Top

NbC: Asus Eee PC 1000HE Review

April 28, 2009 at 2:23 pm


« »

Ports

Port selection is pretty much as you would find in most netbooks. However, it is a shame that ASUS did not include an ExpressCard slot, like the Lenovo S10 or HP Mini 2140. On the right side of the 1000HE, Asus has placed a memory card slot, two USB slots, VGA port and power input.

Asus Eee PC 1000HE

The memory card slot can read MMC and SD and SDHC cards. It’s hard to see you needing more than the 160GB storage, however the card reader is essential for any netbook/laptop to easily transfer data between computers.

Asus Eee PC 1000HE

The two USB 2.0 ports sit in the middle on the right side of the netbook, making it easy to attach a USB mouse.

Asus Eee PC 1000HE

The VGA port allows you to connect the netbook to an external monitor. The power input also sits at the edge of the 1000HE.

Asus Eee PC 1000HE

On the left side of the 1000HE, you will find a Kensington lock port, Ethernet port, the third USB port and pair of audio jacks.

Asus Eee PC 1000HE

The Kensington Lock port on the left enables you to secure the netbook to a fixed object. The RJ45 Ethernet port is found next to it. It is 10/100M bit only so no Gigabit support here.

Asus Eee PC 1000HE

Next to the third USB port, lies the exhaust area for the 1000HE’s lone fan. Even when testing the 1000HE for the whole day it was rare to even notice warm air emanating from it.

Asus Eee PC 1000HE

The red and green jacks near the front are for microphones and headphones respectively. Using the 3.5mm headphone automatically disables the speakers.

Asus Eee PC 1000HE

Features

You’ll find a 1.3MP camera just above the LCD, rather than the usual 0.3 megapixel cameras you see on many netbooks. I had no trouble streaming decent quality video using Skype. You won’t be able to run Skype in HQ video mode anytime soon because the processor isn’t fast enough to encode/decode 480P H.264 in real time. However for normal video-conferencing, the webcam gets the job done competently.

Asus Eee PC 1000HE

There’s a microphone array located below the LCD, too, perfect for the 1000HE’s included Skype software. The position works well and I was able to communicate myself quite clearly.

Asus Eee PC 1000HE

Connectivity

Like all recent Eee PCs, the 1000HE has 802.11n Wi-Fi rather than 802.11b/g, and this model comes with Bluetooth 2.1 too. We’d have liked to have seen integrated HSDPA, too, but this is a feature still rarely seen in netbooks, we can’t be too harsh on Asus for this particular omission.

We did not have a smooth experience with the Wi-Fi initially. No matter what we tried we could just not connect to the wireless network. We could see the network, but when entering the wireless details, the 1000HE was stick in limbo at the ‘acquiring the network address’ stage.

We spent a number of hours trying to figure out what the problem was and a quick search on Google shows that we weren’t alone in having problems with wireless. In the end, it worked by changing the routers wireless configuration from WPA-2 to WPA. I’m not sure why this did the trick, but it has since worked fine, even now that we’re back on the WPA-2 security setting. Once we had got the wireless working it would connect reasonably quickly when switching the 1000HE on.

The indicator on the front of the unit shows whether you have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth switched on. However you can’t easily tell which is on unless you go through the Eee PC Tray Utility. This utility allows you to change your resolution as well as enabling/disabling Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and the webcam.

Asus Eee PC 1000HE

« »

Comments

197 Responses to “NbC: Asus Eee PC 1000HE Review”

  1. Mika said:
    April 28th, 2009 4:07 PM

    Asus eee pc 1000HE vs Samsung N110/N120 batterytest would be intresting. Also Windows XP vs Ubuntu 9.04 batterytest would be intresting. Is battery time lot worse if you install Ubuntu to these machines and whats difference of startup time..

  2. Igor said:
    April 28th, 2009 4:28 PM

    A very well thought out and thorough review. Definitely one of the best ones I’ve seen, even compared to well known sites. Nice job NbC!

  3. Tej said:
    April 29th, 2009 2:38 PM

    Mika – We’ll be looking forward to seeing how the 1000HE against Samsung’s new netbooks soon enough.

    Regarding the Ubuntu tests, it could be quite interesting to see if there is a difference. Hopefully, we’ll have the time to try that next time.

    Igor – Thanks for the compliment. Hope you’re enjoying your 1000HE as much as we did. It’s a shame we had to give ours back…

  4. Mika said:
    April 29th, 2009 7:51 PM

    I suppose operating time with Windows XP is better, but how big difference is with XP and Ubuntu would be nice to know. I suppose that Samsung and other companys support Windows at their battery save mode, if there is not Linux support time difference can be quite big. I just would like to install Ubuntu to Netbook, course then maybe wouldnt need virus software that takes CPU and it again uses more battery.

  5. Get Asus said:
    May 1st, 2009 5:18 PM

    Pros:
    1. Battery Life – It really is that good. I can get a real world value of 7.5 to 8 hours with the WLAN on under the power saving mode. I can’t even see a difference with the performance when in this mode.
    2. LED-lit screen – I was expecting a basic screen that didn’t look particularly great. I was surprised with the look of it, even at the low, netbook standard resolution.
    3. Keyboard – The so-called chiclet keys are very comfortable, and the placement of the shift key in the correct spot really separates this model from the rest.

    Cons:
    1. Windows XP – Yeah, I know. Most would say this is a pro. However, I passed the XP life-cycle on desktops and I’m now having to learn the intricacies of this OS. I wish I could have have them put the Windows 7 beta on it before shipping because I did not get it in time to download, but I digress.
    2. Performance – Not technically a con, but I expected a little more of a boost from the bus increase to 667 Mhz. Still, it serves its purposes as a netbook, and the upcoming performance boost in Intel’s chipset will probably decrease battery life by 2-3 hours.

  6. OTACORB said:
    May 4th, 2009 2:16 AM

    Well they may have placed that right shift key in the correct place, but making it so small was a bad move. True touch typist will find they have to really pay attention to insure they don’t hit one of the other keys.

    While I give Kudo’s to ASUS for moving the shift key, I have to say them making it so small still took this one out of the running and it is the reason I own a Samsung N120 instead.

    The sad thing is that the boost from the so called new chipset and increase 667 FSB are totally unremarkable and according to most reviews unnoticeable when comparing to netbooks with the older chipset with a 533 FST

    The other thing that I feel most don’t consider is support after the sell and ASUS has about the worse support out there today. I’d be real concerned about that issue more than anything else.

  7. md said:
    May 14th, 2009 8:38 PM

    this the site which I found the battery&power supply weight !

  8. Mark Wong said:
    June 8th, 2009 2:08 PM

    An excellent review. Well done Jet. I think your way of testing the battery is really great. It gives us a clearer view.

  9. Jet Sun said:
    June 8th, 2009 3:39 PM

    Thanks Mark. As always, if you think there are ways we can improve our reviews please drop us a line! 🙂

  10. sonixx said:
    June 15th, 2009 8:15 PM

    Get Asus said:
    “I wish I could have have them put the Windows 7 beta on it”
    y the h3ll would u want win 7 for? If u got it on a netbook it would come w/ win 7 starter and with that OS u can only run 3 programs at once and u can’t change the wallpaper… That really sux. Microsoft is slapping there Luser in the face with this crap. Just uses Linux, its a h3ll of a lot better.

  11. Honey_Honey said:
    July 30th, 2009 4:12 PM

    It’s a very well thought out and thorough review specs.

Bottom