The 1000HT comes with a 1.6GHz N270 Atom processor, 0.3MP webcam, Wi-Fi (b/g) and a lower capacity 6-cell battery. Other features are the same, including a 1024×600 10.1-inch matte display, 1GB RAM and a 160GB HDD.

I would be surprised if this value netbook appears in Europe, especially as Asus were meant to be cutting down on their product offering. The 1000HT goes on sale on 17th October for 37,800 Yen.

Via Netbooked.

Well it looks like these problems may be a thing of the past, courtesy of a wireless driver from the yet to be released Eee PC 1005HA. According to the Eee User Forum, people are reporting that this driver (7.7.0.259, 13 March 2009) improves performance and stability.

To get this to work, you need to make sure you have a 1000HE with the Atheros AR928x (AW-NE771) card installed. We don’t have the 1000HE to hand any more, but we’d be interested to see if this tip works.

Via GadgetMix.

However, potential UK buyers fear not, Asus marketing chief, John Swatton, has confirmed it will not be phased out after all. “The 1000H and 1000HE are currently our most popular Eee PC models and therefore the focus. There are no plans to discontinue these products at the moment because they are so popular. At present, the 1000H and 1000HE offer the best combination of functionality and performance for the price,” he told Reg Hardware.

Trying to clarify last week’s report he said that, “over the next few months the roadmap will change, simply to make it easier for customers to decide which Eee PC model best fits their individual needs and requirements. What we are seeing is that the market as a whole is adopting the 10in platform as the most popular. I think that in time every manufacturer will focus on the 10in platform simply because this is what the market is demanding. Whether this happens in Q3 or Q4, we will have to see.”

He also confirmed that the original Eee PC 701, 900A, 901 & 904 models would not be phased out (yet). “These are still our focus Eee PC models and will be available to customers to purchase for some time yet,” Swatton said.

Well it appears that the same may be happening in France, after Blogeee got confirmation that the Eee PC 1000HE will also be phased to make way for the new range of netbooks. Unlike the UK, it appears that the marketing for the upcoming Eee PC T91 convertible tablet will be unchanged for France.

Netbooks are known for their portability. Not only are they small and lightweight but with their increased power efficiency, batteries can last much longer than conventional laptops. This also means you no longer have to carry a power adapter with you! Several brands emphasis the longevity of the battery as a strong selling point, and for those people who travel a lot, it sure is.

If battery life is important to you then your choice of software will have an impact on the strain placed on your CPU. There are a plethora of programs out there but not all are as power hungry.

The easy way to increase battery life is to use the “airplane mode”. This refers to Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Webcam being off and the screen brightness set to 40 percent. Mind you they should call it “airplane flying at night with no cabin lights on mode” because if the lights are on you may need more than 40 percent brightness!

For the purpose of these tests, I am using an Asus Eee PC 1000HE netbook. It is powered by an Intel Atom N280 CPU with the GMA 950 graphics chipset, 2 GB RAM, 160GB HDD running Windows XP Home. During all of these tests, the ASUS Super Power Hybrid Engine was set to ‘Power Saving’ with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Camera and Sound turned off (the latter except for video and music tests) and screen brightness set to 40 percent. I got myself use to working in these conditions so if I do need that extra bit of power I can increase the CPU speed. When fully charged the Windows battery indicator told me I had 10 hours and 23 minutes.

Various Useful Tricks

There a number of simple measures you can take to stretch that battery life. Everything your computer does consumes energy, especially programs. Therefore keeping your apps small & simple and do away with any bells and whistles. Think practical rather than pretty. First thing is the OS, you need to run one but run it as efficient as possible. To do this there is a great tool which most of you know: Tweak UI. This tool will let you stop the Menu from gently appearing to just slide, which is less graphically intensive. You can disable tray-icons as that takes up some CPU power. Play around a little and you will be surprised what you can do! If you use a screensaver, use a simple one like Starfield rather than 3D Pipes. Also, go into the power options to adjust the HDD and sleep settings.

Anti-virus

Unfortunately this is a necessary evil, (you Mac users can stop snickering now). Though it takes up energy, your netbook will be frequently used to access the net and therefore leave it open to malicious spam and viruses. Norton is good but even for a powerful desktop it is extremely CPU hungry. McAfee is very nice but costs some money. My preferred and light weight anti-virus protection comes in the form of AVG, CCleaner and Ad-Aware. These three together are enough to block or find and destroy any malicious software, cookies and Trojans AND they are all free for personal use!

[Ed Note: I’d also like to mention Avast, I’ve used it for years and it has never let me down. It’s free and is one of the most lightweight anti-virus programs I’ve used].

Video

I spend quite a lot of time on trains and planes and enjoy watching a movie to pass the time. After 1 hour and 30 minutes of use, I still apparently had 9 hours and 20 minutes left! Granted it was a short movie but the battery minutes counted slower than movie minutes, so much the better. There are a number of video players out there but I strongly suggest opting for the free VLC media player. It is a small program, loads up fast and can play pretty much any type of video codec you need.

Music

Being a fan of iPod’s I installed iTunes for listening to music, which is tied in with QuickTime. Both are rather heavy programs and drain power (battery life reduced by 2 hours). Windows media player is not much better I’m afraid (also reduced by 2 hours). I then opted for Winamp, which was the least power hungry (battery life reduced by 1 hour and 32 minutes). This will be a trade off for me; do I go with Winamp or stick to iTunes? Maybe I will do some more testing and find an alternative. I’ve heard good things about the open source Songbird program.

Browser

Netbooks are designed for surfing the Net. Here again I tested three programs, the ever so present Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome. For years I have been using Firefox and love it. I started using it on my netbook until I installed Chrome. Since then I have uninstalled Firefox, why you may ask? Chrome is a small app that starts up incredibly fast, does not take up a lot of power, takes up less screen estate and the Google search in the URL text box is very handy. Need you more reasons? I still use Firefox on my desktop and at work, however.

[Ed Note: I’m a big advocate of Opera, also well worth a try given its low CPU overhead, and super fast browsing experience.]

E-mail & chatting

Gmail, Gmail, Gmail and the off-line function is all you need for 100 percent mobile e-mails. You can check your mails from all computers where ever you are. You like to chat? You have messenger, Facebook, GoogleTalk etc. Then Digsby is for you! A handy program that combines all chatting systems into one and you save on screen space!

Word processing and the likes

The ASUS1000HE came with a version of a typical ‘office’ suite. After closer inspection I realized that it is an ASUS branded OpenOffice.org program. I’m used to Microsoft Office at work but at home I stick to the free and open source OpenOffice.org which fulfills all my office needs. For PDF’s I’ve opted for Foxit reader, which is smaller and lighter than Adobe’s PDF Reader.

Graphics editing program

Netbooks are not made for heavy graphical editing work but if you really want to you can install some limited apps such as the free multipleimageresizer. There is a free graphics editing program that is supposedly good but haven’t had the time yet to install it and test it out: Paint.Net I bought Paint Shop Pro eons ago (version 8 ) and that actually works quite fast.

[Ed Note: Sumo Paint is also meant to be very good, which works in a browser, although I haven’t spent much time with it myself].

However, it is not all roses. Whilst as an overall package, we feel that the 1000HE is one of the better netbooks on the market, it is by no means perfect. There are a number of issues we have with the 1000HE, however most are minor niggles and do not detract from our overall positive impressions. Read on for our full, detailed review including some comprehensive performance and battery tests.

Positives:
- Excellent battery life, some of the best times seen in a netbook
- Chiclet keyboard is comfortable to use and the right shift key is back
- LED-backlit matte display is bright and clear under a variety of lighting conditions
- Easy access to HDD and RAM
- Performance is perfectly sufficient for most day-to-day tasks
- Good value for money for what is a fully featured netbook

Negatives:
- Not the lightest netbook around at 1.45kg (3.2lbs), also a bit bulky
- Keyboard flex undermines otherwise solid build quality
- Elantech touchpad has some minor lag under fast movement

Asus Eee PC 1000HE Technical Specifications:

• Operating System: Windows XP Home
• Display: 10.2-inch LED Backlight WSVGA screen (1024×600)
• Intel CPU: Intel Atom N280 (1.66GHz) and Intel 945GSE chipset
• Memory: 1GB DDR2 (2GB supported)
• Wireless: WLAN 802.11b/g/n
  Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Storage: 160GB HDD (5,400RPM)
  10GB Eee Storage
• Webcam: 1.3M Pixel
• Audio: Stereo HD audio via Realtek ALC6628 codec
• Mic: Digital Array Mic
• Ports: 1 x VGA Port (D-sub 15-pin for external monitor)
  3 x USB 2.0
  1 x LAN RJ-45
  2 x Audio Jack (Head Phone / Mic-in)
  Card Reader: MMC/ SD(SDHC)
• Battery: 6-Cell (8700mAh) Li-ion Battery
• Dimensions: 266mm(W) x 191.2mm(D) x 28.5mm~ 38mm(H)
• Weight: 1.45kg (3.2lbs)
• Price (at time of publication): £314.99 (Amazon UK), $384.49 (Amazon US)

The way that Asus names its various netbook models in the Eee range confuses many, us included. However, the best way to view the 1000HE is as a 1000H with three critical differences. The 1000HE has a faster CPU (1.66GHz N280 Atom versus the 1.6GHz N270 Atom in the 1000H), a chiclet keyboard and better battery life (9.5 hrs versus 7 hours for the 1000H). Apart from that, the models are virtually identical. However, given that all three are quite significant ‘upgrades’, I see the 1000HE as a completely separate model rather just a ‘refresh’.

The 1.66GHz Atom N280 CPU comes with a 667MHz front-side bus, compared to the 533MHz FSB found in the 1.6GHz N270 processor. Like the N270, the N280 supports Hyper-Threading Technology, allowing the operating system to run two threads on one core. We would have liked to have seen the 1.66GHz N280 Intel Atom CPU paired with Intel’s newest GN40 chipset, unfortunately the 1000HE sticks with the ageing 945GSE chipset.

Asus includes 1GB of DDR2 RAM although 2GB is supported. Asus opts for a 5400rpm 160GB hard-disk drive for storage, which should be more than enough space for most users. Asus also includes its Eee Storage software, which provides access to 10GB of online space to transfer files between locations or share with others. Unfortunately, there is no SSD option available for those who would like speedier data access. For those that need to upgrade either the RAM or HDD, Asus has provided easy access to the bays on the bottom.

We have previously covered the unboxing of the Eee PC 1000HE, which you can find here. The 1000HE comes packaged in a compact box with various pieces of documentation, a carrying pouch and a power supply. The power supply (matching white) is quite small and easy enough to pack into a bag if you are on the move.

We were not too enamoured with the soft black pouch that came with the 1000HE. First of all the zip-up pouch has a very odd feel to the touch. I’m not sure what material it is made from, but it is not pleasant touching it. Secondly, the pouch is a dust magnet. I was astonished to see quickly it was picking up dust straight out from its cellophane wrapping. It’s not an attribute you want for a case. Apart from that, the pouch fit the 1000HE quite snugly and I was also able to fit in the power supply as well with a bit of a squeeze. I’m not sure if that is something you want to be doing though given the risk of scratching the glossy lid.

We were sent a white model and it certainly looks attractive with its glossy white lid. The 1000HE is almost identical to the 1000H but has a faster CPU (1.66GHz N280 Atom versus the 1.6GHz N270 Atom in the 1000H), a chiclet keyboard and better battery life (9.5 hrs versus 7 hours for the 1000H).

We’ll be doing the full range of battery, HDD and CPU tests that you would expect over the next few days. If there are any questions you’d like answered, feel free to ask away in the comments section and we’ll do our best to answer them. Click through for a full gallery of photos.

This is probably not surprising given that the Asus 1000HE costs a similar amount to the Samsung NC10 whilst having a longer battery life. However, it would be interesting to see how the 1000HE compares against Samsung’s upcoming N110 which Samsung claims will last for 9.5 hours. Click through for a full chart of the final result.

Acer, on the other hand, has decided to phase out the 8.9-inch netbook altogether and will focus its attention on 10-inch models. Asus will continue to push 10-inch models to consumers whilst it will target its 7-inch models to telecom partners. Asus also said that Eee PC shipments in Taiwan have doubled since last year, with shipments expected to reach between 16,000 – 17,000 units in April.

In other related news, Asus is planning to release a pink version of the Eee PC 1000HA during Softex Taipei (April 9 – 13). It will also be pushing its luxury netbook, the Eee PC S121.

Surprise, surprise he found that owning a netbook requires making compromises. Some of the issues with each netbook include mouse buttons on either side of the touchpad for the HP Mini 1001, the Samsung NC10 costs too much, the Asus is too heavy and the Wind doesn’t have upgradeable memory. The video doesn’t cover any new ground but is meant to be a bit of light relief, check it out after the break.