ASUS Eee PC 1000HE

ASUS Eee PC 1000HE Review

Asus continues to define the netbook standard with the new Eee PC 1000HE. Although the difference compared to previous 10-inch models is quite miniscule it continues in the Eee PC tradition of providing good value for your money.

One of the improvements in the 1000HE is a slightly faster Atom N280 CPU at 1.66GHz (compared to the N270 at 1.6GHz) with a higher FSB speed – 667MHz instead of 533MHz). The difference here is noticeable but just barely.

Design

Asus insists on using glossy surfaces on most of the Eee series netbooks, which looks nice but also attracts a lot of fingerprints. From the front you can see the tilted aluminum colored trackpad buttons even when the lid is closed, and it also has four LEDs to indicate power, hard drive activity, wireless and battery.

The Eee 1000HE makes good use of the limited space available and has a near full-size keyboard (92% of standard notebook size) and an easy to use, large trackpad with forward-angled buttons. The slanting buttons feel a little strange at first, but once you get used to them you wonder why it’s not more common.

Overall, Asus has done a great job with the design of the 1000HE, even if very little has changed since previous models. But why change a good thing?

Features and Performance

In-depth performance comparisons and benchmarking don’t make as much sense with netbooks as with full-size laptops, since most of them use almost identical components. Naturally a 0.06GHz increase in CPU speed does not make for a big performance difference, but it provides a small boost thanks to the increased front side bus speed. On average its performance is slightly above par in the netbook segment.

ASUS claims that it can provide a battery life of up to 9.5 hours, but that probably requires that you keep it on idle with screen brightness turned down and WLAN turned off for the duration, but you can still squeeze nearly transatlantic battery times out of the 6-cell – 7 hours and 10 minutes in our general usage test, a great result nonetheless.

Connectivity

All of the ports are placed on the sides of the notebook – the left side has an Ethernet port, one USB and audio line-in and line-out. On the right side is a memory card reader, another 2 USB ports and VGA out. The Wi-Fi card offers support for draft-n, which gives you access to the fastest wireless technology at the moment.

Conclusion

The ASUS Eee PC 1000HE is a bit bulky compared to some “premium” and more expensive netbooks, but all in all you get a lot more for your money with the Eee compared to other brands. Its keyboard and trackpad are very comfortable to use, and the system is very well built. The best part, however, is the 7+ hours of battery life you can squeeze out of it, which is way better than average.