Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: Asus, EeePC, 1000 | Themes: Laptops and Notebooks, Business Notebooks
- 4. The Atom Advantage: Performance
- 5. Balancing Portability and Performance
- 6. More on this topic
5. Balancing Portability and Performance
As the price of the Eee PC models goes up, so does the performance of the larger laptops they have to compete with—for the $700 that the 40 GB Linux model costs, you could find a dual-core 15.4” laptop, or even a 17” HP Pavilion. But these are much less portable machines than either model of the Eee PC 1000—and often less stylish. An ultraportable usually has a price tag of $1,500 and up; even the budget Lenovo 3000 V200 is over $800 for a 12.1” screen and a weight of 4.3 pounds.
But the price of the Eee 1000H (the 80 GB version) has dropped to $549 on at least one retailer’s site.
The Atom processor helps to keep the price down, and it means the Eee’s performance is on the light side just like its weight, but if you care about portability the battery life will make up for that. The Windows model with the hard drive is definitely better value; for the applications that the Atom processor can run well, the extra speed of the SSD doesn’t make much difference, and the battery life is enough to cope with the extra power drain.
While it’s a long way from the initial idea—and price—of the mini-notebook Eee, the Eee PC 1000 revolutionizes the ultraportable market in much the same way. If you want a machine that gives you a good balance between portability and usability, and the budget matters more than the specifications, there’s very little to match this machine until more Atom-based models come to the market.
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what about eeepc 901? not even a mention or little review in tomsguide?
I bought a 1000H from NewEgg.com the first day it was available. The keyboard is very firm. I've noted lots of comments about a bendy, flexible keyboard. Apparently, Asus fixed that problem in early units sent to the U.S.
Re: fingerprints. This really bothers some reviewers. I agree. I'm returning my Corvette because fingerprints are visible on the door handles.
Anon - Asus did say this keyboard problem was only a problem with the review units, but I've heard of the same problem in shipping models of the Eee 900 and 901 (with users fixing it by putting strips of packing phone into the keyboard well) so it was an issue I wanted to cover.
Just got mine. Eee 1000HA (160Gb storage) Compared it to HP mini-note. HP has a better display and is much sleeker, but the Eee trumps it on battery longetvity, and OpenGL. I run planetarium software, wich I brought to the store on a USB drive, and tried on Aspire One, HP Mini Note, MSI Wind and Asus Eee. The MSI was lacking in storage (80Gb), The Acer had way too much pre-loaded crapware on it, wich slowed it down to a crawl. ( I did not fancy spending a whole day cleaning it up.) The HP was 160$ more yet not quite up to the job for OpenGL, unless I reduced the resolution, which defeats the purpose of a larger screen. I Feel the Eee 1000HA, in my case, was the best deal out there.