ASUS Eee PC 1005HA: Refining the Netbook

Netbook Testing Setup

For our performance tests, we're sticking with PCMark05 and adding 3DMark03 and 3DMark05 into the mix to give you an idea of relative 3D/graphics performance. We've also added a couple video encoding benchmarks along with CINEBENCH. Suffice it to say, you don't want to do any video encoding or 3D rendering on a netbook! Given the similarity in overall performance among the various netbooks, we are also providing detailed results from PCMark05 so you can better understand what the composite score means.

We are also including a couple entry-level notebooks in the testing results, the Gateway NV52 and NV58. These two notebooks are a good representation of the current AMD and Intel mobile platforms, and they represent the next step up from the $300-$375 netbook price range. The Gateway NV52 currently costs about 30% more than the 1005HA, while the Gateway NV58 costs about 50% more. As you might expect, you get substantially more performance from either notebook… and substantially less battery life, plus a package that weighs twice as much. The NV52 will show up in the charts in dark green (AMD) while the NV58 is in gold (Intel); feel free to ignore those results if you're only interested in netbooks, but it does help illustrate the differences between the netbook and laptop markets.

For reference, here are links to the specifications for the other netbooks and laptops we've tested. We are also including results from two other netbooks in this review, the Acer Aspire One 751h and the GIGABYTE Booktop M1022. The Acer uses a larger 11.6" LCD along with a lower power (and lower performance) Intel Atom Z520 (1.33GHz) and an MID (Mobile Internet Device) chipset with Intel GMA 500 graphics. Specifications for the Booktop M1022 are virtually identical to the ASUS 1005HA, other than the battery. Full reviews of these two netbooks will be posted in the near future. Again, note that testing procedures have changed relative to some of the previous results, so only results run using the current procedures are included. Unfortunately, we don't have the previously tested netbooks so we aren't able to rerun the necessary tests.

ASUS 1000HE
Gateway NV52
Gateway NV58
MSI Wind U123

Now let's look at the test results.