird looks - from my coworkers. Once the prices drop and battery life increases, I could see everyone carrying one in the office.

I got mine yesterday - just happened to be in a small computer shop and they had just one available - so I bought it on the spot.

General impressions: the hardware is very nicely built and complete. I had not planned on buying the machine so I had no idea of the specs or any expectations. Generally I was not disapointed though it is obvious it is not running at 2GHz!!!

My biggest concern at the moment is the software "features". My initial impression is that there are too many cooks in the kitchen. There are Asus, Intel and Microsoft utilities everywhere - and no clear purpose or division of labour between them. The Asus utilities in particular seem very haphazard.
* There is an app for the built-in webcam (which is not fitted to this model) which tells you there is no camera fitted - but then crashes!
* There are a couple of desktop shortcuts to Asus utilities that don't seem to do anything.
* The screen can either be like a normal screen: the higher the resolution, the smaller the pictures, or you can have a panning mode where the pictures stay the same size but disappear off the edge of the screen untill the cursor get to that edge then the whole screen pans. Only I have no idea how you change between the modes. When I got the machine, it was in 'panning' mode and *somehow* I managed to change it to 'normal' mode - but I don't know how and I can't find any way to get back.
* There is an Asus WLAN utility that always wants to take over from the Microsoft Network manager. Once I let it, I could not connect to the network anymore. It refused to accept the passphrase that worked on my other 2 PCs and the initial network setup on the Asus. And ther is no way of turning the utility off once it has taken over. I had to uninstall the utility, reboot and reinstall the drivers without accepting it's new request to take over the network.
* The rotate option seems to be a submenu of the Intel graphics manager. But it has disappeared from mine. When it did work, the pen calibration is off and the thumbstick cursor control does NOT change it's operation, so pushing the control up makes the cursor move left (what was up in landscape mode).
* As someone mentioned above, you can calibrate the pen - but although there are options for calibrating both landscape and portrait modes, all attempts to calibrate portrait result in a warning that the screen resolution is too low - even though it is set the highest value.
* The Intel Taskbar graphics menu had (they have disappeared now) a submenu with 3 options for 'Full screen, No border & Normal Aspect ratio' (or something like that). None of these options seemed to do anything!

Sorry if the review sounds more like a rant! I should reiterate that generally I am pleased with the Asus. The hardware has potential within the obvious limitations of the format and current technology - but a lot needs to be done on the software "Out of Box Experience" to make it acceptable to the general public.

Hi David W,

you are quite right about the utilities fuzz. Especially the Asus utilities. Most of them can be deinstailed, or disabled. I still don't know enough about all of them, for instance multiframe or life frame.

The graphics properties and options can be obtained by holding your stylus on the Desktop for a short moment(until you can see a mouse icon), and then releasing it. This is infact a right mouse click. You can see a submenu then with the graphics options.

 The best way to change resolutions is to use the function key on the bottom right corner.

 I think it is best to use the rotation function of the application  itself  if it has one.   Like for instance Adobe Acrobat.

 

Regards, Henri

 

Hi Henri,

Thanks, But I knew where to find the Graphics Options. The problem is that the available options change depending on some undefined parameters! I was just showing it to a friend and managed to get the rotation submenu to re-appear - apparently by changing the mode from Quiet Office to Super. However, once they had re-appeared, they stayed even when going back to the Quiet Office mode. The real problems started when I applied rotation though. All the menus, taskbar, dialogs were squashed beyond belief. The mouse that still thinks it's landscape and the cursor that doesn't match the pen position made it a real nightmare to get back. When I did (by using an external mouse turned 90deg), the UMPC settings dialog (the one that fades in and out - as if the system wasn't slow enough already!) had totally lost the plot and was about 4 times bigger than the screen!
The lesson for me is that Portrait mode is to be avoided at all costs!!!

One other quirk I noticed when shutting down, you have a 'Standby' button which (according to the hint) will Hibernate if you hold down Shift while clicking it. What idiot thought that a Shift key combination would be a good idea on a device intended to be used without a keyboard!!!!

Speaking of Standby and Hibernate, my laptop has 2 special buttons for Standby and Hibernate. When I press them the Laptop stops more-or-less immediety. Something like that on the Asus (a 2 sec push of the Power button?) would be nice. Once you do manage to activate it, I have the feeling it takes the Asus longer to go into standby than it does to start up!

When putting the R2H in standby mode, or just shutting it down, do you guys have to "end task" a couple of (ASUS?) processes as well, before it really shuts down?

R

 

rovinge:

When putting the R2H in standby mode, or just shutting it down, do you guys have to "end task" a couple of (ASUS?) processes as well, before it really shuts down?

R

 

No. I think those processes were from the Norton security suite since I haven't seen them after removing Norton. You can just leave the "end task" dialogues and wait a few seconds for the processes to terminate. I think Norton is a bit slow in responding to the shutdown signal.

Cheers! Stefan.

DavidW:

Hi Henri,

Thanks, But I knew where to find the Graphics Options. The problem is that the available options change depending on some undefined parameters! I was just showing it to a friend and managed to get the rotation submenu to re-appear - apparently by changing the mode from Quiet Office to Super. However, once they had re-appeared, they stayed even when going back to the Quiet Office mode. The real problems started when I applied rotation though. All the menus, taskbar, dialogs were squashed beyond belief. The mouse that still thinks it's landscape and the cursor that doesn't match the pen position made it a real nightmare to get back. When I did (by using an external mouse turned 90deg), the UMPC settings dialog (the one that fades in and out - as if the system wasn't slow enough already!) had totally lost the plot and was about 4 times bigger than the screen!
The lesson for me is that Portrait mode is to be avoided at all costs!!!

One other quirk I noticed when shutting down, you have a 'Standby' button which (according to the hint) will Hibernate if you hold down Shift while clicking it. What idiot thought that a Shift key combination would be a good idea on a device intended to be used without a keyboard!!!!

Speaking of Standby and Hibernate, my laptop has 2 special buttons for Standby and Hibernate. When I press them the Laptop stops more-or-less immediety. Something like that on the Asus (a 2 sec push of the Power button?) would be nice. Once you do manage to activate it, I have the feeling it takes the Asus longer to go into standby than it does to start up!

I've seen the same about the rotation feature: I've seen it once and have not been able to find it again :-) The problem with the mouse-button is that it does change it's direction, while it shouldn't, since the mouse button rotates as you rotate the screen. (as oppose to a separate mouse)

You can change the behaviour of the power switch with the Control Panel (Power Options > Advanced > Power buttons)  I've set it to "hibernate" instead of "switch off". This means that a quick slide of the switch makes the Asus hibernating immediately (takes only a few seconds, waking up takes about 45 seconds).

Cheers! Stefan.