Asus Eee PC 1001P: Our Favorite Netbook
by Vivek Gowri on March 16, 2010 11:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
In and Around the Asus Eee PC 1001P
As mentioned earlier, the 1001P shares its chassis design with the 1005PE. The textured finish is elegant, with small concentric squares patterned on the casing. The matte finish ensures that fingerprints don't appear, though the small ridges in the casing can collect and trap dust. On a white model like our evaluation unit, this is definitely a problem, since the white casing shows dust and could discolor easily, though that shouldn't matter if you go for the black model. The lone surface on the netbook that remains glossy is the black LCD bezel, present on both black and white models.
The Seashell design language has aged well, with the 1001P still looking fresh. In white, it is quite an attractive netbook, with the sleek lines and the eye-catching square pattern on the casing. The overall cohesiveness of the design gives the 1001P a polished feel, which is notably absent from some of its competitors and very nice to have in a $329 computer.
The bottom of the netbook features a panel for access to the single DDR2 SO-DIMM, allowing for painless memory upgrades. With only 1 memory slot, the 1001P maxes out at a disappointing 2GB of memory, though most netbooks will never be stressed enough to require more than that. Unfortunately, upgrading the hard drive is not such a straightforward process and requires a fair bit of (warranty-voiding) disassembly.
Overall, the build quality is quite good for a netbook, with solid plastic used all around. The palm rests are resistant to flex and the keyboard is firm, a rarity when it comes to budget netbooks. The lid is also very solid and doesn't bend easily. Putting pressure on the back of the screen shows no rippling on the LCD, meaning the screen and backlight are well protected. While no one would mistake this for the rugged ThinkPad of the netbook world (that'd be the ThinkPad X100e), the 1001P is definitely a well-built machine that should age well for a road warrior.
The 1001P uses the same keyboard as the old 1005HA. It is a standard style of keyboard, as opposed to the chiclet style keyboard in the new 1005PE. The 92% sized keys are very usable, and though you wouldn't want to type a novel on the Eee, it suffices in everyday usage. The keyboard can feel a bit cramped when switching between different notebooks, but adjusting to the smaller keys is fairly easy. The keyboard itself is a solid unit, with a standard layout and little to no noticeable flex. However, like the casing, discoloration of the keyboard over time is a concern.
The touchpad is a Synaptics multitouch unit. It works flawlessly, with dual finger scroll, pinch to zoom, three finger right click, and other customizable gestures. There is only one mouse button, a chrome piece that picks up fingerprints easily and acts as a rocker switch with both right and left clicks. The button's feedback is very shallow and quite loud, but works as expected, even without defined right and left buttons.
As far as ports go, the 1001P is very standard for netbook class, with three USB ports, one VGA output, Ethernet, headphone, line-in, and an SD card slot. An HDMI port is noticeably absent, but there are reasons for the omission. First, Atom Pineview CPUs support a maximum digital output of just 1366x768. Second, short of Next Generation ION, Atom N450 lacks the power to decode 1080p HD video, much less push the pixels on an HD display (which is why the HDMI output on NG-ION comes from the GPU rather than the IGP). In short, given the limitations of the GMA 3150 graphics in Pineview, it's pointless to include HDMI without adding a discrete GPU. The webcam and mic are well placed and work as advertised, with Skype users reporting clear audio and video quality from the 1001P.
The speakers are located on the bottom of the system near the front edge, and provide decent sound quality by netbook standards, though that isn't saying much. They're loud enough to hear music or hold a Skype conversation across a quiet room, but they're easily drowned out in noisy environments. As with any other small device, the speakers distort easily at high volumes and you shouldn't expect any bass response. While the built-in speakers suffice for basic usage and the occasional YouTube music video, a good set of headphones will likely get you a far more enjoyable auditory experience.
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mczak - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - link
Conclusion says the only thing you give up over 1005pe is battery life. I think in this time and age, not having n-wireless is a fairly big omission too. Maybe not quite a deal breaker, but I'd consider that an important distinction between the two (maybe even more so than the battery life difference).I'm wondering though if we'll see most netbooks switch to the N470. Not exactly a performance demon neither, but every little bit helps...
ric3r - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - link
It's purely a cost thing, and honestly, so many public hotspots are still on g (or b) wireless that it's not really a necessity to have -n wireless. Yeah, it's nice to have, but not essential.As for the N470, yeah, we'll see. I haven't noticed any difference speed-wise between the N270, 280, and 450, but the N470 does offer a comparatively substantial speed bump so maybe it'll do better.
heulenwolf - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - link
Agree, I'm tired of the G-only devices holding up my N-network at home. Even the Nexus One found a way to put N-networking in the device. I guess it comes down to cost, though. A part costing $x more on an unsubsidized device tends to lead to a retail price $3x more. I don't think the mass market wants a netbook when the price creeps near $400. So, perhaps the G-only networking was a cost-cutting measure to keep the price well out of the range where people could even round up to $400.mucker365 - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - link
> I'm tired of the G-only devices holding up my N-network at homeHolding up, how? Do you have an internet connection with better throughput or latency than wifi g?
Veerappan - Thursday, March 18, 2010 - link
He could be referring to inter-computer transfers, such as streaming videos off of a NAS via wireless. I've had issues in the past with collisions on a 802.11G network impacting playback performance of HD video streamed from another computer on the network.I'd also love to do a NAS setup with my Linux boxes where there is a network-mounted home directory, but as it is the wireless speed of 54mbit/s (when I'm lucky, more often it's in the 30mbit range) makes that impractical.
It's also very possible that he is being held back by his router in his network speed. My FiOS connection at home has been clocked by DSL Reports at 25mbit/s down and 18.5mbit/s up (this has been echoed by real-world transfer speeds). Add those upload/download figures together, add in collision reset times, and 54Mbit/s could actually be a limiting factor.
Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - link
I had the chance to play with a netbook with the same specs as this. I was impressed until I put it in sleep mode. I put my ear up to the vent and noticed that the fan was still running. It never shut off. I tried waking it up but it never came back on. Apparently during the process of closing the netbook lid (which puts it to sleep), I must have caused a hard drive I/O error which locked up the netbook. So it never suspended and the fan never shut off.What a joke. It had to be the hard drive. The hard drives in these things are nothing more than cheap garbage. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. Anandtech ought to be ashamed of themselves for recommending such garbage. Even the smallest, crappiest SSD is better than crap that breaks on a dime. I dont care what any of these morons say, do NOT trust a netbook hard drive any further than you can throw it.
strikeback03 - Friday, March 19, 2010 - link
So you write off the entire category because one example of one design had an issue?JonB - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - link
You would think a nice, solid state hard drive would be problem free, but it sure wasn't for me. I have replaced the failed 8GB Intel SSD with a cheaper and faster 16GB SuperTalent. This was an Acer AspireOne, though, not the Asus series.When an SSD fails, apparently it just goes away. No warning, no chance of recovery.
Hard drives, even cheap hard drives, usually give some warning.
mckirkus - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - link
I wasn't aware that Intel made 8GB SSDs. The new generation are around $100, 5x larger, and are rock solid. In fact, some say they're better at dealing with failures than the rotating variety.I'd rather have a super fast 40GB SSD in one of these things than a 250GB spinning disaster waiting to happen.
8 & 16 GB SSDs are really old tech.
JonB - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - link
Both the 8GB and 16GB SSDs are literally the size of a credit card and barely thicker. A short ZIF ribbon cable connection to the motherboard.My AspireOne is running a slightly modified Linpus so needs very little room and I store everything of value on SD cards. My netbook is not a desktop replacement in any way; more like a huge smartphone.