ASUS Eee PC 1000HE Review

The Eee PC 1000HE is the latest netbook refresh from ASUS that offers a revamped chicklet style keyboard and the new Intel Atom N280 processor. The exterior and interior look nearly identical to the 1000HA and 901, so if you liked the old style you will love this. The biggest change users will find on this new model is the extended 9.5 hour battery life, thanks to a battery 30% larger and improved power management. Just how well does this new netbook live up to its advertised claims? Read our review to find out.

ASUS Eee PC 1000HE Specifications:

• Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz processor
• 160GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive (Seagate 5400.5)
• 1GB of DDR2 RAM (667MHz)
• Windows XP Home operating system with SP3
• 10” WSVGA LED-Backlit 1024 x 600 LCD
• Ports: 3 USB 2.0, 1 VGA monitor out, headphone jack, microphone input, SD card reader (SDHC compatible), Kensington lock slot, Ethernet 10/100
• Webcam (1.3 MP)
• Battery: 7.2v 8700mAh 6-cell 63Wh battery
• Wireless: 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.0
• One-year warranty
• Size: 10.47” x 7.3” x 1.12-1.50”
• Weight: 3lbs 2.4oz, 3lbs 9.9oz travel
• Price: $399 ($374 with $25 preorder discount)

Build and Design

The ASUS Eee PC 1000HE keeps the same outside look of the 901 and 1000HA, with no noticeable difference until you look at the bottom or open up the display. Inside the new keyboard blends in with the rest of the glossy body, with the same gloss black paint used between all of the keys. Compared to the older Eee PC models this really adds another level of class and style to this netbook.

Build quality is very good with strong, durable plastics used throughout the body that help keep panels flex-free and the creaks to a minimum. The 1000HE holds its own ground inside a backpack, even against other heavy objects competing for space (like other laptops or books). For the average user this means you won’t find oily key impressions on the screen after you wedge this Eee PC into a backpack full of books on your way to class.

Display

The 10” LED-backlit display found on the Eee PC 1000HE is easy on the eyes and a real treat to view for hours on end. Whites are clear, colors are vibrant, and backlight levels are very bright and consistent. While many netbooks get the short end of the stick for some components such as processing power, they easily make up for it in screen quality. The panels found on most netbooks offer better viewing angles and brighter backlight levels than screen found on larger notebooks. Vertical viewing angles which tend to quickly invert colors on full-size notebooks stay accurate longer on the display found on the 1000HE. Horizontal angles are the same way, allowing the user to easily share a movie with a passenger on either side.

The only real downfall these smaller screens have is limited resolution (1024 x 600), which often causes problems with some applications that require minimum resolutions for menu screens. You can get past this with scaling or screen scrolling, but it is just a downside to the limited screen size in general.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The new Sony/Macbook style keyboard that ASUS has switched to for the 1000HE is a huge improvement in terms of ease of typing and tactile feel. The keys don’t feel as cramped since there is more space between them and even the key action feels smoother than before. One change that I personally love is the new key layout with the better placement of the right shift key and the larger control key on the bottom right. What this means is if you normally hit the up arrow while typing on the old keyboard (like I always did) you will now finally get the uppercase letter you originally intended to type. Taking the place of the old shift key is a second function key, for one-handed page up and page down movements. The new keyboard comes very close to tipping the scales against the HP Mini 1000 and 2140 but it would probably have to be a tie for best netbook keyboard.

ASUS uses an Elantech touchpad on the 1000HE for its multitouch capabilities, which works great if you want dual finger control, but not so great if you want fast response and sensitivity. I found that it had some lag during quick movement and didn’t have the nice high sensitivity of similar Synaptics models. One problem we noticed after a few hours of use was the touchpad surface slowly peeling up on one side like a loose sticker, but after pressing it back down it didn’t come up again. It may have just been a manufacturing flaw where it was not seated correctly during assembly. The touchpad buttons were large enough for easy triggering by the side of thumb and worked great if you hit them dead center or on the very edge. Feedback was minimal with a very shallow click when pressed.

Performance

System performance was great for average use which includes browsing the web, typing up a document, or doing light work inside a photo editor such as GIMP. We didn’t see much of an increase in performance over the older 1000HA, even though the 1000HE is technically faster with a higher clock speed and front side bus. In some benchmarks we actually saw results that decreased, especially with the newer Seagate 5400.5 hard drive. Access times ended up being 50% slower than the previous 5400.4 model, even though every other variable stayed the same including capacity.

HD video playback capabilities were roughly the same as previous Intel Atom netbooks, playing some lightly encoded 720p trailers with 40-50% CPU usage, and normal HD content like TV episodes at 60%+ while also dropping frames. The Intel N280 processor does support a newer GN40 chipset, but it does not appear to be included with this netbook. All of our testing software points to the standard Intel 945 chipset found in other Atom netbooks.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	114.749 seconds
Sony VAIO P (Intel Atom Z520 @ 1.33GHz)	154.768 seconds
HP Mini 2140 (Intel Atom N270 @ 1.60GHz)	138.812 seconds
ASUS N10 (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	126.047 seconds
ASUS Eee PC (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	117.577 seconds
Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	127.172 seconds
Acer Aspire One (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	125.812 seconds
Sony VAIO TZ (Intel Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.2GHz)	76.240 seconds

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (1.66GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,535 PCMarks
Sony VAIO P (1.33GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 500)	972 PCMarks
HP Mini 2140 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,489 PCMarks
ASUS N10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, NVIDIA 9300M 256MB)	1,851 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1000HA (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,527 PCMarks
Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,446 PCMarks
Acer Aspire One (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,555 PCMarks
Sony VAIO TZ (1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600)	2,446 PCMarks

3DMark06 measures video and gaming performance (higher scores mean better performance):

ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (1.66GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	92 3DMarks
Sony VAIO P (1.33GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 500)	88 3DMarks
HP Mini 2140 (1.60GHz Intel, Intel GMA 950)	118 3DMarks
ASUS N10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, NVIDIA 9300M 256MB)	1,417 3DMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1000HA (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	95 3DMarks
Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	N/A
Acer Aspire One (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	122 3DMarks
Sony VAIO TZ (1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600)	122 3DMarks

HDTune storage drive performance results:

Ports and Features

Port selection is average compared to most netbooks, but less than what some new netbooks offer. ASUS doesn’t include an ExpressCard slot for external WWAN radios, like the Lenovo S10 or HP Mini 2140. The 1000HE offers three USB, LAN, headphone/mic jacks, a Kensington lock slot, and VGA. A SDHC 4-in-1 multi-card reader located on the side handles flash cards from digital cameras or storage expansion.

Front: Activity lights

Rear: Battery

Left: Kensington lock slot, LAN, 1 USB, Headphone/Mic

Right: SDHC 4-in-1 card reader, 2 USB, VGA, AC Power

Speakers

The speakers are good enough to enjoy some music or a movie, but they are too small to produce any bass or midrange. At peak volume the 1000HE can fill up a smaller room with music to share with a couple of friends, but you might be fighting against background noise in a public setting. Headphones are a great option for private listening or if you want volume levels high enough to hurt your ears.

Heat and Noise

Heat buildup and noise from the cooling system was minimal during battery powered use, as the system scales back the processor which then puts off less heat. Throughout the majority of our battery test the fans never turned on and the keyboard area never broke the 90F mark. While on AC power using high performance or super performance modes the system does warm up quite a bit, leaving the fans running constantly at a low speed. While I wouldn’t categorize the noise as obnoxious, it is as loud as my full-size notebook.

Below are images showing the external temperatures in degrees Fahrenheit:

Battery

The 1000HE has a battery that is substantially larger than the one found in the old 1000HA that gave only 4 hours and 28 minutes in our testing. To move up towards the claim of nine and a half hours ASUS bumped the capacity from 49Wh to 63Wh and tweaked the power management software so the processor sipped even less juice. Both of these changes led to some very impressive real world results. With the screen brightness set to 60%, wireless active, and processor set to auto it stayed on for 7 hours and 36 minutes. This is the longest netbook battery life result we have seen from a stock configuration. If you are going for longest possible time, you can shut off the wireless cards, put it into power saving mode, and lower the brightness all the way and it gets an estimated 9 hours and 20 minutes of battery life.

Conclusion

ASUS made some good improvements to the 1000HE, most notably the newer keyboard. The keyboard is more comfortable to type on over the old style and the improved spacing helps to reduce typing errors. The design has few changes, with some areas gaining glossy paint over a matte finish before, but the average user might not tell the difference unless both were sitting next to each other. The newer Intel Atom processor with a faster clock speed and faster bus speed had little improvement in our benchmarks over its predecessor and HD content is still unfeasible unless you are playing low bitrate videos. The battery life also improved by a wide margin, moving past seven hours under normal use, which is the greatest out of any netbook we have reviewed. Overall I would say ASUS has an impressive new netbook and a very affordable starting price.

Pros:

• Awesome battery life (7 hours and 36 minutes under normal use!)
• Comfortable new keyboard design
• Faster Intel N280 Atom processor

Cons:

• Elantech touchpad has some minor lag under fast movement
• Processor, although faster, still isn't very powerful
• Not as small as Sony VAIO P

 

Nice review, I was waiting for some to show up, and I have one question - can I replace battery from 1000H with the one in this model to get better battery life?? Thx.

 

the small enter key looks horrible to type on

 

Good review, I quite liked this model, actually. I am somewhat enamored of keyboard.

Isn't this a bit unfair? If we're going to start listing not as small as Vaio P in the cons, then not as expensive as the Vaio P should go into the pros

Really? I could think of a number of things to complain about the keyboard on this, but the enter key really isn't one of them.

 

The new keys, although they look small, are actually larger than the keys on the Sony VAIO P. And compared to the keyboard on the Eee PC 1000HA, the new keyboard is easier to type on thanks to the extra space between the keys ... you don't accidentally press another key when you're typing near the edge of a key.

 

Any thoughts on this compared to the newly announced Samsung NC10 Special Edition?

 

You call that enter key "small"? At least it's bigger than VAIO P's

 

Thanks for the review but going to have to agree that that's an unfair comparison as they're not in the same category of ultra-portable. It would be similar to me saying that a major con of the OCZ Whitebook is that it's not in 11" laptop chassis.


But opinions of what's a netbook and what's a MID aside, doesn't seem like the N280 is producing much of a performance gain over the N270 in the 1000HA.

 

Same salami, different bread.

 

I definitely would want to try the Special Edition for the NC10 because well, 9.4 hours is pretty impressive. And with a glossy screen is sure to enhance colors and brightness.

One thing I dont get about this 1000HE review though is why did it have the normal 945 graphics chipset? Where is the GN40? Wasn't that, the battery, and the keyboard the main selling points of this?

 

No GN40 for this one. I don't think it's out quite yet.

 

Samsung Special Edition: $5000

EEE 1000HE: $399 or less. Easy choice?

Good review btw.

 

cute little netbook

 

Apparently the N280 doesn't come standard with the GN40 but instead it is an enhanced media chipset option that netbook manufacturers can offer.

ASUS might offer it in later versions of the 1000HE but right now they're only selling it with the 945GSE.

 

$5000?!?!?

 

Its not 500 its 499 lol http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/08/special-edition-samsung-nc10-gets-6-cell-battery-larger-touchpa/

 

bah... you're right. http://www.engadget.com/tag/gn40

I guess I'll either just wait for the real GN40 with a 1366x768 display or an Ion powered netbook =[... although the NC10 Special Edition does look very appealing /shiny....

 

Waiting for an Ion with dual-core atom too. Hope its not a long wait.
Add Win7, a multitouch touchpad, the option to upgrade my ram (2gigs will be fine but 4 gigs better), 4-5hrs per charge.... I'm not asking too much, am I? How long do you think such a netbook will be made?

 

I am pretty sure one will be out by the end of the year, I mean, I know that at least HP with their Mini 2140 has an option for the HD (1366x768) screen and I *think* that the 1000HE also is supposed to have that option, I'm not sure, but I know at least one other netbook other than the Mini 2140 is supposed to have that HD option. To be honest I dont need a netbook, but hey, i mean, 9.5 hours battery life, vs the 4.5 that my XPS m1530 gets... I totally would go for it.

 

I do have to admit I was skeptical of netbooks until I put my moms to the test at work. I do like the upgraded 280 vs 270, although not a huge upgrade still an upgrade. Id prefer a smaller netbook though as 10in is close enough to 12in to make me just get a standard 12in laptop. Great review as usual!

 

The Nvidia Ion for netbooks will only be single-core Atoms but will still be worth it. You won't see dual-cores in netbooks until quad-cores are the standard issue in all notebooks.

@acaurora: Keep an eye out for the Dell Mini 10. It will offer a 1366x768 16:9 screen option and it uses the Z530 Atoms with the GMA500. Pop in a SSD and you won't have the hum of active cooling or moving parts interrupting your movie watching.

 

How is being larger than a Vaio P a true con? Personally I'd rather have the larger screen and keyboard over pocketability.

 

I believe that's Kevin's tongue and cheek way of saying there's not much wrong, so I'll just throw something in here to stir up people a bit.

 

Great review!!! If you don't mind, I've got a couple of questions I haven't seen addressed here or anything else:


1. What speed does the N280 run at in "Super Performance" overclocked mode with Asus' Super Hybrid Engine ? Does it manage to finally hit 2ghz "officially" (ie without voiding the warranty or using eeeCTL) and how does it stack up to an MSI Wind running in full speed (nearly 2ghz) with the 1.09 BIOS?

2. Has Asus changed anything in regards to the maximum amount of video memory is allocated to the 945GSE? I think the Wind supports up to 224mb vs. the 128mb on most of the other netbooks using the same chipset.

3. Does the HE use the exact same (lame) Ralink 2790 wireless N card as its predecessors?

4. Is the left-hand side USB port really a shared USB/eSATA combo port as mentioned in this review?
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/product/46518/review/eee_pc_1000he.html

5. Does the HE still incude an actual Windows restore disc as well as the zipper sleeve? Not a big deal but I am just curious to see if any major cost-cutting has gone on with the HE.

Thanks!

 

I can't answer all of your questions right now, so I'll leave most of the responses to Kevin. However, I can answer the question about the USB port.

PCWorld was wrong (WAY WRONG) to claim the left side USB port is a combo USB/eSATA port. It is just a USB 2.0 port. There are many notebooks that have combo USB/eSATA ports, but the Eee PC 1000HE isn't one of them.

 

Its amazing how far netbooks have come along in features and value. $400 back in late 2007 got you the EEE 701 with just a 7" screen, 800x480 resolution, 4gb SSD, 3 hours of battery life, Celeron etc. About 15 months later for the same price, we get a larger screen, higher resolution, Atom processor, 2-3 times the battery life and 40 times the capacity even if its a HDD vs SSD.

 

1. Computer Mag says 1.75GHz.

2. Has 224mb.

 

I've got a bit of an itchy trigger finger for this one. This is one of the few netbooks I've seen that I think I could actually give up my full sized notebook for. I really like the idea of getting down to one notebook, instead of the multiple machines I'm working with now.

This little guy may just be the ticket.

 

Wow, looks great i was pretty certain the keyboard was gonna be fine and it came through well.

It looks like this notebook builds on the already great success of the 1000h

Hopefully we'll see a 1000HJ the successor to the N10J(I wish)

 

w/ spare extended batt you could get about 9 hrs from a dv4 pavilion

and of course thats running Vista w/ powersave settings but still thats a full 14.1" LED screen w/ 512mb GeForce Graphics+ Blu-Ray...not too bad for just 4.7 lbs...

 

Impressive battery performance due to the high capacity.

Why can't we get that capacity for normal notebook 6 cell batteries?

John

 

The batterytimes and capacities in this article are a big confusion and simply wrong!
1000H 1000HA have a 6600mAh 6 cell battery.

I own a 1000H, and it has the battery.
Also a runtime of 4h 10minutes for the 1000H is a very conservative estimate, with Super performance mode - 1.9Gz overclocked. The moment you clock the CPU down to 1.6 or even 1.2 Mhz the battery time increases a lot. 5h 30min is well possible, 6h if you sacrifice WIFI screen brightness.
Not sure what they did wrong in their test of the 1000H.

Still 9hours with a 1000HE is quite impressive. Not sure how ASUS pulled that one off. Unfortunatly it isn't clear from the review if and how the battery changed. (is it bigger? weight? can the new and old battery be swaped?)
Cheers
M.
P.S. the slimmer S101 and the 1002xx series have a smaller battery, maybe that's where the confusion comes from.

 

Battery capacities are correct and verified. The 1000HA we reviewed shipped with a 7.4v 6600mAh battery with ~49Wh capacity. The 1000HE in my hands shipped with a 7.2v 8700mAh with ~63Wh capacity. Battery information is always listed in the specs area of each review. While normally I would say you could swap the batteries no problem, the voltage difference might cause problems.

Our tests run the netbooks in the auto high performance switching mode, not locked in power saver. With constant Wifi access some of our tests will be lower than a computer sitting completely idle with screen brightness very low, but we feel our tests compare better with real life situations.

 

Kevin;

Great review, many thanks for address items not covered elsewhere.

Can you confirm (as reported on another site that I don't trust quite as much for the nitty-gritty details as I do NBR) that the Super Peformance mode on the 1000HE only bumps it up to 1.75ghz? I was hoping for something "legal" approaching the ~2ghz MSI gave the Wind a few months ago...

Also, can you address my earlier question about the wireless card in the HE? I assume it's the exact same underwhelming Ralink N card as found on the 1000H/HA etc.

Thanks again!

 

Yea super high performance is just 1.75ghz, but still auto switching. It bumps the bus speed to 175mhz so it goes between 1-1.75ghz depending on load.

It is listed as the AzureWAve Wireless Network Adapter, the wireless card is no longer accessible through the access panel without tearing the bottom off.

 

@ kevin:

I was wondering, if still have the 1000HE in hand, if u could post all the battery reading using Lavalys Everest Software.

Eg. Designed capacity, full capacity, discharge rate and wear level.

With my 1000H battery which is labeled 6600mah, the reading from Everest show the full capacity as 55Wh, not 48Wh, which would make the battery capacity as >7500mah.


I am guessing the reading for the 1000HE battery in Everest would be a min. of 70Wh and have a capacity rating of >9700mah.

Thanks in Advance.

 

Hot Pics of my second fave 10" EEE (the future 1002HE with Pineview is fave)

 

1002? That says 1000he though, i like the styling of the 1002 though really really sleek.

 

I see now where the confusion comes, the mAh number and the Wh number, combing Voltage and mAh.

I would be very surprised if the minuscule drop from 7.4 to 7.2 makes any difference... It is probably the result of the fact that the new battery has a slightly higher resistance. At the end they are both Li ion based so the original voltage should be identical.
Can you try and swap them?
Pretty please?
M

 

Only way to know for sure if the battery is compatible is to see a pic of the new 6-cell separately, removed from the 1000HE.

Based on the location of the battery locks, it indicates that part of the battery is recessed under in the units housing.

1000H
http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/38039.jpg

1000HE
http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/40878.jpg


I still don't know how they made it thinner cause to me the sides/bottom seem more fatter.

1000H
http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/38027.jpg

1000HE
http://www.notebookreview.com/shared/picture.asp?f=40798

&
Sucks that they made the hdd/ram door smaller, so no more access to wifi-card.
At least one thing is for sure, the main-board is different, since the ram slot is in more to the left.

 

An NBR Reviewer actually thinks this? Stop drinking the Kool-aid man!

I personally prefer to be able to view my screen in most situations instead of needing to be in a cave to make sure there are no reflections.

 

Cut the drama Ms. Lohan. A cave? Really?

 

Why is that? The dual-core Atoms are already out, right?(i think a read a review about it on a website sometime ago, and the conclusion was that it isn't that much faster than the single core. of course it wouldn't, it would only be better at multitasking). And there is a video on youtube about a Ion pc with a dual-core atom playing COD4. It wasn't a laptop though, it was in a tiny make-shift box for Ion's.

So the Ion is out, dual-core atoms are out, what are the pc manufacturers waiting for??

 

Intel doesn't allow dual-core Atoms in netbooks as they're are only to be used in nettops (that "tiny make-shift box for Ions" is called a nettop).

And honestly it's understandable since as much as people want them to be, netbooks aren't meant to be cheap replacements for notebooks and therefore don't require the processing of dual-cores.

There are other improvements that can (and should) be made to Atoms to make them "peppier" before there's a need for them to go dual-core.

 

So no hope at all for an atom dual-core and Ion combo? Not even in a 11-12" netpads/legbooks etc? No hope for a decent gaming netbook in the near future??

Oh well. I'll just get the next generation u330 if lenevo is able to fix its minor but numerous problems and give it decent battery life.

 

11-12" is more likely to use Intel's upcoming processors/chipset to fight AMD Neo platform, so that may have dual cores and better graphics.

 

This video/review not only confirm that the new 1000HE has fatter edges then the 1000H, but also that the battery is the same shape/size and part of it does hides under the housing.

Look at the thickness under the ports.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/notebooks/review/2009/02/12/Asus-Eee-PC-1000HE/p2

look after 2:40 into video.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/video/Asus-Eee-PC-1000HE

 

What Jay said:

I'm going to guess the CULV will still be a single-core but offer better performance than the Atom.

I'm also going to go on the record as saying that this CULV will probably kill the Atom for ultra-portable notebooks since the CULV will genuinely offer the features that consumers think they're getting when they buy a netbook.

The Atom will likely continue to exists as MID and nettop CPUs.

 

I'm so tempted to buy one soon.

 

Hi,

Anyone knows if the memory is upgradable, the type and to how much? [excluding any licensing limitations imposed by Microsoft].

As well, when using with WinXP, how much RAM is actually left after the netbook boots up?

Thanks