ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (EPC1000HEWHI017X) Netbook

I was a bit sceptical at first when I heard of this laptop, mainly because I thought a laptop could not possibly handle 9.5 hours of battery life and a tiny 1.66GHz processor would be incredibly slow.

I was wrong on both of those thoughts. Firstly, I have achieved 7-7.5 hours of battery life with wireless turned on, and brightness set to 40% (standard, fine for indoor use). I am confident that I could easily achieve 9.5 hours without the wifi turned on. Secondly, the laptop has an ingenious method of battery conservation and speed management. Asus has coined this software the Asus 'Super Hybrid Engine'. You can easily switch between low power, standard power and high power consumption depending on the task that you are currently using the laptop for. I find that for internet browsing, word processing and viewing videos online the lowest power setting that will get you 7.5 hours of battery life works great.

The Super Hybrid Engine consists of 4 settings:
Power Saving: Underclocks the processor getting about 1.3GHz out of it for the sake of saving battery. I use this setting the most.

High Performance: Leaves the processor as it is, consuming 1.66GHz of processor.

Super Performance: Overclocks the processor (safely) to around 1.8GHz, this is for things that demand more power for example playing online games (I know that the 1000HE can play Guild Wars comfortably on this setting)

Auto: When you are running on battery power this setting will automatically put you into Power Saving Mode, and with the charger plugged in it will switch you to High Performance Mode.

I went ahead on the impulse and bought this item, and I have never looked back. It is very light, I can comfortably hold it in one hand. While it may look like the screen is a tad small when you are using it you will not notice this at all.

Since this product comes with 2 years warranty as standard, and at a cheap price of roughly £300 there is no reason not to get it!

Loving this new laptop. Installed ubuntu karmic on it fairly smoothly. Fantastic true all day battery life. Definitely one of the best eeepcs they have made.