ASUS Eee PC 1005HA: Refining the Netbook
by Jarred Walton on August 20, 2009 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
The rate of change within the computer industry is frequently startling. [Maybe someone could plot the derivative….] Case in point, netbooks have now been in the market for nearly two years, and pretty much every major player within the computer industry has a competing offering. In just two short years, features, battery life, and even performance have increased significantly. We recently looked at the MSI Wind U123 and ASUS 1000HE, two of the first netbooks to ship with Intel's latest Atom N280 processor. Compared to previous netbooks using the N270, not much changed -- we are after all looking at a meager 4% clock speed increase. Compared to older netbooks, however, we've seen a decent performance jump relative to the initial Eee PC 2G/4G's Celeron M900.
Today we have the latest iteration of the ASUS Eee PC, the 1005HA. Very little has changed relative to the 1000HE/1000HA -- and the primary difference between those two is the use of a larger battery in the 1000HE along with an option to get either an N280 or N270. ASUS is still using a 10.1" LCD, but they have switched to a different battery again and have increased the specified battery life to 10.5 hours (from 9.5 hours). The casing has also changed a bit, as it's now a lot more difficult to access the hard drive.
We've also revamped our netbook testing since last article, adding some additional tests and providing more details than before. Unfortunately, we were unable to run all of the new tests on previously reviewed netbooks, but we do have several netbook reviews in the pipeline and we will provide results from those models where possible. Outside of battery life, something that varies based on installed components and features, most netbooks will have similar performance. That being the case, any extra features as well as usability, design and pricing are largely going to determine what users will want to purchase.
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yyrkoon - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
Well, I know you did not address me, but I would like to add on things that I feel Jarred left out.First, I have helped a couple of friends do the initial OEM setup on XP netbooks, and they are dog slow. Boot up on these Dell netbooks takes what seems like forever, just to enter into the the welcome/setup screen. Probably around 1.5-2 minutes for first boot. Then going through the different setup pages for the various things such as computername, and network setup are very sluggish compared to say a doing the same on a Pentium 4 onward. Honestly, I have installed XP Pro on a PII 300 with 384 MB of RAM, and I do not think it was this slow( it was a few years ago ). This I would have to assume would have to do with HDD speeds but I am not 100% sure. In relation again to your Prescott onwards comment, I would have to say if you're not very patient, you would probably get upset waiting to do things, or perhaps start reading a book, or doing something else ( cook dinner ? Yes, exaggeration ). I myself got very frustrated just navigating around in XP home on these two Dell mini's, but I am not exactly patient. For someone else who has little experience with reasonably updated Windows system, they would probably be happy. *Until* they try and do something like play a game other than minesweeper, or tried using Photoshop, etc.
On the flip side of things, the atom classed CPU's would make for a fairly decent embedded system CPU. But only for certain applications, and definitely not in netbook form. unless perhaps a developer was using one for the development stages for some reason.
In your scenario where you may have a CEO who wants to "go green", there are better options. One could consider buying a specific motherboard with the ability to undervolt/underclock the system, and pay someone to set this up in the BIOS. George Oui ( last name correctly spelled ? ) from ZDNets tech article section ( before he left ) seemed to have done some very intensive/hands on testing of some of the lower power rated Core 2 Duo CPU's, and was able to to achieve ~50W for a single system including a LCD monitor ( full load ). That is definitely not bad for a desktop classed system, but you could do better with laptop classed parts in a mini ITX system ( which are available ), but at a comparitively higher price. All in all however, it would probably be better to contact an OEM vendor such as Dell, tell them what you need, and see if they can build something to meet your needs.
As for the testing . . . I do not see what they could do really. Well, other than what they have done except perhaps include system boot times. Only the odd "current" titled games such as WoW will play on these, and even on the ION platform, are terrible compared to any desktop system made within the last 5-6 years ( assuming said parts were current at the time ).
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GeorgeH - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
Thanks for those perspectives, they're much appreciated. I should probably just go buy one and judge for myself, but $200+ for another doorstop is a little steep. :)I guess for the time being I'll just stick with LGA775/AM2 for my low end needs. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
Honestly, employees get paid so much more than the computers they use (in all but a few situations) that there's no way I'd recommend "going green" by using Atom-based systems. Let's just estimate that computer-related tasks end up taking 10% more time on average (because multitasking is going to be more limited on such PCs). If you pay someone $20 per hour, you've now wasted $16 per day per employee.Even if it's only 5% and $8 per day, considering a 200W PC uses around $0.16 in electricity during an eight hour shift, cutting that down to an 8W netbook and spending a penny a day on power means that your net costs have still gone up $7.85 per day or more based on lost productivity.
Unless you're power constrained (i.e. in a data center), I think the whole green movement is just a bunch of marketing and political mumbo jumbo. Other "green" CPUs like Core 2 Duo would be far more effective at saving money over the course of the year.
Then again, the biggest source of lost money for companies is probably employees wasting time rather than waiting on their PCs. :-) Reply
yyrkoon - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
"Dont expect to spend sub-$400 (not yet anyway) and still expect all the sweet things most commenters are asking for here"I did exactly that, 3 month ago. But it was not a netbook, it was a full blown laptop, even if low powered. $399, free shipping. But, I did add to the cost by having enough foresight to order a 4GB upgrade for it ( $50 ). It will definitely not win any speed records, but at least it *will* run Photoshop, play video without skipping a beat,and play game titles such as GTA San Andreas, or Titan Quest with no problems. All while using a maximum of 40W full load. Idle is only ~17W. Battery life is only ~2 hours, unless you turn it down to energy conservation mode, but that does not bother me one bit. As a matter of a fact, playing no games, and turning the power option down, I have had it last 8-9 hours, but I was not constantly using it like I often do while gaming.
Also, at the same time I was looking at an Asus C2D system, with 4 GB RAM, and one of the newer 512MB/1GB N120 nVidia dedicated graphics cards in it. It was not sub $400, but it was sub $800. This is something that I personally did not ever expect to see, and wished at the time - I had the cash to divert towards. Sadly, I could not :(
Anyhow, this all just lends to what I have been thinking ever since netbooks have been on the market. Which is: "Why even bother". You can get a decent laptop, for close to, or the same price, and get much better performance for your price. These laptop also may not be built like an M1 Abrams, but if you're careful with them, they will last a good long time. Reply
qwertymac93 - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
im just waiting for amd's 45nm notebook chips, or at least their dual core neo's. the ones used by hp are custom, i want dual cores for everyone! is it too much to ask for a sempron 140 that uses 10watts or a 240 that uses 25? ReplyBigLan - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
It looks like the xvid and x264 pass 1 charts have got mixed up - I'd be really suprised in any of the laptops could only manage single digit xvid encoding. ReplyJarredWalton - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
The x264 encoding graphs are correct; there are no Xvid encoding results - I assume you mean the DivX results? x264 is much more complex than DivX, true, and the second pass in particular can take a very long time. However, the x264 encoding results are for a 720p video (graysky x264 HD Benchmark) while the DivX results are for a 1080p file (done in single-pass, quality-based, preset of 5). The settings and video source definitely have an impact on how quickly DivX encoding will run; a regular single-pass DVD encode is going to be about four or five times as fast in DivX. I'll add the video file information to the charts for clarification. ReplyMithan - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
These netbooks are all fine and dandy, but they still have not made one I want.What do I want?
-1.6Ghz+ CPU
-11-12"
-Higher than 1024x600 resolution (1366x768?)
-Preferably an ION chipset, but I can still live with the 950.
There are a few 11-12" Netbooks on the market, but they all have that crappy 1.2Ghz Celeron or ZA520 chip or whatever it is called.
No, I dont want a 15" Laptop, even for the same price.
I guess the wait goes on...
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Voldenuit - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
What about CULV C2Ds and Athlon Neos? Ultraportable, ultrapowerful and ultraaffordable. Replyqwertymac93 - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
ever heard of the samsung nc20? its via chip is actually a little faster then the atom n270 despite its low clock speed. the only drawback is its $100 more then most atom notebooks, but it does have a 12 inch screen! Reply