Gadget User Blog

Well, I’m into week six of our use of the R1F and I can say that the R1F continues to impress. The range of tools onboard is quite pleasing, and the speed of the processor and generally good responsiveness of the notebook is a great improvement on my former laptop.

There hasn’t been any great revelations as far as any new bits on the notebook, but I had spent a lot of time trying to find all its bells and whistles in the first couple of weeks. I still especially like the swivel screen and its ease of use as far as switching between notebook and laptop modes. I did install a trial of Windows OneNote that I will review a little later down the track - this seems quite a useful program, but I have to confess I don’t use it all that often.

Taking the notebook on some travel over recent weeks has been useful. It’s light, reasonably robust, and it switches wireless networks seamlessly, letting you know what’s being connected to what at all times.

I have to say I’ve found the documentation on the security software a little confusing, not that I’ve spent a whole lot of time trying to understand what it’s all about. I keep getting some error message at start-up telling me that something is not set up, I just can’t work out what it is. I’ll need to sit down with the manual and sort this out. I’m sure it’s just my own ignorance rather than a hardware issue.

The DVD burner works fine, and in fact playing back movies on the notebook is fine. I do think the speakers sound a little bit cheap, but most of the time I listen via headphones anyway. I did manage to connect the Blueant X5 headset to the laptop, so wireless listening is also possible.

I’ve been trying to avoid loading every piece of software known to man on this device, so I haven’t tested it all thoroughly with some of the more processor hungry graphic applications, but it has neatly run everything I’ve thrown at it so far.

There’s not really much else to say, other than the R1F is a beaut little unit and is a very useful computer to have around. It’s light, it’s sexy and it’s connected. That’s all you really want in this day and age.