New Asus Eee PC Features 9.5 Hour Battery
The very essence of a netbook is portability. Besides being just small and light, one other key point to portability is battery life -- something that Asus intends to take to the next level with its just-announced Eee 1000HE.
At first glance, the 1000HE isn’t any different from the rest of Asus’ 10-inch 1000H family. Besides the fact that it also comes in blue (reminding us of the Acer Aspire One), there doesn’t appear to be any external styling cues -- except perhaps a slightly bigger battery.
The 1000HE does feature slightly revamped hardware in that it uses an Intel Atom N280 instead of the old N270, so now the bus runs at 667 MHz, up from the previous generation’s 533 MHz.
You see, the trick up the Eee 1000HE’s sleeve is battery life -- that last letter “E” in the model number likely for “extended.” Asus claims that this upcoming netbook will run for 9.5 hours away from the wall socket -- an improvement over the 1000H’s 7 hours with the 6-cell, 6600 mAh battery. Asus didn’t reveal if any of the additional power of the 1000HE comes from an improved chipset, but the battery is beefier at 8,700 mAh. Even if real-world numbers don’t add up to what’s advertised, it still should be enough to qualify for “all-day computing.”
Of course, the next question is whether or not someone would want to spend all day computing on a netbook, even if the keyboard is a relatively manageable 92 percent full-sized.
Last year, Intel VP sales and marketing Stu Pann said, "If you've ever used a Netbook and used a 10-inch screen size--it's fine for an hour. It's not something you're going to use day in and day out."
While we’ve endured much more than an hour of netbook usage at a time, it’s definitely because we didn’t have anything else to work with. That said, there is a dramatic difference between working off an 8.9-inch screen compared with a 10-inch.
The Asus Eee 1000HE will retail for $399, but pre-orderers will be able to nab one for $374.
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I don't see why anyone would need *that* much power if they're getting a netbook in the first place... they're not meant to be encoding videos or playing current-gen games or anything... they're meant for maybe light gaming, internet, e-mail, etc...
I prefer the smaller keyboard,the cheaper looks;it makes it look like the expensive toy I never had when I was a teenager!
Apart from being cheaper, they also are more mod-friendlier.
Any notebook that's cheap is more bought to be modded (like the OLPC).
Besides it's lighter, and smaller; easier to carry around, uses less battery (smaller fan, smaller screen).
Many say 10"is the smallest, best size.
For writers,yes.
For programmers, no, 9"is great too!
and for travelers, no.
The reason so few people choose to buy a mininotebook is because it doesn't have a good enough supportive chipset!
I hope Ion will change that!
BTW, what's the memory speed?
Being the writers that we are, the added size of the keyboard on the 10-inch models makes a big difference.
Out of curiosity, and perhaps your own experience, what makes the 9-inch just as good for programmers? Coders have to use the keyboard just as much as a writer, right?
It's still a 6-cell battery. I think it's just an improved design that allows a higher capacity per cell.
I program and I think 10" is too small. I like a higher resolution display.
Amen to that.
Maybe they make netbooks as a tri-core 1.x ghz device. I've heard that multi core processors can be more energy efficient with the right os.. for example if your only using one application.. maybe only one core would be active... and 300mhz of processor use would be on par with pda battery consumption but with a laptop sized battery. Is this how they get to 9 hours of use?
At work , I have a full size laptop, and and have no problem using either one back to back. If the Asus was targeted for my demographic, it hit the mark quite well!
One computer does not fit all, so we have a wonderous universe of all varieties. Rest assured, though, these little ones will keep getting faster and more powerfull!