Those who live by laptops and travel frequently, or those who prefer to hack up their portables and install customized operating systems, know that size and weight greatly affect the overall computing experience. One of the most recognizable platforms in this market is the Asus line of Eee PCs--essentially a staple in the netbooks category.

Asus' Eee PC portables have literally transformed acceptance of the category by consumers from being just another gimmicky device to something many find extremely useful.

Today, we're going to take a look at Asus' latest Eee PC 1000HE

The new Eee PC 1000HE runs on a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom processor and comes equipped with 1 GB of memory. Of course, with Atom, we're talking about maximum up-time and usability--the new Eee PC 1000HE didn't let us down. Pumping out a very respectable 6 hours and 46 minutes after running through Battery Eater Pro 2.7, users can expect even better performance with light usage: web browsing, email, chatting. Storage wise, the standard Eee PC 1000HE ships with a 160 GB HDD but there are SSD upgrade options available just for the Eee PC line. For example, Patriot Memory produces a line of SSD upgrades just for the Eee PC.

Of course web, email and chatting are all areas where the Eee PC is great at. Being small and nimble, you have yourself a great communications device without breaking the bank, or your back.

Interestingly enough, the above strengths of the Eee PC line make it a powerful solution in the enterprise. In recent years, companies have moved towards web-based applications, customized widgets and real-time online communications. Even day-to-day office productivity is moving heavily online with such applications as Google Docs and spreadsheets. Microsoft too, mentioned plans of moving its Office suite to the web. These trends increase the Eee PC's usability exponentially.

On the intranet side, enterprise back-ends are also becoming more pervasive, with browser based CRM tools and performance tracking--no big-foot print type applications need to be installed. Because of all these shifts for productivity applications to be more online, the Eee PC becomes the ideal mobile cloud terminal. Even storage becomes less of a concern as online solutions and cloud services become more avaialble.

Business customers, as well as casual users will find the Eee PC's total cost of ownership low, the platform is flexible with a tie in to online applications, and overall Asus is continuing to increase the performance of the Eee PC line in general.

Check out our detailed review of the new Eee PC 1000HE here.

Source : Tom's Hardware US