Review of Asus Eee PC 1000HE

Asus is known to have introduced netbooks into the market with the releases of its never-seen before 7-inch Eee PC, and its 9 and 10-inch models. Soon after, other brands rushed to have their netbooks released with features not seen on the Asus original models and some were priced in such as way that it was giving competition to Asus which is known for its affordability. The Asus Eee PC 1000HE is a netbook with the Intel Atom N280 processor. It has the looks of the Asus’s previous models, the 1000HA and the 901. This one comes with a 9.5 hour battery life.

Specifications
Price as reviewed:    $399
Processor:    1.66GHz Intel Atom N280
Memory:    1GB, 667MHz DDR2
Hard drive:    160GB 5,400rpm
Chipset:    Mobile Intel 945GM Express
Graphics:    Mobile Intel GMA 950 (integrated)
Operating system:    Windows XP
Dimensions (WD):    10.5 inches wide by 7.5 inches deep
Height:    1.1- 1.5 inches
Screen size (diagonal): 10.1 inches
System weight/Weight with AC adapter:    3.2/3.7 pounds

Design
The Asus Eee PC 1000HE has the same outlook as the 1000HA and the 901. There’s a new keyboard that goes well with the body of the netbook. It has a 10-inch display that doesn’t disappoint in its screen quality with a resolution of 1024 x 600.

Keyboard
The keyboard on the Asus Eee PC 1000HE is certainly an improvement from Asus’s previous models. It’s neither cramped nor hard when typing. For us, it is considered one of the best keyboards around. It is also similar to the keyboards found on the Sony and Apple laptops. Just above the keyboard are quick-launch buttons for power profiles, Skype and setting the screen’s resolution. With the Eee PC 1000HE, Asus put in the Elantech touchpad as it has multitouch capabilities. It works great but not so, if you are looking for quick response. The touchpad buttons are rightly sized and easy to be used.

Processor
Featured in this netbook is the latest version of the Intel’s Atom CPU. It is faster than other netbooks and has a better front-side bus speed. We tried using it for basic tasks like typing a few documents, surfing the web and emailing and the result were not disappointing but it cannot be used to work for multi-tasking. Playing videos specially encoded videos seem alright.

Battery
The star of the Asus Eee PC 1000HE is its excellent battery life consisting of a huge six-cell battery. It can sustain the netbook for about 9.5 hours in power-saving mode. Not using the power-saving mode, the battery would probably last 6 hours and 21 minutes. It is still better than the Acer Aspire One and HP Mini 2140.

Connections
The Eee PC 1000HE has three USB ports, a headphone and mic jack each, a Kensington lock slot, and VGA. There’s a SDHC 4-in-1 multi-card reader on the side of the netbook that supports flash cards.

Conclusion
With this netbook, Asus went one step higher especially with the new keyboard layout. The keyboard on the Eee PC 1000HE is comfortable to be used with its changes and it definitely prevents typing errors from happening. The new Intel processor is faster and better. Lastly, the ‘show-stealer’ of the Asus Eee PC 1000HE is the six-cell battery. On the whole, for its price, this netbook is an excellent choice.