Asus Eee PC 12000mAh battery is ginormous

Scott of ScottSoapbox.com ordered a 12000mAh battery for his Eee PC. The battery is, well, humongous, heavy, and it’s full of juice.

Scott’s Eee PC’s weight went up from 3.2 pounds to 3.75 pounds, which is pretty heavy for a netbook. But the battery should also be able to last from 8 to 10 hours.

Says Scott:

The increased typing incline is too much when the netbook is used on a table.  This is largely a personal preference but for me: while I can type with speed and accuracy at that tilt, I find it uncomfortable.  And wrist discomfort doesn’t jive well with “all day computing”. However, I tend to do most of my typing with my wireless keyboard/notebook/netbook in my lap.  Used this way the battery does not create an uncomfortable position as the battery (mostly) fits between my legs.

However, he does not recommend using this battery at this time.

Stuff Live reviews the Eee Top

I have to admit, I’m pretty impressed with the Eee Top.

The Asus Eee S101 and the 1002HA side-by-side

Brad of Liliputing saw an Asus EeeS101 side-by-side with a 1002HA at the  Pepcom show in New York, and he could barely tell the difference between the two. Price difference aside (the S101 goes for $699 while the 1002HA will start at $499), there isn’t much difference between the two. Even on the inside, the specs aren’t that different as well. They both have a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, and 10.2 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel displays. However, the S101 has a solid-state disk with up to 64GB capacity, while the 1002HA has a 160GB hard drive.

Now tell me which has the better value for money.

Eee Top Commercial

Based on the commercial, the Eee top doesn’t strike me as a computer at all, it’s more like a lifestyle hub to me.

Eee Top Video

So the mysterious Eee Top still hasn’t reached stores, but there’s already a video of the much-awaited low-cost touch-screen desktop PC floating on the internet:

Here, by the way are the specs of the Eee Top.

• 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor.
• 1GB of RAM.
• 160GB hard disk.
• Shared Graphics (128MB).
• Audio Ports x 3 (Microphone, Line in & Line Out) / USB ports x 4 / Gigabit LAN port.
• 15.6-inch LCD, Single Touch Panel.
• Windows XP operating system.
• WiFi 802.11b/g/n and a nice 1.3-megapixel camera.

More SSD Upgrades for Eee PC 701s

More manufacturers are churning out replacement SSDs for the Eee PC. This one from Green-House Japan has capacities between 32 to 64 Gb.

The trade-off, however would be in speed. They have a speed of 35MB/s in reading mode, but only 15MB/s in writing mode.

Source: Akihabara news via EeePC.net

EeeRotate does exactly what its name promises: rotate your Eee screens.

So the webpage you’re viewing too long for you to keep on scrolling down? Or maybe you just want to show off and hold your Eee like a book? This Windows utility called EeeRotate that can rotate your Eee PC screen to whatever direction you want.

According to Liliputing,

The program also lets you rotate your screen with a handful of keyboard shortcuts. Ctrl+Alt+Right will rotate your screen by 90 degrees. Ctrl+Alt+Down will give you a 180 degree rotation (turning the screen upside down), and Ctrl+Alt+Left rotates your screen by 270 degrees.

Nifty.

Will AMD Jump Into The Netbook Fray?

According to EeePC.net, it’s AMD’s time to join the netbook market:

AMD will be holding a Financial Analyst Day on Thursday and notebooks.com expect that this will be the time that AMD announce they will be entering the netbook component market, producing processors for them.

The flourishing netbook market could be just the place for AMD to boost their flagging sales of late and AMD are expected to try their luck and compete with the Intel Atom processors that dominate the netbook component market currently, with most netbook manufacurers using the Atom CPU.

I can’t wait.

No More Linux Eee PCs?

Apparently, Asus is planning to get rid of the Linux option in their Eee PCs, at least in the Philippines, accourding to Liliputing.

[Asus] will only be selling Windows-based Eee PC netbooks in the Philippines from now on. He says the response to Linux in the region has not been positive, so Asus will focus its efforts on Windows machines.

One of the reasons companies like Asus looked to Linux in the first place is because the open source operating system provided a way to help keep the price of low cost ultraportable computers down. But Microsoft is now making discounted Windows XP licenses available to netbook and other “ultra low cost PC” makers. Add to that the fact that Asus is now pumping out millions of netbooks a year, which helps drive down the manufacturing costs per unit, and it’s easier for the company to offer Windows on a $300 or $400 machine than it was a year ago.

Sounds like a plan, but the modder/hacker in me wishes that Asus still keeps the Linux option, though.

ThinkFree Releases Netbook Survey

ThinkFree recently offered a free Netbook Edition license if you answer a simple survey. And the results are as follows:

Economic downturn has spurred people to buy netbooks:

With consumer confidence tumbling, users have become extremely sensitive to price points. Twenty-six percent will spend less for holiday gifts this year than just one year ago. Given this scenario, easy and affordable cloud computing applications may gain further market proliferation over the coming months.  Netbook computers make a perfect companion to cloud computing applications.

And people use Netbooks for:

• Business
  • Contact management
  • Calendar/task management
  • Document review, minor edits, emergency editing, edit on the go
  • Basic spreadsheets and presentations
  • View and edit PDF documents
• Blogging
  • Blog posting
  • Basic image editing
• Entertainment
  • Web browsing
  • Music, iTunes
• Communications
  • Email
  • Instant messaging
  • VoIP, Skype

Finally, people demand the following from their netbook applications:

• Speed
  • High speed performance
  • Quick start up
  • Fast file load and save
• Small
  • Light on resources
  • Low disk space and RAM requirements
• Simple
  • Easy to learn and use
  • No feature bloat
• Compatibility
  • e.g. MS Office 2007, 2003
• Optimization
  • Adaptation to smaller screen dimension
  • Modern, concise UI

I’ll post a review of ThinkFree Office Netbook edition once I’m done playing with it.