Netbooks, particularly the Eee PC (duh), are great. You can take them everywhere, they’re relatively fast, and they’re good enough to allow you to finish your tasks without crashes. However, I’m not a big fan of their storage options. Either you get a really fast SSD that contains only around 32 GB of storage, or a hard drive that has 250 GB of storage, but only has 5400RPMs. Now if you’d like to have a hard drive with 320GB and 7200RPMs, check out this video posted by Netbook Reports.
What are the advantages of upgrading your hard drive other than the obvious storage gains, you ask? Netbook Reports answers that:
In addition to being faster over the stock hard drive, it also offers a 16MB cache to help load larger files faster, and also includes:
Low power consumption – With technologies like IntelliSeek, which calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption and SecurePark, which reduces power by parking the heads during low power idle mode, this drive delivers 5400 RPM-equivalent power consumption in a 7200 RPM drive.
Quiet – In a notebook drive, silence is golden. WD’s exclusive WhisperDrive combines state-of-the-art seeking algorithms to yield one of the quietest 2.5-inch hard drives on the market.
Reliable – ShockGuard technology protects the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks during shipping and handling and in daily operation.
What do you guys think? Is the tutorial sufficient enough or do you think there’s more info or facts you can share with us? Tell us about it by leaving a comment!
Asus apparently has no plans yet to make a Google Chrome OS or even an Android smartbook. Back at CES, a lot of devices by different computer manufacturers were running Google Android, and somehow Asus isn’t one of them.
Were they burned with the Xandros OS experience and now they’re not even attempting to create a smartbook that doesn’t run any Windows flavor at all? Remember, smartbooks are running on an ARM chipset, which makes installing Windows on it impossible. More »
I may have reduced my Eee to the status of secondary computer already, but it doesn’t mean I no longer give a damn about Eee products. On the contrary, I’m pretty still interested in the different products they’re making. Also, I seriously want to see how bad they’re fragmenting the Eee brand. But that’s going to be a post for another day.
What you’re seeing is the much-awaited Eee PC tablet, the one where we talked about it running an NVIDIA Tegra processor. It is running a Tegra – most likely the recently-announced Tegra 2 – and this tablet here is called the Asus Eee PC Touch Series. More »
I’ve been waiting for Asus to come out with its own Pine trail-powered netbook for the longest time, and since the advent of Intel Atom, the Asus Eee PC 1005PE is probably the first significantly different Asus Eee PC. It’s the first one in a long time to not have the first-generation Atom 1.6 processor. Again, we know that we’re not supposed to expect any difference off the new chip, but everyone is obviously curious as to how the new processor stacks up.
The Asus Eee PC 1105PE is actually a slightly updated version of the Asus Eee CP 1005HA, and since there isn’t that big a difference from the previous iteration, we’re expecting the reviews to focus more on the new processor over the laptop itself. Now let’s see if the hype surrounding the Asus Eee PC 1005PE is indeed worth it.
So, what kind of difference does the new single-core 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 make? Coupled with 1GB of RAM and a 5,400rpm 250GB hard drive that boots Windows 7 Starter, the 1005PE felt slightly snappier than netbooks with Atom N270 or N280 chips, but not by much. We didn’t wait around for programs to launch or have any problems running Firefox 3, TweetDeck, and iTunes simultaneously. It’s possible to run Photoshop, but editing a batch of photos still requires the patience of a grade-school teacher — just like on N270 or N280 machines. The benchmarks say the same: On Geekbench the 1005PE notched 942, while the 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 powered 1008HA scored a lower 756. Either way, the performance gain isn’t going to blow you away, and keeps netbooks in line with their original purpose — light productivity and web tasks.
Okay, so do you think getting a pine trail netbook a great idea or would you rather stick to your current netbook? Tell me about it!
Asus’s Eee PC T101MT passed the FCC a few days back, and it’s left everyone rather curious. You see, the “MT” part of the product name reveals it to be a multi-touch netbook.
We don’t have much details as of yet, but we’re assuming it has 802.11b/g/n WiFi, bluetooth and a 10″ capacitive touchscreen. It will probably also rock the Intel Atom N450 Pine Trail processor. This looks like a replacement for the smaller Eee PC T91MT netbook.
One of the things that had me excited about netbooks when they first came out is that this is a chance to actually put SSDs into the mainstream. And then netbooks boomed. But… they seem to have left SSDs in the dust. More »
Now, installing it (on the 901 at least) is a breeze, because you can just use the built-in screwdriver to open your 901’s guts and remove the current 4GB SSD. Putting it back in would be the easiest thing in the world I would presume. Well, according to Test Freaks, it’ll just take two screws, and then we’re ready to go. More »
Let’s say you want an Eee PC but you want to have bluetooth built-in. You’re not really into bluetooth dongles, and you want to hack your Eee. EeeUser member wacou has posted a guide to take the 1005HA apart safely.
We all know that netbooks have terrible audio. It’s something we’ve learned to live with because, well, we get what we pay for.
However, the coming of the iBoom is no surprise. I’m pretty sure that lots of Eee owners are asking for better audio fidelity from their miniscule units.
One of the things that had me excited about netbooks when they first came out is that this is a chance to actually put SSDs into the mainstream. And then netbooks boomed. But… they seem to have left SSDs in the dust. 
