The Great Geek Manual

A short while back, I got an Acer Aspire One Netbook for my birthday. Aside from the way its keyboard makes me feel like my hands are freakishly enormous, I love it.

Basically, I just wanted a cheap computer I could leave on my nightstand to use for my nightly reading, and the Aspire One is perfect for the job. It fits in my hand like a hardcover. Its battery doesn’t get hot; its fan is quiet; and its battery capacity is short enough that it’ll shut down in short order if I nod off mid-Spidey comic. It’s got enough juice for reading digitized comics, listening to an MP3 audiobook, or even running my favorite text-to-voice software, while having too little RAM for me to be tempted into a little late night gaming. The best part though, is that, thanks to the price, I can nod off with netbook still in hand without fear. Always before, I’ve been too overprotective of my laptops to bring them to bed. There was just too much risk that their screens might be damaged if they slid off the covers and hit the floor or I rolled over on to them. Not to mention the niggling fear that an overheated battery might turn me into a human torch.

Just two issues arose with my arrangement. First, I’ve never seen a computer that smudges and shows fingerprints faster than my netbook. Second, unlike laptops I’ve owned, the netbook’s screen is too dim to see the keyboard by or to read by, if I’m just using it as a jukebox while I’m working my way through a paperback.

Luckily, when Budget Gadgets contacted my to write a review for some of their products, it turned out to be an excellent opportunity to remedy both issues.

When they asked me check out their site, I immediately zeroed in on the Notebook Laptop Case Bag from HP and the USB 10 LED Light 896.

I was initially a bit anxious about choosing the “Notebook Laptop Case Bag” to review. Most cases, or sleeves, as they’re usually called, don’t fit the Aspire well. I learned this the hard way by working my way through most of the selections available from Best Buy and Office Max. The smallest size most sleeves come in is 10 inches, but that’s “10 inches” not 10 inches, because they are, in fact, technically 10.2 inches while the Aspire One is a “10 inches” that is technically 9.8 inches. It’s a case of buying twelve hot dog buns for eight hot dogs.

I was pleasantly surprised when the sleeve arrived. Turns out, the black Neoprene sleeve fit my netbook like they were made for each other. Figures, right? Best Buy, where the Aspire One was bought doesn’t have any form of covering that even remotely fits the device, meanwhile, in Hong Kong, you can buy a sleeve made by HP (which doesn’t manufacture netbooks) that fits it like a glove.

Still, I wouldn’t be giving the sleeve the thumbs up solely based on its fit. It arrived last week in the mail, and since then, I’ve been putting it through the most brutal trial I could think up. Namely, keeping with me at all times. If you don’t think that’s severe enough, let me note that I was that kid in college who had to resort to professional wilderness survival-rated backpacks. Try as I might, the things were always in tatters by the end of the school year.

After a week of pretty much constant use, I have nothing but praise for the miracle that is Neoprene. The sleeve endured repeated soakings in hand sweat during my long reading sessions (better than many of my hardcovers). It survived three kitchen ice puddles, one sharp metal corner, numerous pen jabs, one hot pizza pan, half a glass of ice tea, and several trips up the stair between my teeth without sustaining any viable stains or damage while managing to keep the netbook dry and fingerprint-free. As an added bonus, it likely keep my netbook from getting stolen when I left it on a chair to run to the bathroom at Burger King the other day, seeing as it look like nothing more than a hardcover book or Bible while it’s zipped up.

At only $8.17 with free shipping and no sales tax, the sleeve costs only about half of anything you can find in a store or from brand name websites. Plus, Budget Gadgets offers up to 18% in discounts for bulk purchases and another 5% discount when you use the coupon code at the end of this review. At those prices, you could probably make yourself a tidy sum selling these on eBay.

The second item I chose to review was the “USB 10 LED Light for PC/Laptop/Notebook 896.” I chose it over Budget Gadget’s other USB lamps in the hope that, when folded across the keyboard, it would illuminate the entire keyboard, rather than just a portion of it. (Alright, and because I thought its blue color would nicely match my netbook’s case.)

As you can see from the photos I snapped, it does light up the keyboard quite nicely. From a distance, it also makes my netbook looks like a piece of high-tech art. Up close, though, it makes a great reading lamp for comics and hardcovers I lay on the keyboard.

While I haven’t put the lamp through nearly as rigorous a workout at the sleeve, it still wins my approval. It’s very convenient; it actually coiled around my netbook in just such a way as to fit into the HP sleeve with it; and it’s rated for a whopping 8,000 hours of use, which is amazing considering it costs about the same amount as a four-pack of incandescent bulbs with lifespans of only two thousand hours.

All in all, I’m very happy with the products, and I would recommend these gizmos to anyone out there who shares my love of netbooks or my penchant for late night reading.

Discount: Budget Gadgets has very generously extended a 5% discount to TGGM readers. During the checkout process, just use this coupon code: AM5OFF8