Asus has been the big daddy of the netbook market and it has brought the joy of being able to carry the laptop with yourself. The company brought small sized computers out of their crazy high price bracket and made it possible for everyone to have his own subnotebook. All this stated with EEE PC. The latest iteration of the product is Asus Eee PC 1000HE with 9.5 Hours of Battery.

This machine comes with substantial under the hood upgrades. First thing is that it swaps the Intel Atom N270 for a slightly more powerful Atom N280. The FSB goes up to 667 MHz and the clock speed goes up to 1.67 Ghz. The machine is based on the Intel 945 GSE chipset. While performace gain has not be too much, it still something. The machine also takes a new look at its keyboard now opting for an isolated style keyboard as featured in the Apple’ Macbook and Sony VAIO TT. Asus has also solved the right Shift key. This means that while the keyboard is good, it still feels shallow.

In the list of ports, there is nothing new. You get the standard three USB ports. There is an Ethernet port, audio in and out jacks, card reader capable of handling SD, SDHC and MMC. The machine has a 1.3 MP web cam along with two microphones. This means that chatting and VOIP are a better experience overall. Another thing which is different here is the inclusion of draft WiFi N standard. Apart from that you get the standard netbook fare, there is 1 GB RAM, 160 GB 5400 RPM hard drive. Bluetooth 2.0 etc.

The speakers of the product are pretty good as expected from any product in the EEE PC line. The company has also thrown in Dolby Home Theater audio. Use good quality headphones and watching movies on the go would be a pure bliss. All said and done, the change that you would absolutely love is that this toy is powered by a big, fat six cell, 8700 mAh battery - 8700 mAh! Asus claims that it can last almost 9.5 hours. Use is properly and you might be able to get almost eight hours out of it.

The compromise is there though. The machine is heavy, weighing almost 1.5 Kg. But if it delivers such a long battery life, you might as well leave the power brick home which more or less offsets the weight factor.

Name (required)

E-Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Subscribe to comments feed