Refurbished 11.6” Acer Aspire One 751 (Black) $260
$259.99
$289.99
$397.95
ASUS Eee PC 1101HA Review
08/06/09
/ Notebooks
35 Comments
Review Summary
The ASUS Eee PC 1101HA is another excellent 11-inch mini-notebook which offers the best battery life yet in that form factor: up to 10 hours of battery life. The somewhat sluggish Atom Z520 processor which would be the main culprit of mini-notebooks this size, can be overcome as easily as switching power modes or changing a setting in the BIOS. Good sound, keyboard and a high resolution 1366 x 768 make working and playing with the ASUS Eee PC 1101HA a real joy.
Available to Buy at: Buydig and Newegg and Amazon.
Pros
- 8-10 hour battery life
- 6-Cell battery hidden away nicely
- Easy overclocking
- 1366 x 768 display
- Plays 1080P HD video
- Small power brick
Cons
- Fairly noisy at times
- Small right shift key
- Can’t easily upgrade HDD - Voids Warranty
- 2GB RAM disables BIOS overclocking feature
ASUS Eee PC 1101HA Deals & Coupons see all
9/2 Update: Enable multi-touch scrolling (two-fingered) to overcome touchpad scrolling issue.
8/30 Update: BIOS 0309 Enables overclocking with 2GB RAM for some users.
8/7 Update: Added thoughts on the webcam / microphone
8/6 Update: Added section about heat.
Technical Specs
- 11.6” 1366 x 768 LED backlit display (glossy)
- Intel Atom Z520 (1.33GHz) processor
- 1GB RAM (2 max)
- 160GB HDD (2.5” SATA) + 10GB Eee Storage (online)
- Intel US15W Chipset + GMA 500 Graphics (Poulsbo)
- Maximum output resolution: 2048 x 1536 pixels
- Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
- 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
- 3x USB 2.0, VGA out, headphone and microphone jacks, 3-in-1 card reader
- 6-Cell 5600 mAh 63Wh Battery rated at 10.7 hours / 2.3 Hour charging time.
- 286 x 196 x 21.8 - 36.2 mm Dimensions
- 1.36 kg / 3 lbs Weight (with AC brick and cables, 3.46 lbs)
- 1.3MP Webcam
- Windows XP Home SP3 (recovery DVD + Partition)
Packaging
The contents are the same as previous Eee PC netbook contents: A black case, wired mouse, recovery DVD, warranty and manual. Of course, you have the power brick, adapter and mini-notebook itself.
Software
You the usual for an Eee PC: Eee Storage (store data online in the cloud), Skype, Windows Live, StarSuite 8 (OpenOffice).
Unlike on older Eee PCs, there’s a whole suite of little apps ASUS has thrown in and they’ve placed it in a customizable docking bar at the top of the screen. Problem is most of it is of little value and they don’t need to be accessed very often if at all.
- Live Update - handy for easily updating your BIOS. Just needs a reboot and you’re done.
- Eee @ Vibe - seems to be some kind of photo / music storage / sharing service. Not yet available at the time of this writing.
- Ez Messenger - Easily message other people who have this software installed. I would stick to Skype, MSN or whatever most people use.
- Parental Control - uses i-Filter. Stop your kids accessing unwanted files, websites etc. Seems like this would be very handy.
- Data Sync - sync data between computers. (I didn’t use it)
- Eee Download - Access ASUS’ online store where you can buy software.
Overall, lots of custom software added from ASUS, most of which, add little value. Live Update, and Parental Control being the most useful. The lack of software installed and bloatware is a plus, actually. A lack of any kind of Anti-virus program popping up in your face all the time is refreshing to see.
Layout
On the left: Air vent, Kensington lock, 1x USB, VGA out, power plug
On the right: Multi-card reader, headphone and microphone jacks, 2x USB, Ethernet port.
On the front, just LED status indicators:
On the back: Battery, and behind the battery is a SIM card slot. Don’t know if ASUS plans on 3G models.
On the bottom: Clean and simple: Just a single slot for accessing RAM and stereo speakers at the front edge. 7 screws to take off the whole bottom to access the innards.
On the chassis: LED status indicators on the front right edge and up the top above the keyboard, a button to disable touchpad and power button. I would have preferred they stuck with the SHE button, but you can easily do the Fn + Space Bar for that.
Build Quality / Feel
The ASUS Eee PC 1101HA looks top notch from the outside. An almost flush 6-cell battery tucked into the back and towards the front it gets very thin. The lid is a glossy plastic which is a fingerprint magnet.
Once you upon the 1101HA up, the whole chassis including the palm rest has the same glossy plastic black all over and it runs up to above the keyboard and on the screen bezel. Basically the whole machine, except the keyboard and the base of the 1101HA is a fingerprint magnet.
The plastic material feels and looks cheap, yet it’s quite solid all over. I didn’t hear any creaking or see any flex anywhere.
Overall, the quality is good but not in the same class as the Toshiba NB205 netbook. Nor, is it an improvement over the original 10” ASUS Eee PC 1000HE / 1000H netbook.
Touchpad
9/2 Update: Enable multi-touch scrolling (two-fingered) to overcome touchpad scrolling issue.
The 1101HA has an unusual touchpad design. The whole touchpad area is flush with the rest of the chassis and has a dimpled surface, subtle to the eye and to the touch.
The touchpad button is a single, silver button. It’s slightly set in further than most netbook buttons so occasionally I end up hitting the front chassis edge but you get used to it. The button is slightly noisy and stiff, not as bad as on the ASUS Eee PC 1000HE / 1000H series though.
My main gripe with the touchpad is that without having defined edges, you cannot find the right scroll area on the touchpad instantly, you have to fumble around a bit. This wouldn’t have been a problem if it came with multi-touch scrolling but they’ve removed that feature. There is only multi-touch pinching.
You will probably have the bump up the sensitivity too otherwise you’ll be scrolling like crazy on the high resolution display.
Overall, it’s a slightly unusual touchpad design which works well enough but not so good for scrolling.
Sound Quality
I’ve listened to a lot of music on the 1101HA and I will sum it up in one line:
Good volume, good quality but a little more bass would have been nice.
The sound quality on the ASUS Eee PC 1101HA is better than your average netbook. Volume is very loud and you won’t have any issues in that area. There was very little to no tinnyness in the sound that plagues many other netbooks, yet there was a lack of bass. The other 11.6” mini-notebook, the Acer Aspire One 751 has better sound quality. The old 1000H/1000HE sound very similar to the 1101HA except they had more bass.
The ASUS Eee PC 1101HA comes with SRS Premium Sound. It’s on by default, set to headphones. I switched to laptop speakers and it sounds different, but doesn’t seem to improve quality, kind of like when you mess around with an equalizer.
Overall, I am pleased with the sound quality on the ASUS Eee PC 1101HA, certainly above average.
Webcam & Microphone
I tested out the webcam and microphone with Skype. Overall video quality seemed good and showed a bright enough image in my dark den of a living room and frame rates were very smooth.
The microphone picked up my voice well, though I needed to speak louder than I would in a normal conversation in front of a person. I find this the norm with microphones on netbooks though. So it’s all good. A few netbooks have really bad speakers though, not this one. Even with the fan running full blast and annoying me (wasn’t running EeeCtl at the time) and microphone did not pick up any background noise at all..
Heat
The ASUS Eee PC 1101HA is excellent in this regard. The 1101HA never got warm on any occasion even running at 30% overclock with the fan set at 30% with EeeCtl. This includes situations where the 1101HA was running 8-10 hours with 100% CPU usage. At the end of such tests, the whole machine does not get warm.
I’m not really bothered by heat on netbooks, but this is good to know. The other 11.6” mini-notebook, the Acer Aspire One 751 gets very warm on the other hand.
Display
One of the best features of having a 11.6” mini-notebook is the 1366 x 768 resolution display which is uncommon on 10” netbooks. It’s a glossy display and the viewing angles and coloring seem in line with any other glossy netbook display. The quality won’t dazzle you away compared to a good desktop LCD monitor or the old ASUS Eee PC 1000H which has the best display, by far, on a netbook.
I do wish the brightness level could go higher at the maximum setting, not for indoor use, but for outdoor use. The brightness of the 1101HA at maximum is more than fine for indoor settings but could really use a brightness boost outdoors. On the older 10” Eee PCs you can use EeeCtl to boost the brightness over the allowed maximum, which along with the Matte display, made them a joy to use outdoors.
Right now, I’m comparing the maximum brightness levels on my 1101HA to my Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2, and the S10-2 is slightly brighter. This shouldn’t be! The other 11.6” mini-notebook, the Acer Aspire One 751 has a brighter screen than the 1101HA.
But really, the high resolution 1366 x 768 display more than makes up for this point and you can pretty much view all your webpages without ever having to maximize the screen like you would do on a 10-inch netbook. There won’t ever be a dialog box bigger than the screen either. There is also plenty of room on the right to keep your taskbar / sidebar, permanently. The great thing is the display is just as easy on the eyes as the 1024 x 600 is on a 10-inch display. I find the a 1024x600 on a 8.9"display a bit hard on my eyes, just so you can see where I’m coming from.
Like on other Eee PCs, there is a button to switch resolutions between 800 x 600, 1024 x 768 and 1366 x 768.
Here’s a picture of how far the ASUS Eee PC 1101HA folds back:
Keyboard
Update: Note, for the US model, the shift key is still small, but it is to the left of the up arrow key, not on the right, like mine.
The keyboard is decently sized, and slightly larger than your average 10-inch netbook keyboard. I have the feeling the keyboard is directly pulled off of the ASUS N10 series netbook. Exactly the same keys. See ASUS N10J keyboard.
The keys are a depature from what your used to on a typical netbook or laptop. The keys are flat and beveled but skewed towards the top right, so you can’t see the top and right beveled edges.
Key travel is shallow but feels satisfying enough. I noticed no flex on the keyboard which is great. My “Enter” key makes an odd sound compared to the rest. This is a common experience, to me, on netbooks. The only thing that disappoints me is ASUS have reverted back to a tiny right shift key, which is further proof that they’ve nabbed the keyboard of the ASUS N10.
Overall, the keyboard feels just okay. As I said, it’s slightly larger than your average 10-inch netbook and easier to type on, which is what matters. I prefer ASUS’ previous efforts: The chiclet keyboard on the 1000HE and the standard keyboard prior to that felt more satisfying to the touch. A larger keyboard that went right to the edges like on the Acer Aspire One 751 would have been really nice, but I’m asking for too much, perhaps.
Noise
The fan is a mixed bag. It can be loud at times and then quiet at other times. Most of the time it’s between fairly noticeable and loud. It becomes louder if you overclock your 1101HA more. In a very quiet room, a fully overclocked 1101HA becomes unbearably loud after a while. If you have any other noise source in the room such as a tv, air conditioner or fan then the fan noise will be drowned out and won’t be an issue.
Luckily you can kill the fan noise with Eeectl. This software is not actually designed for any of the new Eee PCs, but the fan control still works nicely with the 1101HA.
I’ve silenced the fan a couple of times over the last week, mostly when I need to study and before bed. Outside of those situations the fan hasn’t bothered me.
1080P HD Video Playback
Since the ASUS Eee PC 1101HA has the poulsbo chipset, it supports hardware 1080P HD Video playback unlike most 10-inch netbooks.
I’m not going to write much here, because I’ve already covered 1080P HD on another Atom Z520 mini-notebook, the 11.6” Acer Aspire One 751 and that played back 1080P HD video very well. The ASUS Eee PC 1101HA should be able to perform slightly better given that it overclocks.
In Windows XP, you can use Cyberlink PowerDVD9 (costs money). I’ve tried various guides but I cannot get 1080P HD video playback in Windows XP. It’s a piece of cake to get up and running in Windows Vista or Windows 7 though.
Overclocking
Check out my earlier post on Overclocking the ASUS Eee PC 1101HA.
ASUS has quietly slipped in an unofficial / undocumented feature: Manually setting an overclocking speed of your ASUS Eee PC 1101HA. If you head into the BIOS there will be an option to set the “SHE Overclock Value”. It ranges from 5% - 30%. 10% being the default.
This only overclocks the “Super Performance” mode of the SHE. Other SHE modes are not affected. Below are the CPU speed ranges:
| SHE Overclock Value | Idle | Step |
|---|---|---|
| 5% Overclock | 0.85 GHz | 1.4GHz |
| 10% Overclock (default) | 0.9 GHz | 1.5GHz |
| 20% Overclock | 0.95 GHz | 1.6GHz |
| 30% Overclock (max) | 1 GHz | 1.7GHz |
The other SHE modes are unaffected, here are the speeds below:
| Mode | Idle | Step |
|---|---|---|
| High Performance | 0.8 GHz | 1.3 GHz |
| Power Saving | 0.6 GHz | 1 GHz |
| Auto Power Saving | 0.6 GHz | 1 GHz |
So, great, you can overclock the 1101HA from the default 1.5GHz (10%) to 1.7GHz (30%) when running on “Super Performance” mode. I don’t feel any difference between 1.5GHz and 1.7GHz. You can notice the difference between 0.6GHz (power saving mode) and 1.7GHz easily though.
I will cover how the battery life is affected on the highest overclocking vs the default setting in the Battery Life section.
Unfortunately, ASUS seems to have disabled this overclocking feature if you upgrade your default 1GB RAM to 2GB. The option disappears from the BIOS. I’ve tried several good quality 2GB RAM sticks and none of them enabled the feature.
Battery Life
The ASUS Eee PC 1101HA comes with a 6-cell 5600 mAh 63Wh battery that is hidden nicely and barely protrudes at all from the base. A huge plus in my book.
I haven’t had the time to test the battery out in real life situations but I’ve run plenty of simulated tests with Battery Eater Pro.
The following tests where done on “Power Saving” mode, 50% brightness, Wi-Fi ON, Bluetooth OFF. Default SHE overclock mode (10%):
| Test | Battery Life (Hours:Mins) |
|---|---|
| Idle | 10:09 |
| Classic | 8:41 |
| Looped DivX Movies (Wi-Fi OFF) | 8:04 |
The next tests where done with the same settings, but with SHE overclocked to 30% and running on “Super Performance” mode:
| Test | Battery Life (Hours:Mins) |
|---|---|
| Idle | 7:35 |
| Classic | 6:51 |
| Looped DivX Movies (Wi-Fi OFF) | 6:22 |
You’re easily looking at about 8 - 10 hours of battery life in power saving mode. Expect up to 2 hours less (6 - 8 hours) running overclocked at 30% while on Super Performance mode. That is excellent battery life and far above most 10-inch netbooks. Again, I haven’t tested real life usage, but I will update this section, once I have done that.
Upgrades
For the non-tech person, at most you can upgrade the RAM which is as easily as unscrewing a single screw. You can get to the insides easily enough but under the keyboard lies a warranty seal, so you will void you warranty if you want to upgrade your storage.
Netbook Italia has a good guide on dismantling your ASUS Eee PC 1101HA.
Size & Weight
Compared to a 10-inch netbook, the ASUS Eee PC 1101HA adds very little weight and bulk. This is similar going up from a 9-inch netbook to a 10-inch netbook.
Here’s the 1101HA on top of an A4 piece of paper:
The 1101HA itself weighs 1.36 kg / 3 lbs. The 6-cell battery weighs 0.37 kg / 0.8 lbs. With everything including the power brick and cable, the total weight comes to 3.46 lbs.
I’ve only got a 10-inch Lenovo S10-2 to compare to but the S10-2 is a few centimetres smaller in size, on both ends but the 1101HA is thinner. The S10-2 weighs 1.24 kg / 2.7 lbs.
The power brick remains true to the rest of the Eee PC netbook line and comes with one of the smallest power bricks on a netbook. Furthermore, ASUS have shrunk down the power connector even further, if it wasn’t small enough, it is now!
The 1101HA easily slips into my 10-inch ZeroShock case:
A few more pictures of me holding the 1101HA in the air:
Some comparisons of the 1101HA to my 10-inch Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2:
The S10-2 obviously has a smaller footprint but is actually thicker as the 6-cell battery really pushes the whole netbook up at the back. When fully opened up, the height is just about a centimeter taller than the S10-2. Another huge difference is that the keyboard on the S10-2 is it’s not a touch type keyboard and I end up pecking keys with two fingers while I can do real work on the 1101HA.
Other netbooks? Here are some ASUS Eee PC 1101HA vs 1005HA comparison pictures.
Reader Comments (35)
Spare a thought...
Please note: Comments with links may require manual approval.
1,545 subscribers
Subscribe to Netbooked
Hello Peter!
It is soon my birthday and I am looking into getting a net book mostly for being able to check emails and do general web surfing from in bed :p
After much avid web browsing I was very interested in this newly released 1101HA. Your review was very helpful, no other sites bothered to mentioned over clocking. I will be sure to over clock to the max as I rarely have to worry about being away from a power source for 7 hours.
Some questions however:
1 - You mentioned using Windows 7. I would be very interested in messing around with windows 7 and rather going through the hassle of installing it on my main PC it would be nice to install it on this laptop. Did you notice any major performance loss/gain when using Windows 7 compared to Windows XP?
2 - I saw some people saying that watching youtube videos, HD or not, was next to impossible. Is this true?
3 - I also saw reports of major browser hanging when using firefox, did you notice this?
4 - Multitasking. How much can it handle? (I will generally have an IM client, a web browser and some music open)
5 - I am a complete newbie to netbooks (I still remember having a laptop with a 10gb HDD costing me >£500) and was just wondering if a case/protective sleeve is an essential thing. I really hate scratching stuff!
Hope you can shed some light on my questions :)
A piece of art, I want mine as soon as I can
Intel will not expose DXVA support in their XP drivers, same with their higher end G45/GM45 chipset and variants, basically you’re hosed and out of luck if you want hardware accelerated decoding of H.264 on XP on any Intel IGP.
On Nvidia Ion chipset, it just works on any OS, XP or Vista/Win7. You’re not tied & locked to the heavier and bloated OS like Vista or Win7.
The keyboard is the same size as the Aspire 751, from laptop mag: “ASUS should have made better use of available space; while the notebook is the same width as the Aspire One 751h, the 1101HA’s keyboard is just 10.2 x 3.8 inches; on the Acer, it’s 10.6 x 4.2 inches.”
So Asus is kind of better because they have a smaller footprint yet have same size keyboard as the aspire.
The shift key is indeed shortened again, but according to Laptopmag’s review/pictures of the 1101HA, the shift key is now on the leftside of the t-arranged arrow keys
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/asus-eee-pc-1101ha.aspx
Thank you for your reply Peter, I knew most of my fears were probably irrational.
My source is basically just people whining in various forums/comments sections but I think it’s safe to assume that they have usually just messed it up themselves :p
It’s been kinda fun today checking out all these awesome netbooks, I have been a desktop user for so long I generally ignored the portable scene.
Oh and one final question. Seeing as you have so much experience with this stuff, what browser do you feel runs best under these low spec conditions? I am usually a firefox guy but It really doesn’t bother me what I use.
Thanks again for the help.
I really don’t get it why Asus keeps making those glossy cases for their laptops.
I was expecting to replace my Toshiba with this new Asus, but now i’m not that sure. Specs and autonomy sound nice, but i really hate that exterior. It catches fingerprints and tiny scratches from the moment you get it out of the box…
I’m not sure how the 1101HA feels, but i reckon is a lot like the 1005HA. I won’t say their cheap looking, they’re OK, the problem isn’t really with the materials but with the finishing (my opinion).
Oh, and i do have a NB205 and i love it (the looks was one of the aspects that made me choose it over an Asus)
Out of curiosity what does it report using the DXVA checker under WinXP it may tell for certain if the functions are not enabled in the drivers under XP.
http://bluesky23.hp.infoseek.co.jp/dxvac/DXVAChecker_2.0.2.1.zip
It should list the graphics chip under “decoder device” along with entries present for ModeMPEG-2, ModeVC-1 and ModeH.264 etc saying resolutions and what version of DXVA is supported.
If they are present but DXVA does not work then its likely down to crappy drivers.
Not sure if it will make any difference but MSI have an XP GMA500 driver that is the newest I’ve seen v6.14.10.1096, the readme states Jan 22nd 2009 (2008 is a typo).
http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=driverfile&dno=8742&i=0
Question: Do you prefer this model to the Acer 751h?
From my own viewpoint:
Asus 1101HA:
+ Bettery battery life
+ Battery integrated into the chasis
+ Overclockable.
- Poor keyboard layout
- Annoyingly loud fan
- Thicker than the 751
- Smooth touchpad edge makes it difficult to scroll
Acer 751:
+ Great keyboard layout
+ Extremely quiet fan (almost inaudable)
+ Significantly thinner than the Asus 1101HA
- Less battery life
- Battery sticks out the back
- Not as easily overclockable
You’ve had both in your hands. What’s your personal opinion?
So how did Windows 7 go?
That’s an excellent comparison. Thank you. I’m sure that will help others, too.
Sounds like the overclocking and integrated 6-cell battery put the Asus 1101 over the top for you. I just wish they had used a better keyboard layout and a normal touchpad, then there would be no major compromises on this system.
I have just ordered this netbook however I have one conern. Fan noise.
I am concerned about noise while using a word processor and browsing the web.
Is the fan on/noisy during these tasks? Can this eeeCtl stop the fan or make it inaudible during these tasks?
I am very sensitive to fan noise so I’m concerned that the acer might be better.(it is however more expecive here(Norway).
One more thing. The keybord, compared to the acer, do you feel the asus keyboard is a major hindrance in long typing sessions compared to the acer?
Thanks for the great review by the way!
PC Magazine Review:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2351310,00.asp
PC Magazine brings up two interesting points:
1) Overclocking the Z520 doesn’t bring significant performance improvements (so your hunch was probably right). Even with a 30% overclock using the Super Hybrid Engine, their video encoding test showed that the 1101HA only beat the Acer 751 by 5 seconds. 5:32 versus 5:37 for the Acer (in minutes in seconds). Both of these scores are behind typical Atom N270 netbooks, which come in around 4:45.
2) They recorded longer battery life (using Mobile Mark) for the Acer 751 with the 6 cell than the Asus 1101HA. I wonder if they had it overclocked when they did the battery test? That sounds fishy to me given the higher capacity battery on the 1101HA. So i’m not sure I believe that it was an apples-to-apples comparison.
Overall, they gave the slight edge to the Acer 751 due to the lower price and the full-size keyboard. But yeah, it probably depends on what you value more in a netbook.
Thanks again for the review. Very informative and covers information not found in other reviews.
Sounds like it’s one to wait for the proper drivers for :p
Let us know if you ever get it working properly.
Thanks Peter!
You have put my mind at ease. I hope I can get used to the shift key. This will be my first netbook type pc.
hi peter!
im seriously considering buying this but im having second thoughts with regards to its processor.
im a student and ill be using this netbook for simple tasks such as word, powerpoint and excel. however, i do lots of multi-tasking as with the above comment made by james.
i was wondering how much can it handle until it gets to the point that it gets way too sluggish?
and can it handle itunes? i dont need it to play or anything, i just need it to organize my ipod.
thank you so much :)
hi peter!
umm i think ill be having around 3 word documents (or a powerpt and even an excel at times), 2 google chrome windows with around 7 tabs open on each, while having itunes playing, all at the same time. my field requires a lot of researching and reading (online texts and scanned readings) and a lot of written papers (eg. research and reaction papers) which means ill be typing a lot. :)
although, i can live without the itunes playing in the background because i have a speaker set which i plug my ipod with. however, i just need to run itunes every once in a while to organize my ipod.
however, apart from my studies, im also hoping to play the occasional movie or tv series now and then. although, i dont have any need for hd capability, i was having second thoughts into committing to this unit because other reviews stated that it stuttered when performing video playback, even when these were sd. the program ill be using for video playback would be vlc and/or windows media player
im sold on the screen size of this unit, along with the keyboard. but the processor and its shortcomings make it difficult for me to decide.
i was hoping that you could help me make my decision :)
thank you so very much! :)
ps. you have a Great blog here. keep it up! :D
Angelo,
I use the Acer 751 almost daily, which has the same processor. I have running right now, in the course of my regular work:
4 Microsoft Word documents (Office XP Professional)
1 Powerpoint presentation
4 Microsoft Excel spreadsheets
5 PDF documents (in Foxit Reader)
8 Firefox Tabs
Symantec Endpoint Protection (Anti-virus)
Windows Task Manager shows 894 MB of Memory use under Windows Vista. It feels no different from when I only have one Firefox window running.
HOWEVER, editing a single large image file will bring the whole system to a crawl. Even with no other programs open.
Conclusion: It’s not how many programs you open, but how much processor time they use. You can open as many Word, Excel, and Powerpoint documents as you like. But if you do any single thing that is processor intensive, it will slow everything down dramatically.
Angelo,
By the way, you may want to check out these laptops, which have faster processors, but similar size:
Dell Inspiron 11z
Acer 1410
They both have CULV processors that are approximately twice as fast as as Atom processor. The prices start around $400, too, for the Dell with 3-cell battery. $450 for the Acer with 6-cell battery.
I’d go with a CULV netbook/laptop if I were buying now.
Angelo,
One other note about video playback with the Acer 751 (and hence the Asus 1101 with Z520). I have a few seasons of Seinfeld on my netbook. They are each 8GB ISO image files from my Seinfeld DVDs. They play perfectly in VLC player on the Acer 751 with it’s wimpy Z520 processor.
One caveat: You need to uncheck “show controller in full-screen” under preferences or the player will do funny things when in full-screen mode. I think this is a software or possibly a driver issue.
So yeah, no problems playing standard definition movies or TV shows from the hard drive in terms of processing power. Even some 720p content plays fine using the processor. And 1080p will play if in the right format, using the right codec, and making use of the hardware decoder in the GMA 500 (all of which are a pain to setup).
Note that this CPU stutters badly on flash-based streaming video (like Hulu). And it’s really, really bad if that content is high def. Heck, even CNET’s little review videos stutter badly at times…
Hey Peter
Thanks for (probably) the best netbook review I’ve read so far, really in-depth and goes all the way around!
I hope you can help me, I’m looking for a 11-13” netbook to be used for my studies, I’ll only use it at school and on the road, got a nice stationary at home I will use for more demanding tasks.
So far I’ve narrowed it down to either this ASUS Eee PC 1101HA Seashell or the Lenovo IdeaPad S12.
Thing is, they have each their own strong sides, and I can’t seem to choose, so far I’ve found these positive things about each of them when compared:
Lenovo IdeaPad S12 2959:
Silent operation*
Full-size keyboard*
Larger screen
Expresscard slot
Better CPU performance*
Better design, not as glossy
Doesn’t run that hot
ASUS Eee PC 1101HA Seashell:
20 $ cheaper
Higher resolution
Built in Bluetooth
Draft-n network
~3 hours more battery life*
Nicely integrated battery*
Sleeve bundled (at least that’s what I could read in some reviews, did you get any sleeve?)*
Better GPU performance
Smaller power brick
Slightly lighter and smaller
*Matters for me
Overall it’s obvious that the 1101HA is better, BUT what I really like about the S12 is the full-size keyboard.
1. I can see you have the S10-2, could you give me an indication of how the two compares in build quality?
2. I’m planning to upgrade the netbook to 2 GB ram right away and also throw Windows 7 on it - I’m quite worried by the low CPU performance of the 1101 and maybe it’ll be a bad match with W7.
3. Was the 1101 silent when running stock-speed?
Well, what really interest me is if the Z520 performs that much worse than the N270
Thanks in advance - I hope you can help me decide :)
Hmm okay
Well, to sum it up, these must be the differences then, which matters to me.
Oh and because of the sleeve the price difference between the two is more like 35 $ in favour of the ASUS.
Lenovo IdeaPad S12 2959:
Full-size keyboard
Better CPU performance
Better design, not as glossy
ASUS Eee PC 1101HA Seashell:
Draft-n network
~3 hours more battery life
Nicely integrated battery
If you could just do me one last favour (assuming you still have the ASUS 1101HA), could you measure how large the keyboard is, because then I can easily compare that to my current (slim) keyboard and the one on the S12 - haven’t been able to find the dimensions for the 1101HA.
Because I really think that’s what it comes down to, if the keyboard is acceptable in size for me, then I’d get the ASUS, if not then it’s the Lenovo.
If you could pick one of the two (assuming the S12 is more or less just a 15% larger S10-2) freely, which would you pick?
Thanks yet again, looking forward to your S10-2 review!
Well, so I took the decision and ordered the Lenovo S12 + a 2 GB ram stick and a sleeve.
After some googling I found that the keyboards have aprox these dimensions:
Lenovo IdeaPad S12 keyboard: 26,9 cm x 10,9 cm
ASUS Eee PC 1101HA keyboard: 25,9 cm x 9,6 cm
So ye, it basically came down to the keyboard size and the problems you had with W7.
Will be back with some thoughts on it, when I get it :)
Thank you tracksmart and peter!! :D
Nice review. Thanks.
great guide!!! i have this eee!
a greeting from spain!!
eric
hi everyone and specially to you Peter for such a nice review! One question I´d like to ask is that I’ve looked deep into this GPU-CPU specs and managed to understand that througout VGA port you CAN’T have the same image you have on netbooks’ screen simoultaneously, am I right?
And the other doubt I have is. Whenever you connect it to see it bigger (say 23” LCD monitor), what’s the max resol it can have with 1 GB RAM? and with 2? And the last does performance feels slugger in that resol? Thanx for all the trouble and keep up this good site :)
Thanks for the great review!
2 questions:
1. I do a lot of audio recording at home and was wondering if this might be suitable as a scratchpad, comparable to the n270 models. Any thoughts on how a DAW like Reaper or Ableton Live might perform on this?
2. With the basic XP OS, how is playback with Hulu or Netflix for streaming (non hi def) video?
Thanks!
-Kent
Boston, MA
Audio quality isn’t as much of an issue as track and plugin count. This could be a bit fiddly to measure if you’re not already into this sort of thing, but it might be interesting to load a demo of the Mackie Tracktion application as it comes with lots of demo tunes (multi-track) which should play (or not) right out of the box>
That demo (only if you’re interested) is available here:
http://my.mackie.com/products/tracktion/demov3.asp
You can put any info you like in the form; it doesn’t check via email before giving you the download link. Choose the 36mb installer, as that has the demo songs and plugins.
Performance would be better still with the Asio4all driver available here (free) at http://www.asio4all.com/. It’s totally clean and is very commonly used and recommended in the computer audio realm.
I just realized you’re writing from Tokyo. I’ll be there myself next week, staying for a month or so with my Japanese wife and our twin boys!
Take care and thanks for the feedback.
Hi,
first of all i just want to say what a great review, i just have a quick question i am considering getting this netbook (ASUS Eee PC 1101HA) or the (Acer aspire 1410 with Intel Celeron 743 / 1.3 GHz) as i cant find the SU2300 here in Ireland or online for a reasonable price. Anyway my question is which has better quality for video calls using skype, I cant find any information on camera Fames per second on either models.
Thanks very much.
Michael
Thanks for your reply, I didn’t realize there would be such a dramatic difference in mega pixels for the two models.il
definitly keep that in mind.
Thank you
keep up the good work
Michael
Excellent review - I see you are recommending the 1410 - thanks I will check it out
I do not now how to reinstal windows7 on my 1101ha.
The programes are not responding and i do not now what to do.