ASUS Eee PC 1005PE: Pineview Arrives
by Jarred Walton on December 21, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
LCD Quality
We didn't have enough time to run our full suite of LCD tests, but we did check the contrast ratios on these laptops. Sadly, none of them are great, though the ASUS 1005PE is still better than most other inexpensive options.
First, contrast ratio has taken a dive relative to the 1005HA. What we don't know is whether there's a panel lottery on all the 10.1" ASUS netbooks; that would seem very likely, since they're all 1024x600 LCDs, which means you might get 1005HA with lesser LCDs or 1005PE with better LCDs. If you can look at a unit in person, the difference between the two panels is very obvious. Blacks look very much like real black on the 1005HA we tested, whereas blacks on most other panels show a lot of backlight bleed.
Maximum brightness on both the 1201N and the 1005PE is relatively limited, and unlike the 1005HA we were unable to boost brightness via EeeCTL. It's likely an updated version of EeeCTL could help, but we're not sure if the utility is still in active development as the old website is down at this time.
So in short, the panels on both the 1201N and 1005PE are a letdown. We'd also like to see ASUS push the maximum brightness up to 200+ nits; we think they limit it in order to improve battery life results, since few sites actually take the time to calibrate LCDs to 100 nits. If you just run at 50%, you might have the LCD set at anywhere from 70 nits to 170 nits, depending on the laptop. For the record, you get ~100 nits on the 1201N at 66% brightness, or 80% brightness on the 100%PE.
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krazyderek - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
the last two sentences pretty much sum it up for me.thornburg - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
I'm used to articles on Anandtech being more scientific and thorough than some of the recent fare, and particularly this article.If you're speculating about the differences between Win7 and XP causing performance issues, why not install the same OS on both machines and try it? It's silly and unprofessional to speculate when there is a fairly simple way to test.
What's the story? Why leave the topic only half investigated?
Zero110 - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
I imagine it's for the same reason that the battery life tests are "half-done." Limited time, and over a weekend no less. They'd rather have this and updates down the road then get scooped by every other tech site.JarredWalton - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
Yeah, that's about it. Working over 24 hours over a weekend to post an article like this stinks, especially when it's close to Christmas. So I ran as many tests as I could squeeze in.More than that, there's really nothing special about the PCMark results. The detailed results table tells us what we need to know in most areas: Pineview is similar to Diamondville in most areas, and HDD, RAM, and other system components come into play with a composite score like PCMark. It's really not a big improvement from previous Atom designs, outside of the battery life issue.
Zero110 - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
I actually wasn't expecting any updates this morning because of the season. I guess Intel screwed you on that one. For what basically amounts to a non-event for most people. But, thanks for all the hard work. Merry Christmas to you, and wish everyone else on the staff a Happy Soonest Applicable Holiday.crimson117 - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
And especially for such an underwhelming product... ;)
R3MF - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
Hi AT team,How come the 3250 is SOOOOOOO bad?
I know the GMA 3100 is pretty rubbish, but it was way better than the GMA 950, but that isn't apparent today.
How has this come to pass?
JarredWalton - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
The X3100 was a much bigger step up from the 3100. X3100 is DX10 (supposedly -- drivers make this a questionable claim), and it has 8 pixel shaders vs. 4 on the 3100. When you couple an IGP like GMA 3100 with a single channel memory controller in a netbook, you cut bandwidth to the system in half, and it was already a limiting situation. The net result is that GMA 950 and 3150 are about the same, which is to say they're junk.R3MF - Tuesday, December 22, 2009 - link
Thanks for the info, didn't know that. :)Regards
SilthDraeth - Monday, December 21, 2009 - link
Just wondering, and would this chip work in the Ion platforms?