ASUS Eee PC 1005PE Review

The ASUS Eee PC 1005PE is the first 10.1” Intel Pine Trail netbook on the market featuring the Intel Atom 450 processor and Intel GMA 3150 integrated graphics. Claiming up to 50 percent better battery life than the previous generation, this model could potentially offer up to 14 hours of battery life! Is this the “all-day” netbook platform we have all been waiting for? Check out our full review to find out.

ASUS Eee PC 1005PE Specifications:

• Windows 7 Starter Edition (32-bit)
• 10.1-inch diagonal WSVGA (1024x600)
• Intel Atom N450 Processor 1.66GHz (667MHz FSB, 512KB Cache)
• 1GB DDR2 SDRAM (800MHz)
• Intel GMA 3150 integrated graphics
• 250GB Seagate 5400.6 SATA HDD plus 500GB Online Storage
• Atheros AR9285 BGN Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
• 4-in-1 media card slot
• Dimensions: (H x W x D): 0.89-1.40 x 10.2 x 6.9 inches
• 2.8lbs (not including weight of AC adapter)
• 6-cell Lithium-Ion battery (5600mAh, 63Wh)
• One-year standard warranty
• MSRP: $379.99 (Ready for Purchase Jan 3, 2010)

Observant readers will recognize this review is quite similar to the review of the Eee PC 1005HA. This is because the 1005PE is essentially just a 1005HA with the newer Intel Pine Trail motherboard.

Build and Design
The Eee PC 1005PE is a lower-cost version of the 1008HA Seashell and features a similar clamshell chassis design but is a little thicker and comes with a removable battery. Unlike the 1008HA, which had plastic covers over every port, all of the ports on the 1005PE are easily accessible so you won't have to struggle to plug in a USB flash drive. The 1005PE also isn't as thin as the 1008HA Seashell, but the 1005PE makes up for extra bulk with a high-capacity removable battery.

If you look at the top of the 1005PE it's easy to see the "Seashell" heritage, and thankfully it manages to retain some solid build quality for a budget netbook. The glossy blue plastics aren't prone to flex and the keyboard is very firm ... two things you usually don't see on budget notebooks. The various parts of the chassis come together with tight build tolerances like a higher-priced laptop. This isn't the most rugged netbook we've ever seen, but ASUS gave the 1005PE a pretty solid build for less than $400.

One nice improvement on this netbook compared to the last Seashell is the return of an easy-access RAM cover. If you want to upgrade the RAM in your 1005PE all you have to do is remove one screw on the access panel on the bottom of the netbook. I would have also liked to see an easy-access panel for the hard drive, but most netbook buyers aren't going to mess with the hard drive.

Screen and Speakers
The new Eee PC 1005PE Seashell uses a fairly standard LED-backlit display panel with a 1024x600 native resolution. The glossy screen looks identical to what we saw in the 1008HA: it offers good color and contrast, but glare and reflections indoors under strong lights or outdoors under direct sunlight can be a problem. Again, although the 1024x600 resolution is pretty standard for a netbook these days, I'd much rather see a 1366x768 screen in the next Eee PC. Vertical viewing angles are average, with minimal color distortion when viewing from below and some over-exposed colors when viewed from above. Horizontal viewing angles are better with colors staying accurate at extremely wide viewing angles with just a little bit of color wash out.

One slightly annoying feature we noticed on the 1005PE is related to the low-end Starter edition of Windows 7. The desktop background is locked to the ASUS OEM background image and can’t be changed through normal means. If you plan on swapping out the OEM background image, savvy users can follow one of many online guides that outline the process of changing the desktop background.

The built-in speaker performance on the Eee PC 1005PE is pretty good for a 10-inch netbook. I'm not a fan of the location of the built-in speakers since they're located on the bottom front edge of the 1005PE, but the audio quality is better than what we typically hear from netbook speakers. The speakers produce good volume (enough to fill a small room) and there is minimal distortion even at higher volume levels. The speakers lack much bass, but the range of highs and midtones are fine. Still, the audio output from the headphone jack is free of any obvious distortion and is a better solution when paired with earphones or a good set of external speakers.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard on the 1005PE is comfortable to type on and very responsive. The keys are slightly smaller than those on an average notebook but still quite usable. The "Chiclet" style keyboard has been added to the 1005PE, whereas the older 1005HA used a standard keyboard. The keyboard tray has very little flex under strong pressure, but in some areas the tray seems to float above the support structure beneath it. When you type in areas on the right side of the keyboard, centered right above the K-key, your clicking action is met with a solid “thunk”. On the opposite side of the keyboard each press is met with a quiet high-pitched click.

The Synaptics touchpad used on the 1005PE is likewise identical to the gesture-enabled model on the 1008HA. This allows you to use multi-figure gestures such as "pinching" your fingers together or "pulling" your fingers apart to zoom in or out. You can also use a "three-finger tap" as an alternative to a right click on a mouse. The Synaptics control panel in Windows also allows you to customize these gestures as well. The touchpad surface is covered in dots that provide a clear indication of the edges of the touchpad, but this also makes the touchpad surface too rough for quick finger movement. The left and right touchpad buttons are located beneath a single rocker-style button, but with no separation between the left and right side it's easy to accidentally press the middle of the touchpad button when you're trying to press the left or right side. The touchpad buttons have extremely shallow feedback, so it isn't always easy to feel when you have or have not pressed a button.

The 1005PE lacks a dedicated wireless on/off switch, but ASUS did include a dedicated touchpad on/off button as well as FN keyboard shortcuts for wireless, screen brightness, video output, volume, and Windows task manager.

Input and Output Ports
The 1005PE provides a few more ports than the 1008HA. Namely, you get three USB 2.0 ports, a 4-in-1 media card reader, headphone and microphone jacks, Ethernet port, and the return of a standard VGA out port. The 1005PE lacks the protective port covers seen on the 1008HA, but I personally don't like protective covers since I have to move them to use the ports. Here is a quick tour around the Eee PC 1005PE:

Front view: No ports here, just clean lines and indicator lights.

Rear view: No ports here either, just the hinges and battery.

Left side view: Power jack, VGA out, USB 2.0 port, security lock slot, and heat vent.

Right side view: 4-in-1 card reader, headphone jack, microphone jack, two USB 2.0 ports, and Ethernet.

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Performance and Benchmarks
The newer 1005PE with its Intel Atom N450 processor didn&rsquo;t show a huge increase in performance compared to the 1005HA with the N280. Both processors offer the same specifications including a 1.66GHz clock speed, 667MHz FSB, and 512KB L2 cache. The main difference is the N450 makes use of the newer Intel GMA 3150 graphics whereas the N280 gets stuck with the GMA 950. In our performance tests PCMark05 dropped significantly compared to the 1005HA running Windows XP. wPrime actually scored the same on both systems, which wasn&rsquo;t a surprise given both processors operate at the same speed. The newer GMA 3150 integrated graphics gave the system a small boost in 3Dmark06 and seemed to handle HD video better. In our HD video tests the 1005PE had no problem playing our 720P trailer of Up!, but 1080P pushed it over the edge. Flash video was out of the question even with the newest Flash 10 beta installed. 720P YouTube clips wouldn&rsquo;t play without severe stuttering in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. In terms of real-world system performance most of the enhancements of the 1005PE came from the system running Windows 7 instead of Windows XP.

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

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

3DMark06 comparison results against netbooks @ 1024 x 768 resolution (higher scores mean better performance):

HDTune hard drive performance test:

Heat and Noise
Thermal performance of the Eee PC 1005PE was excellent with its very low power consumption. Even under continuous stress we still couldn&rsquo;t get the 1005PE to form any significant warm spots. For heat-sensitive users this netbook would be an excellent choice. Fan noise was minimal at worst, needing your ear right next to the exhaust vent to hear it during normal conditions. With the system stressed the fan speed increased but it was still difficult to hear over room noise.

Battery
Compared to the 1005HA, the 1005PE&rsquo;s biggest strength is the newer chipset which is much more efficient. ASUS claims that this netbook should get an estimated 14 hours of runtime while operating from the battery, up from 10.5 hours with the older platform. Considering we didn&rsquo;t see much improvement with the overall performance of the 1005PE, we hoped at least one area would see jump in results. In our battery test with the screen brightness set to 70%, wireless active, and Windows 7 set to the Balanced profile the system continued to run for 12 hours and 1 minute. This is a 25% boost compared to the 1005HA with the Intel Atom N280 processor and older GMA950 graphics that managed 9 hours and 37 minutes. Movie playback was no problem for the 1005PE, getting an estimated 8.5 hours decoding SD-video and 6.5 hours decoding HD-video. In short you can get more video playback time from the Eee PC 1005PE sitting on your lap than you can from the Ipod Touch&hellip; with a larger screen to boot.

Conclusion
The Intel Pine Trail platform doesn&rsquo;t bring a huge performance boost compared to the older N270 and N280-based netbooks, but it does give a huge bump in energy management. Compared to the Eee PC 1005HA which got 9 hours and 37 minutes in our original battery test, the 1005PE managed over 12 hours ... a 25 percent increase. Most of this comes from the newer system-on-a-chip design, which puts important system components like the processor, memory controller, and graphics controller on a single chip instead of spread out over the motherboard. At current market prices the 1005PE lists for $379.99 compared to about $340 for the Windows 7 version of the 1005HA. If battery life is the most important feature you look at when buying a notebook, 40 bucks gets you over two hours of additional mobility.

Pros:

• 12 hours of battery life
• Good overall build quality
• Excellent thermal management

Cons:

• Annoying keyboard movement

Related Articles:

• Review Update: ASUS Eee PC 1008HA with Windows 7
• ASUS Eee PC 1201N Review
• ASUS Eee PC 1005HA Review

 

Yeah for Pinetrail! But this isn't fanless?

 

I think with a larger heat plate you could pull it off with this thing. IT puts off so little heat that it probably doesnt even need constant airflow. The case might feel warm but the processor should be fine.

 

So then the video card can handle HD video(not flash HD)? Just making sure.

 

720p HD movies yes, HD flash no

 

No it cannot, that is why you need something like Broadcom's HD Decoder for good HD playback. Dell's new Mini 10 with the N450 will offer it as an option.

BTW, the new Mini 10 is still fanless...

 

The 3150 with the CCCP codec pack and Divx software installed passed our 720p test just fine

 

Man it is a shame the first gen netbooks didn't have these specs. That was part of the reason I sold my HP Mini 1000, it wasn't able to play 720p no matter the codec used.

 

Well I meant better than 720p. My old EEE 901 could playback 720p fine.

 

Thanks for the nice review.

 

12 hours with 6 cell..
i guess 6 hours for 3 cell.. (if they offer one)
saving more weight for more portability..
nice evolution from old N270/N280.

 

I wish there was a way to transplant the Pine Trail motherboard into my 1000HA. I can't stand glossy screens, and don't understand why they dominate the much more viewable matte screens. Also, I could do without Windows 7.

 

sick! 14 hrs.. now we're talking..

 

I am loving the battery life on this thing right now. 10 hours with my USB WWAN card stuck in the side. I just might have to pick one of these up for travel use.

//posting from the back seat of a car right now

 

Do they offer this in Pinetrail dual core model?

 

great review!!!

But the Pinetrail wasnt due to Jan 2010? Anyways, good to know about battery life!

 

Initially it was Jan 2010 and then we found out they pushed up the date. Perhaps they want to hit the ground running if AMD releases some pretty awesome mobile stuff at CES?

 

This is already on sale in Germany? There is an unboxing here.

 

its also available with a non-glossy display, in germany at least... Asus EeePC 1005PE-BLK025S http://geizhals.at/deutschland/a495234.html

the glossy one is the 1005PE-BLK024S, both cost €299


does anyone know how the battery life using expressgate is? is it better than in windows?

 

I read some where it was a bit slow palying flash games from facebook. Is this true?

 

With the newest Flash 10.1 beta, it's probably not a problem.

 

Facebook is really slow and laggy anyway.