| Netbooks |
| ASUS Eee PC 1000HE |
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The Eee PC 1000HE is the newest netbook refresh from ASUS that offers a all new chicklet style keyboard and the recent Intel Atom N280 CPU. The outside and inside look almost identical to the 1000HA and 901, so if you liked the old design you will love this.
The biggest alteration users will discover on this recent model is the extended 9.5 hour battery life, credit to a battery 30% bigger and improved power management. Just how well does this new netbook live up to its advertised claims? Read our review to find out. |
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE Specifications:
- Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz processor
- 160GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive (Seagate 5400.5)
- 1GB of DDR2 RAM (667MHz)
- Windows XP Home operating system with SP3
- 10” WSVGA LED-Backlit 1024 x 600 LCD
- Ports: 3 USB 2.0, 1 VGA monitor out, headphone jack, microphone input, SD card reader (SDHC compatible), Kensington Lock slot, Ethernet 10/100
- Webcam (1.3 MP)
- Battery: 7.2v 8700mAh 6-cell 63Wh battery
- Wireless: 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.0
- One-year warranty
- Size: 10.47” x 7.3” x 1.12-1.50”
- Weight: 3lbs 2.4oz, 3lbs 9.9oz travel
- Price: $399
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Build and Design
The ASUS Eee PC 1000HE maintains the same outside look of the 901 and 1000HA, with no visable changes until you look at the underside or open up the display. Inside the new keyboard mixes in with the other glossy parts of the body. Measured up to the elder Eee PC models this really adds an extra level of elegance and design to this netbook.
Build quality is very good with strong, durable plastics used all over the body with the aim of helping keep panels flex-free and the creaks to a bare minimum. The 1000HE holds its own ground inside a backpack, even versus other heavy objects competing for a place (like other laptops or books). Intended for the ordinary user this implies you won’t discover greasy key impressions on the screen as soon as you stick this Eee PC into a backpack stuffed of books on your way to school.
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The Screen
The 10” LED-backlit display found on the Eee PC 1000HE is stress-free on the eyes and a real delight to look at for hours on end. Whites are apparent, colors are vibrant, and backlight levels are very bright and steady. While many netbooks get the shorted when it comes too things such as CPU power, they definitely make up for it in screen quality. The screen quality on the majority of netbooks is better in both the backlighting area as well as viewing angles, unlike those found on bigger notebooks. Vertical viewing angles which are likely to quickly invert colors on full-size notebooks stay accurate longer on the display found on the 1000HE. Horizontal angles are the same way, allowing the user to without difficulty share a movie with a passenger on either side.
The lone real issue regarding these smaller screens has been the restricted resolution (1024 x 600), which often causes problems with various applications that require Small resolutions for menu screens. You can get past this by scaling or screen scrolling, but it is just a downside to the narrow screen size.
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Keyboard and Touchpad
The recent Sony/ Macbook sort of keyboard that ASUS has switched to for the 1000HE is a enormous enhancement in requisites of simplicity of typing and tactile feel. The keys don’t feel as cramped since there is more area among them and even the key action feels smoother than it previously was. One swap that I personally love is the fresh key layout with the better placement of the right shift key and the bigger control key on the bottom right. What this means is if you normally hit the up arrow while typing on the old keyboard (like I always did) you will now finally get the uppercase letter you originally intended to type. Taking the place of the old shift key is a back up function key, for one-handed page up and page down actions. The new keyboard comes very close to tipping the scales opposed to the HP Mini 1000 and 2140 but it would probably have to be a dead heat for top netbook keyboard.
ASUS uses an Elantech touchpad on the 1000HE for its multi-touch capabilities, which works grand if you want dual finger control, but not so terrific if you desire fast response and sensitivity. I found that it had some lag in quick movement and didn’t retain the good high sensitivity of comparable Synaptics models. One conundrum we noticed following a few hours of use was the touchpad surface gradually peeling up on one section like a loose sticker, but after pressing it back down it didn’t come up again. It may have just been a manufacturing flaw where it was not seated appropriately at some stage in construction. The touchpad buttons size was sufficient for trouble-free triggering by the side of thumb and worked terrific if you hit them dead center or on the very edge. Response was nominal with a very shallow click as pressed. |
Performance and Benchmarks
System performance was great for ordinary use which includes browsing the web, typing up a paper, or doing light work inside a photo editor such as GIMP. We didn’t see much of an boost in performance above the older 1000HA, even though the 1000HE is technically quicker with a superior clock speed and front side bus. In various benchmarks we really saw results that decreased, especially with the newer Seagate 5400.5 hard drive. Access times ended up being 50% slower than the preceding 5400.4 model, even though all other variables stayed the same counting capacity.
HD video playback capabilities were roughly the same as previous Intel Atom netbooks, playing some lightly encoded 720p trailers with 40-50% CPU usage, and normal HD content like TV episodes at 60%+ while also dropping frames. The Intel N280 CPU does support a newer GN40 chipset, but it does not appear to be integrated with this netbook.
Ports and Features
Port selection is standard compared to the majority of netbooks, but less than what a few new netbooks Provide. ASUS doesn’t include an ExpressCard slot for external WWAN radios, like the Lenovo S10 or HP Mini 2140. The 1000HE offers three USB, LAN, headphone/mic jacks, a Kensington lock slot, and VGA. A SDHC 4-in-1 multi-card reader located on the side handles flash cards from digital cameras or storage expansion. |
What Is The Speakers Quality Like?
The speakers are good enough to take pleasure in some music or a movie, but they are too small to deliver any bass or mid-range. At the greatest volume the 1000HE can fill up a smaller room with music to share with a pair of acquaintances, but you might be fighting background clamor in a public Place. Headphones are a grand option for exclusive listening or if you want volume levels high enough to hurt your ears.
Is There A Heat and Noise Problem?
Heat buildup and sound from the cooling system was minimal during battery powered use, as the system scales back the CPU which then puts off less heat. Throughout the majority of our battery test the fans never turned on and the keyboard area in no way broke the 90F mark. While on AC power using high performance or super performance modes the system does warm up quite a bit, leaving the fans running constantly at a low speed. While I wouldn’t categorize the noise as obnoxious, it is as loud as my full-size notebook.
What Is The Battery Life Like?
The 1000HE has a battery that is substantially larger than the one found in the old 1000HA that gave only 4 hours and 28 minutes in our testing. To move up towards the claim of nine and a half hours ASUS bumped the capacity from 49Wh to 63Wh and tweaked the power management software so the processor sipped even less juice. Both of these changes led to some very impressive real world results. With the screen brightness set to 60%, wireless active, and processor set to auto it stayed on for 7 hours and 36 minutes. This is the longest netbook battery life result we have seen from a stock configuration. If you are going for longest possible time, you can shut off the wireless cards, put it into power saving mode, and lower the brightness all the way and it gets an estimated 9 hours and 20 minutes of battery life.
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Conclusion
ASUS made some good improvements to the 1000HE, most notably the newer keyboard. The keyboard is more comfortable to type on over the old style and the improved spacing helps to reduce typing errors. The design has few changes, with some areas gaining glossy paint over a matte finish before, but the average user might not tell the difference unless both were sitting next to each other. The newer Intel Atom processor with a faster clock speed and faster bus speed had little improvement in our benchmarks over its predecessor and HD content is still unfeasible unless you are playing low bitrate videos. The battery life also improved by a wide margin, moving past seven hours under normal use, which is the greatest out of any netbook we have reviewed. Overall I would say ASUS has an impressive new netbook and a very affordable starting price.
Pros:
- Awesome battery life (7 hours and 36 minutes under normal use!)
- Comfortable new keyboard design
- Quicker Intel N280 Atom processor
Cons:
- Elantech touchpad has some minor lag under fast movement
- Processor, although faster, still isn't very powerful
- Not as small as Sony VAIO P
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