Asus R2H UMPC reviewed

After Asus "announced" the forthcoming availability of its R2H UMPC, and eventually gave us all the go-ahead to place our orders, we still had our reservations about the less-than-revolutionary platform. The crew over at OnlyUMPC subjected the R2H to its barrage of tests, and couldn't help but dub it "awesome" based on "first impressions alone." As we expected, reviewers were thrilled with the overall design, control layout, and expansive 7-inch screen, but did find room to gripe about the meager 900MHz Intel Celeron processor and the bevy of pre-loaded applications that bogged the system to a crawl. Frankly, they felt the initial setup was about as responsive as your average "386," but removing a bit of the unnecessary software provided a zippier experience. Unfortunately, the UMPC's biggest dig rang true yet again on this unit, as the battery only delivered 2 hours, 12 minutes of usage with the bells and whistles in full effect, while switching into battery-saving mode mustered a barely adequate 3 hours, 26 minutes. Nevertheless, the "clean design" and impressive "bundle of hardware / software" landed the R2H four out of five golden stars, but we'd recommend a slightly different option if battery longevity is even of mild concern.

[Via UMPC Buzz]

[Bjorn Keizers @ Oct 30th 2006 8:05AM]

I couldn't agree more! I've had the Dutch version of the R2H for a month and a half now, and it's a great little tool.

Yeah, it's very slow out of the box, but the kind of person who buys a device like this is knowledgable and opinionated enough to tweak it anyway, no matter how fast it comes out of the box :D

The software itself is so-so at best and not for the faint of heart. There's plenty of odd, proprietary stuff packed in there as it is, and most of it isn't very intuitive.

As for the hardware? I loooove it! Fantastic design, very nice screen, all the ports you could want, GPS... BT and webcam on particular units... I'm quite pleased.

I use mine every day. I'm a journalist, and this is a great way to keep all my appointments, contacts, documents, etc. in one place. I also don't have to sacrifice much in the way of power and usability over my regular laptop. And functions like note taking and reading the paper are a lot more fun then with other devices.

I love my R2H.

[strider_mt2k @ Oct 30th 2006 8:21AM]

As someone who burned out on handhelds and yet would rather not lug around the much more functional notebook, I really like how the UMPC is maturing.

[Ian Jardine @ Oct 30th 2006 8:30AM]

I can't believe how SLOWLY the UMPCs are being developed into something that can be used.

Quite frankly even the current developments are JUNK.

There is a huge need for something a little larger than say a Nokia 770 but BELOW the price os a small laptop.

It's weird that nobody can produce such a machine that isn't overpriced and totally crippled.

[Alan Erickson @ Oct 30th 2006 8:18PM]

Not only are they SLOW to develop these things, but they probably want at least $1000 for this thing.

[David @ Dec 20th 2006 4:39PM]

Not being the most PC literate person, could someone please tell me the best way to clean up the autorun files from the startup, and even better yet, which ones aren't completely necessary? I'm very interested in buying a R2H, and the one common negative I've been reading about it is the slow startup and high CPU usage because of the extra stuff that's preloaded.

Thanks in advance