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Asus Eee PC 1000H
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Keyboard; battery life; performance.
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Heavy for a netbook computer
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9 out of 10 (9/10)
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Mobile technology has taken an interesting turn when we start referring
to a 1.45KG netbook laptop computer as heavy, but that is the predicament we find ourselves
in with the Asus eee pc 1000h 80g computers laptops features. Like the Wind, Asus eee pc boasts
a 10 inch lcd flat panel laptop screen display
, 80GB hard drive
and
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1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, but as Asus 1000h laptops
larger and heavier than all the other units, Asus laptop computer straddles the line between
netbook computer and ultraportable laptop computer and Asus 1000h laptop does not seem
entirely comfortable in either camp.
The Asus 1000H 80GB has the honour of being the first PC without
an RSI inducing keyboard in its features in our review.
The wide dimensions of Asus eee laptop have been put to good use by incorporating a full sized keyboard
with delightful keyboard tactile feedback. Only a couple of the
asus laptop keyboard buttons have been squished on
the right hand side, the Ctrl key on the laptop keyboard is skinnier than the others and the keyboard Shift button
has been cut in half.
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The touchpad and wrist area of Asus 1000h features are both a good size,
but the mouse
buttons are stiff and the touchpad does not feel responsive enough, even after adjusting
its sensitivity in
the Settings the multi finger smartpad feature is a nice touch, and works similar to the
MacBook Air in that you can use two and three finger gestures on the touchpad to
scroll through long pages, zoom in and out of photos, and flick through images in a photo album.
New to the Atom based PCs (the asus eee pc 901 and asus eee pc 1000H x) is a strip of buttons above the
keyboard that turn the screen off, change the laptop screen resolution, adjust laptop clock speed and launch a
program of your choice (Skype by default). The second and third asus netbook keyboard buttons
are the most interesting.
Asus 1000h pc resolutions on offer are 800 x 600 resolution, 1024 x 600 (standard), 1024 x 768
and a 1024 x 768 resolution
compressed mode that squashes the resolution so you can see everything on the
laptop screen lcd display without scrolling handy for web sites and programs that assume a minimum
flat lcd laptop screen display height of 768 pixels. The Asus 1000h keyboard third button
launches the Super Hybrid Engine utility,
which cycles through four power options that underclock and overclock
the asus eee laptop 1000h Atom processor(1.6GHz) for better laptop computer
battery life or performance.
The asus eee pc 1000h 80g and asus eee pc 1000h 160g also has a couple of
features that the other netbook laptop computers do not have,
namely Dolby Sound Room certified stereo speakers and 802.11n wireless networking.
The Asus 1000h pc speakers located underneath the lip of the Asus netbook computer
on the left and right hand sides. The Asus 1000h speakers are powerful but have an
echoey quality and distorted treble and bass.
Still, the Asus 1000h speakers are significantly better than the ones on its closest competitor,
the Wind, which had trouble reproducing the vocals on music tracks.
We benchmarked the Asus pc 1000h x at its default 1.6GHz clock speed and over clocked
at 1.8GHz clock speed using the Super Hybrid Engine program. Problems with the graphics tests
meant we could not get a total score for PCMark05, but it was a photo finish
comparing the separate CPU, memory and hard drive tests between the Asus 1000h pc notebook and the
Wind running at 1.6GHz clock speed. The Wind bested the Asus pc 1000h laptop computer by a
slim margin for the second test,
but the 1000H x edged slightly ahead for the CPU and hard drive tests. Oddly, the results
for the 1000H x running at 1.8GHz clock speed were not much different to the results at 1.6GHz clock speed.
The Asus 1000h pc also did well in the video encoding test, taking 51 minutes to transcode an
XviD file to MPEG-4, second only to the Sony video encoding, and it had the fastest
startup time of 31.6 seconds.
Part of the reason for the 1000H's bulk is that it has got a 6 cell laptop computer battery powered, and
it has a good trade off when you compare Asus netbook laptop pc run time to those with
a 3 cell laptop computer battery powered. For our DVD run down test
(using an external USB drive powered off
two of the Asus eee 1000H computers laptops USB ports), it ran for three hours and 29 minutes, and for our
wireless test it went for four hours and 27 minutes. This is using the default
Auto power profile switching it to power saving mode and dimming the lcd flat panel laptop screen below
40% should easily stretch Asus laptop battery life over the five hour mark with Wi Fi on.
Lighter netbook computers with larger 12 inch or 13 inch laptop lcd screens display and
better performance and features
are on tap from every netbook laptop pc vendor, but you certainly will not find them at the 1000H's
asking price. This latest Asus eee is a balancing act of a larger netbook's form factor and
features with the budget pricing and extreme mobility of a netbook computer. It is around 50% heavier
than other units we reviewed, but if you have got a tight budget and want an ultra light laptop computer
without sacrificing on comfort or features, the 1000H laptop computer is by far the best contender.
Reference: Asus eee 1000h review by APC Magazine Australia edition September 2008.
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