Asus EEE 1000HE Review

[largecanadian]

First off, it’s true, I sold my sexy HP DV5Z to get this tiny little underpowered EEE-1000HE. “What ever for?” you ask. Battery life, portability, battery life, battery life….I was getting 3 hours on my DV5Z on the best of days with no wireless, 50% brightness, power sipping windows profile, browsing the interwebs with the onboard NIC. I really needed something that I could throw into my backpack charged, and not worry about finding an outlet after 1:45 of 100% brightness web browsing. So on with the review!



Spec’s
CPU- Atom N280 @ 1.66ghz (1.7ghz on EEE Super-Perf. Power profile)
Ram- 1GB DDR667
HDD- 160GB 5400rpm
Screen- 10” LED backlit LCD @ 1024x600
GPU/Chipset- Intel 945 crap
Ports- 3 USB 2.0, D-SUB, headphone, microphone, SD(HC) card reader, Ethernet 10/100
Battery- 6-cell 8700mAh battery –(FTW)
Wireless- N and Bluetooth 2.0
Restore DVD, cleaning cloth, and neoprene-sleeve case included
$375 free s&h on Newegg sale.





My friend has the 1000HA version of this netbook, which looks very similar, except the glossy paint that mine has, which is a fingerprint lover, AND mine has this wonderful keyboard, like Sony Vaio’s do. Instead of having sloping edges like most keyboards do, the keys are individualized more, with space in between, which makes touch typing VERY simple on this small keyboard, only a few mistypes have occurred on me so far.





Onto the amazing 8700mAh 6-cell battery! This is one of my main reasons for buying this model, along with the 10” form factor/keyboard combo. In my recent trip to New Mexico, I watched The Dark Knight DVD rip, and 300 Dvix in a row for a combined time of 270 min of movies. At 100% brightness with wireless and Bluetooth off, I had 40% battery left after the 2 movies in a row. Roughly calculated that says that straight movie watching should be in the 7hr range, which makes sense since I’ve browsed the interwebs for ~6hrs without plugging in. I also accidentally left it in sleep for 2 days, and it still had a useable 15% left for checking my email/facebook/straferight haha.


Benchmarks
Only ran 2 due to the non-speedy nature of the Atom and 945 chipset
PCMark05- 1439
3Dmark01- 2949

I was pleasantly surprised from the 01 score, since my old Compaq lappy with the radeon xpress 3 years ago scored around a 3500 with a sempy 3300+ 1GB DDR333. Will update with the CSS stress test once I have it on there.

Pro's
Battery life!
Keyboard on a netbook that doesn't suck
Wireless N+Bluetooth
Decent Webcam

Con's
GPU cannot do much of anything.
1024x600 is bit small coming from 1280x800 on a laptop.
Heavy for a netbook, but its worth it having an amazing battery.

Just a quick once-over review, ask any questions, I'll do my best to answer!

[largecanadian]

Just noticed I didn't say anything about the touchpad, quite nice overall, bit small, multitouch works decently well, not without quirks though.

[Craig]

you can edit your post to add the touchpad remarks if you want.

i saw one of these on a client's desk just today. he said it was the best PC he ever purchased. he uses it to pull email and spreadsheets during meetings in and away from his office.

excellent review!

[DennyCrane]

Awesome score, Glenn. Good review.

[CoffeeShark]

looks cool, i'd love to get 6 hours out of a laptop

[SonicSpeed]

If there was one reason to get a Netbook, battery life would be it. Although a optional dedicated GPU (which can be switched on and off like some have IIRC) would make it teh winnar.

[DominiKing]

Nice review, I almost got one of these eee PC's (don't remember which one) but ended up getting a gaming lappy. Opposite ends of the spectrum but oh well. I wanna do a review on mine but my writing skills teh suck The pics look great though, how heavy is it actually?

[akabaloo]

Nice! Could you do a size comparison pic with a DVD cover or something? I can't really visualise the size with your hand, well, because I don't know how big it is lol

I wanna get one of these this summer, gonna be my big purchase for the year!

[chode_messiah]

I hate that atom chips are soldered to the motherboard.

[DennyCrane]

Soldering's cheaper.