ASUS EEE 1000HE review – Best netbook of 2009

ASUS EEE 1000H was one of the most successful netbooks ever rolled out by ASUS. The EEE 1000HE is the new netbook on the block which provides some noticeable enhancements over the EEE 1000H. Read this detailed review to find out more about EEE 1000HE!

ASUS EEE PC 1000HE review
1000HE with its brother 1000H

Design

The design is similar to the its older sibling EEE 1000H. On the left side, you will find the kensington lock, USB port and earphone and microphone jack.

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On the right side, you will find AC adapter port, VGA-out port, 2 USB ports and SDHC card reader.

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Screen

The screen size and the resolution is same as the older 1000H. I really expected the ASUS to bump up the resolution a little bit, but they have changed absolutely nothing as compared to the 1000H in terms of display size or resolution. The screen size is 10.2-inch and the resolution is 1024 x 600.

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The bezel around the screen is shiny. The 1000H has a matte bezel. Below the screen you will find two microphones (yes, two!).

CPU

The ASUS EEE 1000HE comes with a newer atom processor which is clocked at 1.66GHz, which makes it mind-blowing 60MHz faster than the now old N270 Atom processor. When we did a comparison of N270 and N280 processor, the N280 processor did turn out to a bit faster in ALU and FPU calculations.

Let the benchmarks say the rest:

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Keyboard

The keyboard found in 1000H was already so nice. The new keyboard found on the EEE 1000HE has been a mixed blessing for me so far. Although I really like the new shift key that is now a little bigger than the one found on the older EEEs like 1000H, 90x and 70x, but the fact that it is not on the extreme right like ‘normal’ laptop keyboards is actually forcing me to change my not-so-easy-to-change typing habits. I guess it will take few more days for me to get used to the keyboard. Tactile feedback is fine and the chicklet keys take very less effort to register a key press.

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The arrow keys are much smaller as compared to the older 1000H. They do take some time to get used to.

One think the competition has done right in terms of keyboard is by providing dedicated page up and page down buttons. Since the first EEE model and till now, no EEE has got dedicated page up and page down buttons, which are so extensively used while browsing the web and working with documents.

Touchpad

The touchpad is big and supports multi-touch gestures. For example: you can use two finger gesture to do the scrolling.

The left and right mouse buttons also take less force to register press as compared to the stiff ones found on the EEE 1000H.

Portability

The ASUS EEE 1000HE weighs at 1.45 kg which is same as the older 1000H. The 1000H was one of the heaviest netbooks around and this is no different. I do not think this should be problem for anyone who is more concerned about battery life.

Speakers

The speakers feel very similar to the one found on the EEE 1000H. They are quite loud when compared to other netbooks/laptops. However, when you put it on your lap, the sound gets muffled as they are located beneath the trackpad.

Coolness and Fan

The unit remained very quite even after 30 minutes of surfing. After that, it did kicked in but got quite again after 10 seconds.

Upgrading

The EEE 1000HE is very easy to upgrade. Just use the screwdriver to unscrew the two screws and you will have access to the HDD and RAM.

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Battery Life

The EEE 1000HE comes with a 6-cell 8700mAh battery. Now, this is a huge one when compared to most of the netbooks currently in the market.

I was able to squeeze out nearly 7.5 hours with both WiFi and BT off while working on my office documents (using Microsoft Office 2007). This is no where close to 9.5 hours which the ASUS is claiming, but I got no reason to complain when my portable device is giving me 7+ hours of usage.

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While using Wifi, I was able to get 6.5 hours, which is still really nice. I used firefox as my web-browser and the brightness was set to 3 notches above the lowest brightness settings. It is obvious that brightness and wifi are two huge suckers for the batter juice.

It took me nearly 4.5 hours to get it 80% charge, but one needs to understand that we are charging a HUGE battery!

The battery life is simply mind-blowing. Although, I do not think I’m ever going to reach 9.5 hours battery life, but I still was able to get nearly 7 hours with heavy usage.

Are the EEE 1000H and EEE 1000HE batteries interchangeable?

Well, from outside both of them look so similar. It occurred to me, if it would be possible to swap their batteries. The answer is yes. The 8700mAh battery fit inside the EEE 1000H without any problems but I could not lock the battery latch. The 6600mAh battery of the EEE 1000H was also able to fit inside the EEE 1000HE and I was even able to lock the battery latch. Both units performed fine with each other’s battery.

Power brick

The power brick is exactly the same as the EEE 1000H and similar models (904HA, 1002HA, S101, S101H etc).

Bundled accessories

The ASUS has bundled a neoprene bag. Sadly, I simple do not carrying around in this bag as this seems to be made of very poor material. The one that came with the older EEE 1000H was much sturdy and was also made of better material.

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updated:

Screen comparison of 1000H and  1000HE:

The screens looks very much identical. However, the screen of 1000HE does feel to have a little more contrast.

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The one shown on the left is 1000HE and one of the right is the 1000H

Pros:

  • Amazing battery life
  • Overall sturdy built
  • HDD and RAM easily upgradable
  • Better keyboard for some, but not for me. I’m still happy with non-chicklet keys
  • Good performance with XP
  • 10GB EEE storage
  • Some people will appreciate the Chicklet keys

Cons:

  • No multi card reader
  • Heavy as compared to other netbooks
  • Right shift should be the extreme right, but it is not.
  • Not so sleek as the other newer EEEs like S101H and EEE 1002HA
  • Poor quality bundled case

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