Review Of The Asus Eee PC 1101HA Seashell
Laptops — on August 31, 2009 at 11:30 pm | 2 CommentsSum n substance:
Thumbs up:Lightweight, killer looks, long battery life, sturdy build, high resolution screen.
Thumbs down:Slightly slower and expensive than the standard netbooks.
Inside the trunk:
Price as reviewed: $429
Processor: 1.3GHz Intel Atom Z520
Memory: 1GB, 533MHz DDR2
Hard drive: 160GB 5,400rpm
Chipset Intel: US15W chipset
Graphics: Mobile Intel GMA 500 (integrated)
Operating System : Windows XP
Screen size (diagonal): 11.6 inches
THE WHIZ KID SPEAKS:Ahaa… Asus and its love for nature… First it came up with Bamboo and now the latest one is called Seashell. No anthropod here… just that the netbook is almost shaped like a seashell. The Asus Eee PC 1101HA Seashell marks the entry of Asus into the 12-incher netbook arena domineered by the Dell mini 12 series. Available in two colours black and white, the netbook that I laid my hands on is the white version. So here I go.
Razzle-dazzle:All that I have to say about it in the looks department is outstandingly BANGING. Though I normally prefer the black classy edgy look I just couldn’t take my eyes of this swanky netbook. It’s frigging eye catching. It clings on to the slick, awesome styling of the 10-inch 1005HA and at the same time upgrades the screen to a higher resolution 1,366×768 model. The slim designing of the netbook makes it not any more bulkier than the normal 10-inch netbook, leaving enough room for the standard VGA and Ethernet jacks on the sides. The layout of the keyboard is more on the conventional side, with the keys being more flat-topped which widen slightly towards the base. It does lack the quick launch keys which most of the other netbooks display. The texture on the touch is not exactly that great, with a few raised bumps, but it’s perfectly usable. The mouse buttons could have been a bit bigger and separate. Browsing through large web pages is no longer a harrowing experience… all thanks to the slightly bigger display.
Inside dope:
Talking about the main juice box now, like I said its ‘fab’ in the looks department, the same holds almost true for the performance part too (yeah, it does lack in a few places). Let me start with the battery… Asus is known for its long battery life and with this one also it just keeps on getting better. It’s got a battery life of 11 hours which is excellent for all day computing. The overclocking factor is kind of okie-dokie turned on by switching between presets in the included power management software. Putting it through various tests like Multimedia multitasking test, Jalbum photo conversion test, Apple iTunes encoding test, Video playback battery drain test the Asus came out with awesome results when the overclocking was switched on. Normally it is noticed that when overclocking is switched on it does have an impact on the battery life and also more heat is generated which actually happened in the case of Asus too, but no major stability issues were observed. The CPU can also be underclocked way down to 1.0GHZ to improve the power consumption but then its not really useful because it would be difficult doing anything worthwhile on the windows XP at such a scale.
Nitty-Gritty:I guess Asus loves to baffle us with its bags of variants of the Eee PC, but this one is definitely the BIG DADDY. Definitely not worth a miss, Jaw-dropping looks, outstandingly fab battery life of about 11 hours, support for Bluetooth v2.1,802.11 ‘n’ 10GB of online storage… what else could you ask for?? My verdict: what are you waiting for… just go ahead and grab it.
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2 Comments
HP Mini 5101 can definitely beat ASUS in some areas as per my estimate. But its a call one has to take on me, I am floored completely its looks as well as performance.
Asus Eee PC 1101HA Seashell is good, but not great for me. 11 hours is one thing that makes it irresistible for that’s what net books are for: performance & longevity of it. It’s worth the money anyways!