Asus Eee PC 1000HE 9.5-hour battery

The ASUS Eee PC 1000HE is an updated configuration of the ASUS netbook. It boasts 9.5 hours of battery life, a 92% sized keyboard, integrated 802.11n WiFi connectivity, and multi-touch keypad. The 1000HE is almost the same as the older 1000H but comes with a better, more powerful processor, an improved keyboard and a refreshed design. Other than that, it doesn’t offer anything new, but it does make a good buy as it is priced quite low at just around $400. In this review, we check out the Asus EEE PC 1000HE and see if it can live up to the name of its predecessors.

Asus EEE PC 1000HE Specs:

* Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.4 x 1.4 inches
* Weight: 3.2 pounds
* Processor: Intel Atom N280 at 1.66 GHz
* RAM: 1 GB DDR 2 RAM
* Hard Drive: 160 GB SATA HDD, 5400 RPM
* Display: 10 inch WSVGA Display, LED Backlit, 1024 x 600 pixels
* Graphics: Intel GMA 950 with 64 MB VRAM
* Wireless: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.0

* Operating System: MS Windows XP Home
* Battery: 7.2v 8700mAh 6-cell 63Wh battery
* Ports: 3 USB v2.0 ports, Ethernet, Headphone, Kensington Lock,
* Microphone, VGA out, 4 in 1 card reader
* Price: $399

Design

The Eee PC 1000HE takes up the maximum allowable size as agreed with Microsoft - featuring a 10" display that has a resolution of 1,024 x 600, just like any other netbook its size. Inside the new keyboard blends in with the rest of the glossy body, with the same gloss black paint used between all of the keys. Compared to the older Eee PC models this really adds another level of class and style to this netbook.



Build quality is very good with strong, durable plastics used throughout the body that help keep panels flex-free and the creaks to a minimum. The 1000HE holds its own ground inside a backpack, even against other heavy objects competing for space (like other laptops or books).

Video review Asus Eee PC 1000He

Display

The Eee PC 1000HE features a 10-inch matte display with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. The LED-backlit panel was bright and crisp while playing an episode of House on Hulu.com, with good horizontal and vertical viewing angles.

As mentioned above, you can easily toggle between multiple resolutions with the press of a button. Choices include 1024 x 768, 1024 x 768 Compress (so you can see the taskbar), and 800 x 600 (a good option for playing games).

The speakers on the EEE PC 1000HE are decently powerful, they have good volume levels. The sound quality is also pretty decent, it can easily manage casual music. If you are a music addict, you will have to invest in a good pair of headphones. Over all, the display and speakers offer good quality.

Keyboard and Touchpad:

The new Sony/Macbook style keyboard that ASUS has switched to for the 1000HE is a huge improvement in terms of ease of typing and tactile feel. The keys don’t feel as cramped since there is more space between them and even the key action feels smoother than before. One change that I personally love is the new key layout with the better placement of the right shift key and the larger 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



The Asus EEE PC 1000HE comes with a nice touchpad just below the keyboard. It has nice sensitivity and responsiveness. The touchpad buttons are located below the touchpad and have a nice feel and distinct click. The touchpad is spacious and can cover the whole display area at the default resolution in one swipe. It also has some basic form of multitouch allowing you to rotate and zoom into images etc.

Performance:

System performance was great for average use which includes browsing the web, typing up a document, or doing light work inside a photo editor such as GIMP. We didn’t see much of an increase in performance over the older 1000HA, even though the 1000HE is technically faster with a higher clock speed and front side bus. In some benchmarks we actually saw results that decreased, especially with the newer Seagate 5400.5 hard drive. Access times ended up being 50% slower than the previous 5400.4 model, even though every other variable stayed the same including capacity.



The built in graphics are capable of some light gaming but are a strict no-no if you are looking to run newer high end games even at medium settings. The 160 GB SATA HDD at 5400 RPM has nice data transfer speeds. You can use the Asus Super Hybrid engine to switch between power profiles and choose between power and battery life. You also have a shortcut to switch power profiles above the keyboard. The Wi-Fi speeds are decent.

Battery Life

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.

Where to buy:

Pros

* Improved keyboard
* More than 7 hours of battery life
* Slightly faster processor than other netbooks
* Easily upgradable

Cons

* Relatively heavy and bulk

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