Now if you have a spare Eee PC battery lying around and you want to get it charged without plugging it into your Eee, then this Eee PC clip-on battery charger may be right for you. Made by Expansys, this clip-on charger lets you charge two batteries at a time.
In keeping with the Eee PC’s diminutive size, Expansys are offering a range of clip-on battery chargers for the ASUS netbooks that can keep a spare power-pack juiced up without needing it to be fitted to the netbook itself.
Versions are available now for the Eee PC 700/701 and the Eee PC 900, with a new model for the Eee PC 901/1000 “coming soon”. All use your existing AC adapter and take the form of a small, lightweight box that clips onto your Eee PC battery and hides at the bottom of your laptop bag when not needed.
Depending on the model, the charger can cost between $40.99 to $70.99.
Customizability has always been one of the Eee’s greatest strengths. From software customizations such as switching from Linux to Windows (XP, Vista, 2000, even 3.11), or even OS X, or hardware upgrades such as replacing the RAM or the SSD, or even full DIY, such as turning the Eee into a touchscreen, or inserting built-in bluetooth, the Eee has been the modder’s best friend.
So why is the S101 so darn hard to upgrade, asks Laptopmag.
While there is a small latch for getting to the RAM, that is about all you can access. We had no problem unscrewing that latch and replacing the default 1GB SODIMM with a 2GB stick of DDR2 RAM; in fact that is the easy part. However, when we popped in the RAM the Windows XP operating system didn’t recognize the extra 1GB, still showing only 0.99GB. Is it possible the BIOS itself won’t recognize more than 1GB? We haven’t gotten an official answer from ASUS about this, but it looks like that’s the case.
Ok so we didn’t really think the Eee PC S101 needed more RAM any way. But a new SSD would be pretty sweet, considering we weren’t all that impressed with the one that came standard on the system. We have a new Eee PC SSD upgrade chip from SuperTalent. However, there is no easy way to access the SSD from the back of the system. Even after we pulled off all the screws we couldn’t get to the internals. We assume you have to pry the keyboard off.
Again, this makes the S101 a no in my next netbook choice.
User TenaciousDre from the Eee User forums posted a guide on how to make a 12 cell 701 battery. Charging time can last up to 12 hours, but the charge can give you 8 hours of juice.
The Intel Atom processors have been pretty neat, enabling us to have a whole generation of netbooks like the Asus Eee PC that are relatively fast and light on power. The’re pretty good for surfing the net, watching a couple of videos, and for finishing that stupid spreadsheet, but we all know that the Atom can do better. More »
For those willing to give their aging Eee PC 901s another lease at life, you can upgrade your favorite netbooks with a new SSD. Runcore Pro IV Light mini-SATA SSDs have 16GB, 32GB and 64GB iterations.
Two videos have been uploaded on YouTube by user 1walkgirl showing the Runcore Pro IV Light miniSATA SSD successfully working on the Eee PC 901. The first video gives a general idea of the speed, and the second video shows a Crystal diskmark test and the results.
This isn’t exactly groundbreaking news, but Asus just put out a quick announcement that USB 3.0 will be available on future Eee PCs. Okay, I’m pretty sure most manufacturers are going for USB 3.0 on their netbooks and other computing devices. What’s new with USB 3.0 anyway?
The theoretical throughput improvement offered by USB 3.0 is dramatic — a theoretical 10X jump over existing USB 2.0 hardware. USB 2.0 maxed out at a theoretical 480Mbps, while USB 3.0 can theoretically handle up to 5Gbps. Mind you, applications like storage will still be limited by the type of drive inside; so, for example, you can expect better performance from RAIDed hard drives or fast solid-state drives (SSDs) than from, say, a standalone single drive connected to the computer via USB 3.0.
One of the things to look for in the coming months is the certified SuperSpeed USB 3.0 logo. Products are currently filling the queues at the official certification testing labs, but presence of that certification logo will give you some peace of mind that the product you’re buying truly does live up to the USB 3.0 spec.
EeePC.net is wary of having a computer with a USB 3.0 port but with no USB 3.0 devices to use it with. Well, at least we have the interfaces to plug the devices ready, right? And when the devices that have 3.0 ready, we don’t have to worry about reduced speeds.
I know, I know, Intel dual core Atom chips have been around since the first time the processor came out. But the thing is, the dual core Atom processors that came out two years ago weren’t actually made for processors, and I even remember that Intel specifically forbade computer manufacturers from installing the said dual-core chips on our favorite netbooks.
That didn’t stop Asus from making the Asus Eee PC 1201N, though. Even though it is a netbook, they managed to put a desktop Atom 330 dual core processor in it. The said netbook ran a bit faster, but it lost a serious amount of battery life. Plus, let’s not even talk about the heat generated by the Atom 330 chips.
It looks like Intel is working on a dual core Atom chip made specifically for netbooks. Via Liliputing:
Intel may be working on a dual core Atom chip for netbooks. It will reportedly be called something like the Atom N500, which makes sense, since the latest dual core chip for desktops is called the Atom D510 — and most of the company’s netbook-specific chips have started with the letter N, such as the Atom N270, N280, N450, and N470.
But let us not expect these netbooks running the future Atom N500 to run as fast as our Core2Duo laptops. More »
Intel has just officially announced the newest addition to its Intel Atom Pinetrail family: the Atom N470. If you’re wondering what the N470 offers over its other Atom counterparts, well, it actually can provide a higher clock speed of 1.83GHz, with 512k of L2 cache. I know it’s really not much, but for netbooks that are powered just enough for our daily needs with very little processor power to spare, that little bit of extra clock speed is very much appreciated. More »
Since Eee PC 701s are already practically out of commission, the next best thing to do with these… classic netbooks would be to mod them into something else. Well, better than throwing them away, you can just mod your old Asus Eee PC 701 netbooks into a tablet computer. That’s right folks. The Eee PC 701 may have a minuscule screen, but apparently it works as a pretty decent tablet computer. And Windows XP looks pretty responsive as well.
Done by EeeUse Forum member mxjf, he shares his pretty awesome mod in this thread. According to mxjf:
The touchscreen is the $33 one from DX, and that IS electrical tape holding the thing together. I’m most likely going to sand/smooth the edges down and replace it with some black silicone sealant once I’m completely sure it’s good.
Check out the video below. the quality’s pretty bad, but you can see that Windows XP is pretty responsive and that the mod turned out pretty well:
Macbook air wannabees are probably a dime a dozen. Everytime I visit a computer shop, there seems to be another Macbook air knock-off that promises to be the thinnest and lightest computer I’ll ever use. Okay, then, good for you guys. But they’re all running Windows, so you know, it’s kind of a dealbreaker. I mean, if you’re going for a Macbook air clone, then you just have to go for the full experience, right?
This Chinese computer manufacturer created yet another Macbook air knockoff that not only inherits the original’s good looks, but it also has almost-identical packaging! M.C. Gadget says that the box is indistinguishable from the ones produced in Cupertino. Also, the packaging is really convincing. If it wasn’t made from plastic – instead of aluminum, like the original – it may even fool a lot of people. More »
Now if you have a spare Eee PC battery lying around and you want to get it charged without plugging it into your Eee, then this Eee PC clip-on battery charger may be right for you. Made by Expansys, this clip-on charger lets you charge two batteries at a time.
While there is a small latch for getting to the RAM, that is about all you can access. We had no problem unscrewing that latch and replacing the default 1GB SODIMM with a 2GB stick of DDR2 RAM; in fact that is the easy part. However, when we popped in the RAM the Windows XP operating system didn’t recognize the extra 1GB, still showing only 0.99GB. Is it possible the BIOS itself won’t recognize more than 1GB? We haven’t gotten an official answer from ASUS about this, but it looks like that’s the case.
I know, I know, Intel dual core Atom chips have been around since the first time the processor came out. But the thing is, the dual core Atom processors that came out two years ago weren’t actually made for processors, and I even remember that Intel specifically forbade computer manufacturers from installing the said dual-core chips on our favorite netbooks.
