Asus Eee PC 1000 review

There appears to be no end of new low-cost ultra-portable laptops at the moment, with Asus releasing three in as many months.

Its latest model is the Eee PC 1000, available in both black and white. It came in too late to be included in our laptop megatest, but we were eager to compare it against the competition, given the improvements Asus has made to the 1000's design compared with previous Eee PCs.

Like MSI's Wind (reviewed in the megatest), the 1000 has a 10in display with a resolution of 1,024x600 pixels. It feels less cramped than the 8.9in screen of the Eee PC 901, despite them sharing the same resolution. Image quality on the 1000's screen is a touch grainy, but the backlight is bright enough and viewing angles are reasonably good. Sensibly, there's no glossy coating, which minimises reflections from lights and sunshine.

The larger display makes the 1000 heavier and wider. It weighs 1.3kg, which is around 400g heavier than previous models. The increased case width has been put to good use, and the keyboard is now large enough for accurate touch-typing, which was almost impossible for most people on previous models. The keyboard on our unit flexed under pressure, though, which can be annoying. The touch pad is large but it felt a little too sensitive, even after adjusting its settings.

Our review model came with same version of Linux preinstalled on its 40GB solid state disk (SSD) as the previous Eee PCs. There will also be a Windows XP version with an 80GB hard disk. This will also be slightly cheaper at £321 due to the high costs of SSDs compared to traditional hard disks. However, the SSD version will be more durable than a standard hard disk, since it doesn't have any moving parts. The 40GB SSD is much more spacious than the 4GB primary SSDs used by previous Eee PCs, but note that this is made up of an 8GB primary disk for the operating system and a separate 32GB disk, intended for storing your data.

Asus's customised Linux interface is unchanged from previous Eee PCs and comes with a useful selection of software preinstalled, such as OpenOffice. Browsing the web, watching streaming video and working in OpenOffice under Windows XP was zippy thanks to the 1GB of RAM and Atom N270 processor. With Bluetooth and Draft-N WiFi, connectivity is good, but there's still no 3G option. There's no ExpressCard or CardBus slot for adding 3G, either, but you could plug an external 3G modem into one of the three USB ports, although you'd need Linux drivers.

The Eee PC 1000 is well suited for working on the go. It lasted an astonishing seven hours and 45 minutes in our light-use test. The case feels as robust as previous Eee PCs, with a particularly sturdy-feeling screen hinge.

The Eee PC 1000 is an impressive laptop, but it costs almost as much as some 15.4in models, and around £60 more than Advent's 4211, which is similar in specification. The Advent's battery life is poor, though, and makes the Eee PC 1000 a better choice for mobile workers. However, its disappointing keyboard and touch pad mean the Eee PC 1000 just misses out on an award.

Author: Alan Lu