Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition

In the last few months you may have seen previews and news stories regarding Intel's new Core i7 desktop processor family, formerly known as Nehalem. Today, we're able to publish our impressions of Intel's new chip and ultimately its new platform. We've selected the flagship, $999 Core i7-965 Extreme Edition CPU to represent the Core i7 family, which at launch later this month will include three other processors, starting at $284. These new chips all require a new chipset, which will only exist at first by way of a very expensive new motherboard. We don't ... Expand full review

In the last few months you may have seen previews and news stories regarding Intel's new Core i7 desktop processor family, formerly known as Nehalem. Today, we're able to publish our impressions of Intel's new chip and ultimately its new platform. We've selected the flagship, $999 Core i7-965 Extreme Edition CPU to represent the Core i7 family, which at launch later this month will include three other processors, starting at $284. These new chips all require a new chipset, which will only exist at first by way of a very expensive new motherboard. We don't expect mainstream users will adopt Core i7 in any variation at first, at least until the motherboard prices come down. But the well-heeled performance hounds who do make the leap will enjoy the fastest consumer CPUs on the market.

Core i7 has enough architecture changes to require a brand new connection design between the chip and the motherboard. This is no small change, because Intel has stuck with the LGA775 (land grid array) chip socket since the days of Pentium 4. The new socket design, LGA1366, will not accept any older Intel CPUs, nor will Core i7 work on any older motherboards.

Core i7 remains as pinless as older Intel CPUs, but it's otherwise all new.

Unlike a new socket design, new chipsets aren't uncommon with updated Intel CPUs. The last three Extreme Edition chips Intel has launched each required its own new motherboard circuitry, and Core i7 is no different. Intel's new Core i7-supporting X58 chipset will only appear in very high-end boards. We conducted this review with the Intel Extreme Motherboard DX58SO board, and we've already reported on a new X58 board from Asus. Expect Gigabyte, MSI, and Intel's other typical board partners to introduce their own new X58 boards, and we expect prices will stay at or around the $300 mark. For this reason, Core i7 will remain an enthusiast CPU until Intel introduces a more moderate, mass consumption-friendly Core i7-compatible chipset.

Faster memory access
The reason for this platform shift has to do in part with a fundamental design change in Intel's CPU architecture. As has long been rumored, Intel has finally adopted an integrated memory controller into its Core i7 CPUs. What this means is that instead of the CPU communicating with a separate controller on the motherboard before it can talk to the system memory, Core i7 can save a step, and essentially receive data from the system RAM directly.

Intel's new Extreme Motherboard DX58SO.

AMD adopted this integrated controller strategy in the early days of its Athlon dual-core processors, and it was one of the factors that led them to dominate the competing Intel Pentium D CPUs of that generation. Through superior design since then, Intel has regained its performance lead over AMD, and we suspect that by adding the on-chip memory controller to Core i7, Intel has only made it more difficult for AMD to find a design advantage moving forward.

A potential complication here is that the new memory controller has three channels to the RAM. That means that unlike most desktop setups, which involve two or four memory sticks, Core i7 systems will want memory sticks in multiples of three. Hence why Intel shipped our test system with only 3GB of RAM (we got creative with a 2x1GB, 1x2GB RAM configuration, for 4GB total for testing), and why in high-end PCs that use the new X58 platform, 3GB, 6GB, and 12GB configurations will be common. X58 will also only support DDR3 RAM, whose prices have thankfully come down over the past year.

Four cores, sometimes eight
If you've followed Intel's chips designs over the years, the term "Hyperthreading" shouldn't be unfamiliar. This technology lets Intel simulate more processing threads on top of its old dual-core Pentium 4 chips. It abandoned that strategy with the Core 2 family, but Intel has resurrected it with Core i7, and it's why you'll see eight processing threads when you bring up Windows' system performance screen. Few day-to-day programs will benefit from Hyperthreading, and it's more of a situational benefit for processing reliability and the scant few applications that can actually support so many threads. Core i7 will eventually hit eight native cores on a single CPU, or 16 processing streams with Hyperthreading, but Intel has not made it clear when that will happen. It may be worth the wait, if you know you'll need that much parallelism, but few consumers will.

Multigraphics agnostic
Another significant change with the Core i7/X58 landscape had to do with graphics cards. Intel's Skulltrail platform of last year supported both standards as well, but the specialized CPUs that made the board worthwhile were prohibitively expensive. With the X58 chipset, yes, it comes on an expensive motherboard, but you can purchase a Core i7 chip to go with it for less than $300. The Core 2 Extreme QX9775 Skulltrail CPU started at $1,500. Gamers who stay current with graphics cards should be especially happy with this flexibility, as changing 3D card vendors will no longer require a wholesale system rebuild.

Hide Review Next page

We tested both SLI and Crossfire setups on our Core i7 test bed and found both worked without trouble, requiring nothing more than installing the hardware and appropriate graphics-driver software as you would normally. As for their performance, AMD has issued a series of so-called "hot-fix" drivers to improve compatibility and frame rates of its cards with various PC games, which suggests that its software still needs to work out a few kinks on X58. Nvidia has not been shy to point out this fact (its beta drivers have worked fine), but we also find it telling that all three of the high-priced Core i7 gaming desktops we're currently reviewing come with multicard AMD configurations.

A quicker path
Finally, the last major change with Core i7 is the introduction of what Intel's calling the QuickPath Interconnect (QPI). Essentially this is the Intel version of AMD's HyperTransport interface between the CPU and the chipset. The major impact of the QPI for consumers is that Intel uses different QPI ratings to distinguish the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition from the non-Extreme Core i7 chips. Rated by Gigatransfers per second (Gigatransfers, or GT, refers to a million transfers of data), the Extreme Edition comes in at 6.4GT/sec, where the non-Extreme versions handle only 4.8GT/sec. In addition to that speed advantage, Intel also ships the Extreme version with an unlocked clock multiplier, which means it can be overclocked. The standard Core i7's will have to remain at their shipping speeds.

Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition

To put the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition in perspective, we compared it with the year-old Core 2 Extreme QX9650. The Core i7 boasts a faster clock speed and an L3 cache shared by the four cores that's four times larger than that of the older chip. With the integrated RAM controller on Core i7 replacing the need for a front side bus, the platforms are quite different from each other, so the specs don't tell the whole story. The performance results speak more clearly.

Multimedia multitasking test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition

Adobe Photoshop CS3 test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition

CineBench 10
(Longer bars indicate faster performance)
Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition

CPU-limited Far Cry 2
(1,024 x 768, low-quality, no AA/AF)
Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition

Power consumption (in watts)
(Shorter bars indicate faster performance)
Intel Core i7-965 Extreme Edition

The Core i7 chip is faster than the QX9650 on every test, but we were most impressed by the CineBench multicore test and the Far Cry 2 benchmark, where Intel's new CPU established a sizable performance advantage. Gamers and digital-media editors may likely have assumed that Core i7 is worth their attention. As we can see from our testing, any such assumption is clearly justified.

We should add that the Core 2 Extreme QX9650 was actually surpassed earlier by the Core 2 Extreme QX9770, a $1,500 CPU that uses Intel's X48 chipset. Time constraints prevented us from testing that CPU as well, but based on early results from PC World Greece (via Engadget), it appears that Core i7 trounces that chip as well. We expect the Web will flood with reviews of the entire Core i7 family at the same time that this review launches. We encourage anyone considering a new CPU purchase to read as much coverage as possible to make the most informed buying decision. Any CPU with a $999 price tag merits careful consideration.

Power consumption
You'll note from our power-consumption tests that the Core i7 consumes almost the exact same amount of energy both at idle and while under load. We didn't expect major gains here, as each chip uses the same 45 nanometer process, runs at a similar clock speed, and with roughly the same number of transistors. Typically Intel gains power efficiency with chips introduced in a "tock" year, which involves a more efficient design of the chips from a "tick" year such as these. The Core i7-965 Extreme may have improved its relative power usage, in that it uses fewer transistors to do more work and at faster clock speeds than the older Core 2 Extreme chips. But anyone building a system with this new processor should expect to need an equivalently beefy power supply, especially if you intend to add multiple graphics cards and hard drives.

Find out more about how we test desktop systems.

System configurations:
Intel Core i7-956 Extreme Edition
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit; Intel DX58SO motherboard 4GB Kingston 1,066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 graphics card; 74GB Western Digital 10,000 rpm hard drive

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit; Asus Maximus Formula Special Edition motherboard; 4GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTX280; 74GB Western Digital 10,000 rpm hard drive

Previous page

View the original article here

Asus Eee PC 1005HA (Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, XP Home, white)

Editors' note: We've reviewed a more recent retail-exclusive version of the Asus Eee PC 1005HA, called the Asus 1005HAGB-BBY-BK01X.

We were very fond of the previous version of Asus' Eee PC, the 1008HA, which represented a radical design change from the boxy Eee PCs of the past. But its high-end (for a Netbook) price, at $429, slipped just over the line for many, and its nonremovable battery wasn't as long-lasting as we've seen in other Eee PCs.

The latest revision, called the 1005HA, keeps the slim, tapered design but ditches the somewhat cumbersome cover flaps on the

... Expand full review

Editors' note: We've reviewed a more recent retail-exclusive version of the Asus Eee PC 1005HA, called the Asus 1005HAGB-BBY-BK01X.

We were very fond of the previous version of Asus' Eee PC, the 1008HA, which represented a radical design change from the boxy Eee PCs of the past. But its high-end (for a Netbook) price, at $429, slipped just over the line for many, and its nonremovable battery wasn't as long-lasting as we've seen in other Eee PCs.

The latest revision, called the 1005HA, keeps the slim, tapered design but ditches the somewhat cumbersome cover flaps on the ports and adds a more traditional six-cell battery. This means a slightly thicker and heavier system, but also one that's our current Netbook battery life leader. Add in a slightly shaved price tag, down to a more reasonable $389 (although some perfectly usable Netbooks are down to $299), and you have what may be our new go-to Netbook choice.

Mobile Intel GMA 950 (integrated)System weight / Weight with AC adapter

The design of the 1005HA is based on the (slightly slimmer) 1008HA model. There's a tapered front lip, but the new model lacks some of the space-saving features of the 1008HA, such as the angled Ethernet jack and hidden mini-VGA port. Rather than a potentially smaller SSD drive, there's a standard 160GB HDD inside, augmented by a free 10GB online data storage subscription for backing up files to a remote server.

While slightly thicker and heavier than other recent Netbooks, it's still a vast improvement over the first few generations of mini laptops, which had a universally boxy, toylike feel. Our review unit was glossy black, which was prone to picking up fingerprints; blue is also available.

The flat, wide keyboard, similar to what we saw on the Eee PC 1008HA, is among the better Netbook keyboards we've used, and the full-size right Shift key is one of those things you don't realize is very important until it goes missing. The touch pad is demarcated by a rectangle of raised dots on the wrist rest, and works well, although we found ourselves going into the touch pad settings and jacking up the default pointer speed.

A single quick-access button above the keyboard is for disabling the touch pad (handy if you're using an external USB mouse), and Asus' different preset power profiles are accessible by hitting the FN key plus the space bar. New to this model is a software suite that acts as a software dock popping out of the top of the screen (by default, but switchable). From there, you can access functions such as screen brightness presets and media players. Most Netbook users we talk to are no-nonsense types who just want to surf the Web or send e-mail, so learning the ins and outs of a proprietary menu bar system may not be high in the list of priorities.

The 10.1-inch LED display offers a 1,024x600 native resolution, which is standard for a Netbook, although higher-end systems are starting to add 1,366x768 display options. The backlit LED allows the lid to be very thin, and also use less power than a more traditional LCD display.

Average for category [Netbook]Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacksEthernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, BluetoothEthernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth

The 1005HA offers a fairly standard set of ports and connections, lacking only the ExpressCard slot we've seen on some high-end Netbooks. We prefer to have our connections out in the open, rather than hidden behind hinged plastic doors (as in the 1008HA model), although we have to admit, the 1008's tiny, angled Ethernet jack was an impressive engineering feat.

With Intel's N280 Atom CPU, the system was, not surprisingly, on par with other current Netbooks, even those with the slightly slower N270 version of the ubiquitous Atom. We have yet to meet an Atom-powered Netbook that vastly outperformed or underperformed the pack. The basic rule of thumb is that for basic tasks such as word processing, Web surfing, and e-mail, an Atom Netbook is more than adequate, as long as you keep your expectations modest.

The real star here is the system's battery life. Asus has always had some of the longest-lived Netbooks, and the new 1005HA got an impressive 6 hours and 51 minutes in our video playback battery drain test--about 30 minutes more than our previous leader, the Eee PC 1000HE, and more than 2 hours better than the nonremovable battery in the 1008HA model.

Asus also includes its Super Hybrid Engine feature in the system, which is essentially a series of power-saving presets to further extend battery life. These are mostly power consumption tweaks one could perform individually, but it's handy to have them all in one place.

Hide Review Next page

Asus covers its laptops with a standard, one-year parts-and-labor warranty, and it offers online Web-based help and a toll-free phone number. The company's support Web site has improved over the past few years, and includes easy to find driver downloads FAQs.

Multimedia Multitasking test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Jalbum photo conversion test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Video playback battery drain test (in minutes)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Find out more about how we test laptops.

System configurations:

Asus Eee PC 1005HA
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 224MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Hitachi 5,400rpm

Asus Eee PC 1000HE
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 128MB Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Seagate 5,400rpm

Asus Eee PC 1008HA
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 128MB Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Seagate 5,400rpm

HP Mini 110
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 128MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Seagate 5,400rpm

Toshiba Mini NB205
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 128MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Toshiba 5,400rpm

Acer Aspire One AOD250
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 224MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Seagate 5,400rpm

Previous page

View the original article here

Velocity Micro Vector Holiday Edition (overclocked Intel Core i5 760)

Editors' note: This review has been updated to indicate that this PC can support two graphics cards from ATI, not from Nvidia.

Velocity Micro's $999 Vector Holiday Edition might be one of the best desktop deals we've ever seen. For just under $1,000, this system provides impressive day-to-day performance from an overclocked, stable CPU, competent 3D gaming via its upper-midrange Nvidia 3D card, and a Blu-ray drive to top it all off. We wouldn't expect this deal to last beyond the holiday season, but for as long as it's available, this desktop is an amazing ... Expand full review

Editors' note: This review has been updated to indicate that this PC can support two graphics cards from ATI, not from Nvidia.

Velocity Micro's $999 Vector Holiday Edition might be one of the best desktop deals we've ever seen. For just under $1,000, this system provides impressive day-to-day performance from an overclocked, stable CPU, competent 3D gaming via its upper-midrange Nvidia 3D card, and a Blu-ray drive to top it all off. We wouldn't expect this deal to last beyond the holiday season, but for as long as it's available, this desktop is an amazing bargain, and easy to recommend to anyone looking for a reasonably priced do-it-all performance computer.

We've professed our appreciation for Velocity Micro's sturdy, clean-lined cases many times in the past. The overall build quality remains high, as indicated by the clean interior and expertly wrapped and secured cables. The case design is showing its age with its lack of front-panel hard-drive access, but we're willing to forgive that absence here due to the fact that this system is such a great deal.

3.62GHz Intel Core i5 760 (overclocked)Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

How great a deal, you ask? Consider the $999 Vector Holiday Edition next to Gateway's $1,099 FX6840-15e. While the Gateway has a higher-end processor in its Core i7 CPU, Velocity Micro compels a remarkable performance boost from its Core i5 760 CPU through overclocking. We tested the overclock using the Linpack CPU stability test and the system showed no sign of variation in its clock speed or accuracy as it endured the heavy processing workload. Velocity Micro makes the overclocking option for this chip available for no premium over a standard Core i5 760, and given the Velocity's performance advantage documented below, the stability, and the price equality, we can think of no reason not to select the overclocking option.

In addition to the overclocked CPU, the Vector Holiday Edition also for the most part either matches or exceeds the Gateway in terms of hardware for the dollar. The Gateway has twice the system memory, but otherwise, the Velocity Micro system has the same 1TB-sized hard drive and a faster 3D graphics card, as well as a Blu-ray drive and wireless networking. Thanks to the Asus P7P55D-E motherboard, the Vector Holiday Edition also supports ATI's Crossfire multiple graphics card standard. The system as configured comes with an Nvidia card, but fortunately Velocity Micro offers an ATI Radeon HD 6850 for an extra $50. That card is roughly equivalent to the GeForce GTX 460 currently installed, and would provide a solid starting point if you wanted to add a second card later on.

Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Adobe Photoshop CS3 image-processing test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Multimedia multitasking (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Cinebench
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

The Vector Holiday Edition excelled in our application performance tests, especially when you consider that it's the least expensive system among our comparison units. The Maingear and the Digital Storm both come in above $2,000, but the Acer Predator is a $1,349 system, and the Vector beats that PC, as well as the $1,099 Gateway, on all but our Cinebench tests.

Those systems do indeed have an advantage on pure multithreaded performance tasks like Cinebench because of their Core i7 CPUs. That chip features four native processing cores, plus four additional processing threads via Intel's Hyper-Threading technology. With eight processing threads to the Velocity Micro's four with its non-Hyper-Threaded Core i5, the Core i7 PCs are better equipped for tasks like video rendering, at least with programs that draw on the CPU for that kind of processing. Newer versions of Adobe's Creative Suite, Windows 7 itself, and other applications are starting to use graphics cards more and more for their superior parallel processing capabilities. While some apps still rely on multicore CPUs, support for GPU computing is growing, which means you shouldn't necessarily write the Velocity Micro off for multimedia editing or other multithreaded tasks.

Crysis (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
Far Cry 2 (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

For gaming, the Velocity Micro system invites no caveats. It outperformed the Gateway and Acer systems on every test, and its 91 frames-per-second score on our 1,920x1,080-resolution Far Cry 2 test suggests that even at high resolutions you should be able to play any PC game out there at high image quality. You might see some lag on the most demanding titles if you get into 3D effects and high resolutions on multiple monitors. If that's your goal, adding a second GeForce GTX 460 card for another $200 or so should provide the solution.

Hide Review Next page

Velocity Micro has sent us other lower-cost gaming PCs that support multiple graphics cards, but we were dismayed to find that one of the last ones we reviewed switched to a single-card motherboard shortly after we reviewed it. That can happen, especially to smaller vendors, but we're heartened this time around in that Velocity Micro is still offering the same motherboard a month or so into this PC's availability on its Web site. Velocity Micro says despite the "Holiday Edition" name, this configuration will be available through January 1, and it may be extended to a "Winter Edition" afterward if demand is high enough.

Aside from the ability to accept a second graphics card, the Vector Holiday Edition also offers a fair number of other internal expansion possibilities. The system already comes with 4GB of RAM by way of two 2GB memory sticks, but you also get room for two more, allowing you to double the memory easily. You also get two 1x PCI Express card slots, as well as two standard PCI slots. One has a wireless networking card in it, and you'd need to move it to add a second graphics card due to slot overlap, but either way we're impressed by the extent to which this PC is both feature-rich and expandable.

That diversity extends to the outside of the Velocity Micro as well. You get the usual array of USB 2.0 jacks, but the motherboard also provides two USB 3.0 inputs, as well as FireWire and eSATA jacks. That's should leave you free to connect the vast majority of external devices. Velocity Micro also provides a pair of PS/2 mouse and keyboard inputs for your old school input devices. Audio jacks come by way of an S/PDIF optical output, as well as jacks for 7.1 analog output. For video, the graphics card includes two DVI ports, as well as a Mini-HDMI output.

Velocity Micro Vector Holiday EditionAnnual operating cost (@$0.1135/kWh)

Given its overclocked CPU, we're not surprised to find the Velocity Micro consumes more power than either the Acer or the Gateway. At least you get the extra performance. Expect to see a not-insignificant $5.67 or so extra each month on your power bill for this PC.

Velocity Micro's service and support compares well with that of other boutique vendors. Like Falcon Northwest and others, Velocity Micro relies exclusively on in-house phone support technicians, and though it doesn't offer 24-7 phone support, you can get in touch from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Pacific Time Monday through Friday, and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, which is a pretty fair window. The warranty on the system covers parts and labor for a year, as well as one year of depot repair service. And Velocity's Web site has all kinds of useful support resources.

Find out more about how we test desktop systems.

System configurations:

Acer Aspire Predator AG5900-U3092
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit; 2.93GHz Intel Core i7 870; 8GB 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5850 graphics card; 1.5TB, 7,200rpm Seagate hard drive

Digital Storm Special Ops
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit; 3.07GHz Intel Core i7 950; 6GB 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM; (2)1GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 graphics cards; 80GB Corsair Drive Force solid-state hard drive; 1TB 7,200rpm Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive

Gateway FX6840-15e
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit; 2.93GHz Intel Core i7 870; 8GB 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5750 graphics card; 1TB, 7,200rpm Western Digital hard drive

Maingear F131
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit; 3.87GHz (overclocked) Intel Core i7 960; 6GB 1,600MHz DDR3 SDRAM; (2) 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics cards; 80GB Intel X25-M solid-state hard drive; 1.5TB 5,400rpm Western Digital hard drive

Velocity Micro Vector Holiday Edition
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit; 3.62GHz Intel Core i5 760; 4GB 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 768GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 graphics card; 1TB, 7,200rpm Hitachi hard drive

Previous page

View the original article here

Asus Eee PC 1005HA (Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, XP Home, blue)

Editors' note: We've reviewed a more recent retail-exclusive version of the Asus Eee PC 1005HA, called the Asus 1005HAGB-BBY-BK01X.

We were very fond of the previous version of Asus' Eee PC, the 1008HA, which represented a radical design change from the boxy Eee PCs of the past. But its high-end (for a Netbook) price, at $429, slipped just over the line for many, and its nonremovable battery wasn't as long-lasting as we've seen in other Eee PCs.

The latest revision, called the 1005HA, keeps the slim, tapered design but ditches the somewhat cumbersome cover flaps on the

... Expand full review

Editors' note: We've reviewed a more recent retail-exclusive version of the Asus Eee PC 1005HA, called the Asus 1005HAGB-BBY-BK01X.

We were very fond of the previous version of Asus' Eee PC, the 1008HA, which represented a radical design change from the boxy Eee PCs of the past. But its high-end (for a Netbook) price, at $429, slipped just over the line for many, and its nonremovable battery wasn't as long-lasting as we've seen in other Eee PCs.

The latest revision, called the 1005HA, keeps the slim, tapered design but ditches the somewhat cumbersome cover flaps on the ports and adds a more traditional six-cell battery. This means a slightly thicker and heavier system, but also one that's our current Netbook battery life leader. Add in a slightly shaved price tag, down to a more reasonable $389 (although some perfectly usable Netbooks are down to $299), and you have what may be our new go-to Netbook choice.

Mobile Intel GMA 950 (integrated)System weight / Weight with AC adapter

The design of the 1005HA is based on the (slightly slimmer) 1008HA model. There's a tapered front lip, but the new model lacks some of the space-saving features of the 1008HA, such as the angled Ethernet jack and hidden mini-VGA port. Rather than a potentially smaller SSD drive, there's a standard 160GB HDD inside, augmented by a free 10GB online data storage subscription for backing up files to a remote server.

While slightly thicker and heavier than other recent Netbooks, it's still a vast improvement over the first few generations of mini laptops, which had a universally boxy, toylike feel. Our review unit was glossy black, which was prone to picking up fingerprints; blue is also available.

The flat, wide keyboard, similar to what we saw on the Eee PC 1008HA, is among the better Netbook keyboards we've used, and the full-size right Shift key is one of those things you don't realize is very important until it goes missing. The touch pad is demarcated by a rectangle of raised dots on the wrist rest, and works well, although we found ourselves going into the touch pad settings and jacking up the default pointer speed.

A single quick-access button above the keyboard is for disabling the touch pad (handy if you're using an external USB mouse), and Asus' different preset power profiles are accessible by hitting the FN key plus the space bar. New to this model is a software suite that acts as a software dock popping out of the top of the screen (by default, but switchable). From there, you can access functions such as screen brightness presets and media players. Most Netbook users we talk to are no-nonsense types who just want to surf the Web or send e-mail, so learning the ins and outs of a proprietary menu bar system may not be high in the list of priorities.

The 10.1-inch LED display offers a 1,024x600 native resolution, which is standard for a Netbook, although higher-end systems are starting to add 1,366x768 display options. The backlit LED allows the lid to be very thin, and also use less power than a more traditional LCD display.

Average for category [Netbook]Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacksEthernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, BluetoothEthernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth

The 1005HA offers a fairly standard set of ports and connections, lacking only the ExpressCard slot we've seen on some high-end Netbooks. We prefer to have our connections out in the open, rather than hidden behind hinged plastic doors (as in the 1008HA model), although we have to admit, the 1008's tiny, angled Ethernet jack was an impressive engineering feat.

With Intel's N280 Atom CPU, the system was, not surprisingly, on par with other current Netbooks, even those with the slightly slower N270 version of the ubiquitous Atom. We have yet to meet an Atom-powered Netbook that vastly outperformed or underperformed the pack. The basic rule of thumb is that for basic tasks such as word processing, Web surfing, and e-mail, an Atom Netbook is more than adequate, as long as you keep your expectations modest.

The real star here is the system's battery life. Asus has always had some of the longest-lived Netbooks, and the new 1005HA got an impressive 6 hours and 51 minutes in our video playback battery drain test--about 30 minutes more than our previous leader, the Eee PC 1000HE, and more than 2 hours better than the nonremovable battery in the 1008HA model.

Asus also includes its Super Hybrid Engine feature in the system, which is essentially a series of power-saving presets to further extend battery life. These are mostly power consumption tweaks one could perform individually, but it's handy to have them all in one place.

Hide Review Next page

Asus covers its laptops with a standard, one-year parts-and-labor warranty, and it offers online Web-based help and a toll-free phone number. The company's support Web site has improved over the past few years, and includes easy to find driver downloads FAQs.

Multimedia Multitasking test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Jalbum photo conversion test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Video playback battery drain test (in minutes)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Find out more about how we test laptops.

System configurations:

Asus Eee PC 1005HA
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 224MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Hitachi 5,400rpm

Asus Eee PC 1000HE
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 128MB Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Seagate 5,400rpm

Asus Eee PC 1008HA
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 128MB Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Seagate 5,400rpm

HP Mini 110
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 128MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Seagate 5,400rpm

Toshiba Mini NB205
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 128MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Toshiba 5,400rpm

Acer Aspire One AOD250
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 224MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Seagate 5,400rpm

Previous page

View the original article here

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700

AMD, you've had a good run.

Intel announced its line of Core 2 Duo desktop CPUs today. If you're buying a new computer or building one of your own, you would be wise to see that it has one of Intel's new dual-core chips in it. The Core 2 Duo chips are not only the fastest desktop chips on the market, but also the most cost effective and among the most power efficient. About the only people these new chips aren't good for are the folks at AMD, who can claim the desktop CPU crown no

... Expand full review AMD, you've had a good run.

Intel announced its line of Core 2 Duo desktop CPUs today. If you're buying a new computer or building one of your own, you would be wise to see that it has one of Intel's new dual-core chips in it. The Core 2 Duo chips are not only the fastest desktop chips on the market, but also the most cost effective and among the most power efficient. About the only people these new chips aren't good for are the folks at AMD, who can claim the desktop CPU crown no longer.

We've given the full review treatment to two of the five Core 2 Duo chips. You can read about the flagship $999 Core 2 Extreme X6800 here and the entire Core 2 Duo series here. In this review, we examine the next chip down, the $530 2.67GHz Core 2 Duo E6700. While the Extreme X6800 chip might be the fastest in the new lineup, we find the E6700 the most compelling for its price-performance ratio. For just about half the cost of AMD's flagship, the $1,031 Athlon 64 FX-62, the Core 2 Duo E6700 gives you nearly identical, if not faster performance, depending on the application.

As we outlined in a blog post a month ago, the Core 2 Duo represents a new era for Intel. It's the first desktop chip family that doesn't use the NetBurst architecture, which has been the template for every design since the Pentium 4. Instead, the Core 2 Duo uses what's called the Core architecture (not to be confused with Intel's Core Duo and Core Solo laptop chips, released this past January). The advances in the Core architecture explain why even though the Core 2 Duo chips have lower clock speeds, they're faster than the older dual-core Pentium D 900 series chips. The Core 2 Extreme X6800 chip, the Core 2 Duo E6700, and the $316 Core 2 E6600 represent the top tier of Intel's new line, and in addition to the broader Core architecture similarities, they all have 4MB of unified L2 cache. The lower end of the Core 2 Duo line, composed of the $224 E6400 and the $183 E6300, have a 2MB unified L2 cache.

We won't belabor each point here, since the blog post already spells them out, but the key is that it's not simply one feature that gives the Core 2 Duo chips their strength, but rather it's a host of design improvements across the chip and the way it transports data that improves performance. And out test results bear this out.

On our gaming, Microsoft Office, and Adobe Photoshop tests, the E6700 was second only to the Extreme X6800 chip. Compared to the 2.6GHz Athlon 64 FX-62, the E6700 was a full 60 frames per second faster on Half-Life 2, it finished our Microsoft Office test 20 seconds ahead, and it won on the Photoshop test by 39 seconds. On our iTunes and multitasking tests, the E6700 trailed the FX-62 by only 2 and 3 seconds, respectively. In other words, with the Core 2 Duo E6700 in your system, you'll play games more smoothly, get work done faster, and in general enjoy a better computing experience than with the best from AMD--and for less dough.

CPU Limited custom Half-Life 2: Lost Coast demo (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast 1,024x768 no AA, no AFOffice productivity test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Microsoft Office productivity test (Word, Excel, and Powerpoint)Photoshop CS2 image-processing test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Adobe Photoshop CS2 image-processing testiTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Hide Review Next page Multitasking test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
DivX 6.1 and McAfee VirusScan 2006 multitasking test

But there's even more to the Core 2 Duo story than performance. One of the key elements of the new chips is their power efficiency. We base our findings on a number called the thermal design power (TDP), which is the number that AMD and Intel each provide to system vendors and various PC hardware makers for determining how much power each chip will require, and thus the amount of heat they'll need to dissipate. In Intel's last generation of dual-core desktop chips, the Pentium D 900s, the TDP rating fell between 95 and 130 watts. But because the Core 2 Duo design incorporates power management techniques from Intel's notebook chips, its power requirements are much more forgiving. All but the Core 2 Extreme X6800 have a TDP of 65 watts, while the Extreme chip itself is only 75 watts.

For its own dual-core Athlon 64 X2 chips, AMD tells its hardware partners to prepare for a TDP of between 89 and 110 watts (although its Energy Efficient and Small Form Factor Althon 64 X2 products, which have yet to hit the market in any quantity, go to 65 and 35 watts, respectively). Intel has caught flak in the past for providing fan makers with inadequate TDP ratings, which resulted in overly noisy fans for the Pentium D chips that had to spin exceedingly fast to cool the chips properly. But the Falcon Northwest Mach V desktop we reviewed alongside this launch came with stock cooling parts. It will be hard to tell exactly how well Intel's provided specs live up to their real-world requirements until the hardware has been disseminated widely, but the fact that a performance stickler like Falcon sent the standard-issue cooling hardware suggests that Intel took note of the problems it had in the past.

So what does all this really mean? It means that Core 2 Duo makes it easier for PC vendors to design smaller PCs that are just as powerful as their full-size counterparts because they don't have to deal with as much heat, nor provide massive power supplies and towering heat sinks. Such a PC should also run more quietly, since the cooler parts don't need as much work from the system fans. It also means less thermal wear and tear. As parts run hotter, the likelihood of their failure increases. The lower the TDP, the happier the PC and its surrounding components.

And as to the surrounding parts, if you already have an Intel-based PC and would like to upgrade, Intel has made it easy. The Core 2 Duo chips use the same Socket LGA775 interface as the Pentium D 900 series. If you have an Intel motherboard using a 965 chipset, you're ready to go with Core 2 Duo and a single graphics card. If you want to run Intel and a dual graphics configuration, you have two options: Intel's 975 chipsets support ATI's CrossFire tech only, and if you want to run SLI, you'll need a motherboard in Nvidia's NForce 500 for Intel series.

For AMD, the outlook isn't great. Its so-called 4x4 design, which will let you run two Athlon 64 FX-62s in a single PC, might overtake a single Core 2 Extreme X6800 on raw performance. Details are scant about 4x4's particulars, but if a single Athlon 64 FX-62 costs about $1,031, two will have you crossing the $2,000 mark on chips alone, not to mention the motherboard, the size of the case, as well as the cooling hardware required to operate it. AMD says it will drop prices this month to compete on the price-performance ratio. That might make for some compelling desktop deals, but for now, Intel has the superior technology.

Test bed configurations:

AMD test bed
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard; Nvidia Nforce 590 SLI chipset; Corsair 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 1,066MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX (PCIe); WDC WD740GD-00FLA2 74GB 10,000rpm SATA; Windows XP Professional SP2; PC Power & Cooling 1Kw power supply

Intel test bed
Intel Desktop Board D975XBX; Intel 975X chipset; Corsair 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce 7900GTX (PCIe); WDC WD740GD-00FLA2 74GB 10,000rpm SATA; Windows XP Professional SP2; PC Power & Cooling 1Kw power supply

Previous page

View the original article here

Apple iMac summer 2010 (Intel Core i5 2.8GHz, 27 inch)

Introduced 10 months ago, Apple's original 27-inch iMac would arguably still be competitive today because of the continued absence of a Windows all-in-one computer with a screen larger than 24 inches. After a model update a few weeks ago, Apple has also kept the performance of its 27-inch, $1,999 iMac competitive by adopting a quad-core Intel Core i5 CPU and a fast AMD graphics chip. As with the new 21.5-inch iMac, Apple bypassed several opportunities to improve the 27-inch model as a home entertainment hub. We can easily recommend this new iMac to anyone looking for a ... Expand full review

Introduced 10 months ago, Apple's original 27-inch iMac would arguably still be competitive today because of the continued absence of a Windows all-in-one computer with a screen larger than 24 inches. After a model update a few weeks ago, Apple has also kept the performance of its 27-inch, $1,999 iMac competitive by adopting a quad-core Intel Core i5 CPU and a fast AMD graphics chip. As with the new 21.5-inch iMac, Apple bypassed several opportunities to improve the 27-inch model as a home entertainment hub. We can easily recommend this new iMac to anyone looking for a large screen all-in-one for productivity or gaming. And while Apple's loyalty to DisplayPort adds some annoying hurdles to using the iMac as a digital-media hub, the 27-inch screen is big and beautiful enough to make up for the extra hassle.

The chief change Apple made across the iMac line is its move away from Intel's Core 2 Duo CPUs, replacing them with Intel's Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 CPUs exclusively. While the previous $1,999 iMac already had a quad-core 2.66GHz Core i5 CPU, the new model comes with a 2.8GHz version with four distinct CPU cores.

In addition to a marginally faster CPU, Apple gave the $1,999 iMac a few other hardware changes. The company switched to using 1,333MHz DDR3 RAM, an upgrade from the 1,066MHz DDR3 the previous model had. It also upgraded the SD card slot to support the SDXC format, which supports cards up to 2TB in capacity. The biggest change comes by way of the new graphics card, the 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5750. An improvement over the generation-old 512MB Radeon HD 4850 used in the previous model, the new 3D card has big implications for gaming on this new iMac.

Otherwise, Apple has left the award-winning iMac formula largely the same. The 27-inch, LED-backlit display remains just as impressive as before, not least because of its 2,560x1,440-pixel resolution. Apple has also retained the glossy screen coating that turns some people off. Apple includes 802.11n wireless networking, an iSight Webcam, the wireless Apple Magic Mouse and Apple Wireless Keyboard, and a DVD burner with the system as well. We encourage those hoping that Apple will someday incorporate a Blu-ray drive into its Macs to let go of that dream. Regardless of how much we might want it, we're skeptical that Apple will ever add a bidirectional HDMI port instead of or alongside its Mini-DisplayPort connection.

Blu-ray/DVD-burner combo driveGigabit Ethernet; 802.11n wireless networkingGigabit Ethernet. 802.11b/g/n, BluetoothWindows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

Just because Apple resists adding a particular feature, it still has to face competition from vendors that have embraced it. We use the term "competition" loosely here as no Windows vendor sells an all-in-one desktop with a 27-inch display. Instead it competes against an assortment of 24-inch models with varying features and prices. The Lenovo IdeaCenter B500 is the most expensive all-in-one Windows system we've reviewed so far this year, but it costs $600 less than this iMac. While it has a Blu-ray drive, it also has a slower CPU, a slower graphics card, and no way to input an external video signal. The Lenovo is a decent home entertainment PC, but it's not very versatile.

Similar all-in-ones systems from Sony and Hewlett-Packard also have Blu-ray drives as well as HDMI ports. Unlike the iMac, with those systems you can connect game consoles, cable TV boxes, and other external video components to them without buying an expensive adapter.

That said, between its large display and fast new components, the new iMac is ideally suited for productivity. You can also make it work as a consolidated home entertainment system if you're willing to spend about $150 for an HDMI-to-mini DisplayPort adapter such as the Belkin AV360. Apple adding an HDMI port would be a far simpler solution, but given the iMac's large screen and fast performance, we imagine more than a few people in the market for an all-in-one media hub would be willing to pay extra for the iMac-and-adapter combination. If Apple added HDMI to the 27-inch iMac, we would have a difficult time arguing for any other high-end all-in-one. For now, we still think highly of this system, but its dependence on an adapter for home entertainment sticks out like a blemish.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 image-processing test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Multimedia multitasking (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Cinebench
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

The Lenovo all-in-one PC we reviewed is the closest to the iMac performancewise, but that's not saying too much. The HP and Sony systems mentioned above might fare better, the HP especially since it at least has the mobile version of Intel's Core i7 CPUs. However, from all indications on paper and in our lab, the 27-inch iMac is the fastest all-in-one currently available. We included the $1,199 Gateway FX6840-03e tower desktop to illustrate that you can still build a standard PC that can compete with the iMac for a much lower cost. For all-in-one purists, the iMac is the clear choice if productivity is your top priority.

Steam games (frames per second)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
Hide Review Next page

We can also report positively about the iMac as a gaming platform. Yes, the Mac gaming library is still limited compared with that of Windows, but Valve Software's recent release of a Mac version of its Steam digital game distribution service has already paid off with Valve bringing its popular first-person games Half-Life 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 to Macs. The three games we tested all use Valve's Source 3D graphics engine, so we can't say that you'll see similar scores across all titles available for the Mac. Still, we were glad to see that even at full resolution and maximum image quality settings, the iMac was able to handle all three games relatively well. Using the more forgiving "recommended" settings for each game (as denoted by an asterisk in each game's video options tab), we saw even better performance with relatively little drop-off in image quality.

Even before Valve came along, World of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo-maker Blizzard Software has historically been committed to the Mac platform. Doom and Quake-developer id Software has also shown similar loyalty. Among those three vendors, that's an impressive array of quality games available for the Mac, and the list is growing. Popular role playing game Dragon Age: Origins also has a Mac version, and the cloud gaming service OnLive supports a variety of titles that work with OS X. Windows PCs will remain the gaming enthusiasts' primary choice because of their upgradeability, at least for the foreseeable future; however, with the expanded Mac gaming library and this system's fast new ATI graphics card, we can confidently recommend this iMac for gaming.

Aside from our gripes about the iMac's video inputs, we're relatively happy with the other ports on the back of this system. You get four USB 2.0 port, a pair of audio jacks, a FireWire 800 port, and an Ethernet adapter. Both eSATA and USB 3.0 are faster data throughput options than FireWire 800, so those who face bottlenecks from large data transfers might feel some frustration at Apple's loyalty to the IEEE 1394 standard. For most consumers, the iMac's existing ports will be sufficient.

Apple iMac 27-inch (2.8GHz Intel Core i5)Annual power consumption cosst

As usual, Apple's power management skill is evident in this iMac. We always appreciate a desktop that is both more efficient and faster than competing systems. As with the 21.5-inch iMac, we noted that this 27-inch model was extremely hot on the back panel, especially after gaming. A handheld laser thermometer showed temperatures as high as 118 degrees over the area on the back panel we assume concealed the graphics card. Most other all-in-ones we've tested come in around 85 degrees. You'll want to be sure to keep the iMac in a place where it has plenty of ventilation to avoid it overheating.

Finally, we continue to find Apple's service and support policies cynically structured to encourage you to spend money. You get 90 days of toll-free support and a yearlong warranty by default. After that, you can either refer to Apple's Web site, a Genius Bar, an Apple-authorized service provider, or pay $169 for three years of phone service via AppleCare, which also extends your warranty to three years. That all-or-basically nothing approach for phone support puts Apple at odds with the rest of the PC industry that typically includes at least a year of phone support, if not a lifetime of coverage, at no additional charge.

Find out more about how we test desktop systems.

System configurations:
Acer Aspire Z5700-U2112
Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 3.2GHz Intel Core i5 650; 4GB 1,066MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 128MB (shared) Intel GMA X4500 HD; 1TB 7,200rpm Western Digital hard drive

Apple iMac (21.5-inch, Summer 2010)
Apple OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.4; 3.06GHz Intel Core i3; 4GB 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 256MB ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics card; 500GB 7,200rpm Seagate hard drive

Apple iMac 27-inch
Apple OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.4; 3.06GHz Intel Core i3; 4GB 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 256MB ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics card; 500GB 7,200rpm Seagate hard drive

Gateway FX6840-03e
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.8GHz Intel Core i7 860; 8GB 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 1GB ATI Radeon HD 5770; 1TB 7,200rpm Seagate hard drive

Lenovo IdeaCentre B500 08873AU
Windows 7 Home Premium; 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400S; 6GB 1,066MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 250M; 1TB 7,200rpm Seagate hard drive

Previous page

View the original article here

Asus Eee PC 1005HA (Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, XP Home, blue)

Editors' note: We've reviewed a more recent retail-exclusive version of the Asus Eee PC 1005HA, called the Asus 1005HAGB-BBY-BK01X.

We were very fond of the previous version of Asus' Eee PC, the 1008HA, which represented a radical design change from the boxy Eee PCs of the past. But its high-end (for a Netbook) price, at $429, slipped just over the line for many, and its nonremovable battery wasn't as long-lasting as we've seen in other Eee PCs.

The latest revision, called the 1005HA, keeps the slim, tapered design but ditches the somewhat cumbersome cover flaps on the

... Expand full review

Editors' note: We've reviewed a more recent retail-exclusive version of the Asus Eee PC 1005HA, called the Asus 1005HAGB-BBY-BK01X.

We were very fond of the previous version of Asus' Eee PC, the 1008HA, which represented a radical design change from the boxy Eee PCs of the past. But its high-end (for a Netbook) price, at $429, slipped just over the line for many, and its nonremovable battery wasn't as long-lasting as we've seen in other Eee PCs.

The latest revision, called the 1005HA, keeps the slim, tapered design but ditches the somewhat cumbersome cover flaps on the ports and adds a more traditional six-cell battery. This means a slightly thicker and heavier system, but also one that's our current Netbook battery life leader. Add in a slightly shaved price tag, down to a more reasonable $389 (although some perfectly usable Netbooks are down to $299), and you have what may be our new go-to Netbook choice.

Mobile Intel GMA 950 (integrated)System weight / Weight with AC adapter

The design of the 1005HA is based on the (slightly slimmer) 1008HA model. There's a tapered front lip, but the new model lacks some of the space-saving features of the 1008HA, such as the angled Ethernet jack and hidden mini-VGA port. Rather than a potentially smaller SSD drive, there's a standard 160GB HDD inside, augmented by a free 10GB online data storage subscription for backing up files to a remote server.

While slightly thicker and heavier than other recent Netbooks, it's still a vast improvement over the first few generations of mini laptops, which had a universally boxy, toylike feel. Our review unit was glossy black, which was prone to picking up fingerprints; blue is also available.

The flat, wide keyboard, similar to what we saw on the Eee PC 1008HA, is among the better Netbook keyboards we've used, and the full-size right Shift key is one of those things you don't realize is very important until it goes missing. The touch pad is demarcated by a rectangle of raised dots on the wrist rest, and works well, although we found ourselves going into the touch pad settings and jacking up the default pointer speed.

A single quick-access button above the keyboard is for disabling the touch pad (handy if you're using an external USB mouse), and Asus' different preset power profiles are accessible by hitting the FN key plus the space bar. New to this model is a software suite that acts as a software dock popping out of the top of the screen (by default, but switchable). From there, you can access functions such as screen brightness presets and media players. Most Netbook users we talk to are no-nonsense types who just want to surf the Web or send e-mail, so learning the ins and outs of a proprietary menu bar system may not be high in the list of priorities.

The 10.1-inch LED display offers a 1,024x600 native resolution, which is standard for a Netbook, although higher-end systems are starting to add 1,366x768 display options. The backlit LED allows the lid to be very thin, and also use less power than a more traditional LCD display.

Average for category [Netbook]Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacksEthernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, BluetoothEthernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth

The 1005HA offers a fairly standard set of ports and connections, lacking only the ExpressCard slot we've seen on some high-end Netbooks. We prefer to have our connections out in the open, rather than hidden behind hinged plastic doors (as in the 1008HA model), although we have to admit, the 1008's tiny, angled Ethernet jack was an impressive engineering feat.

With Intel's N280 Atom CPU, the system was, not surprisingly, on par with other current Netbooks, even those with the slightly slower N270 version of the ubiquitous Atom. We have yet to meet an Atom-powered Netbook that vastly outperformed or underperformed the pack. The basic rule of thumb is that for basic tasks such as word processing, Web surfing, and e-mail, an Atom Netbook is more than adequate, as long as you keep your expectations modest.

The real star here is the system's battery life. Asus has always had some of the longest-lived Netbooks, and the new 1005HA got an impressive 6 hours and 51 minutes in our video playback battery drain test--about 30 minutes more than our previous leader, the Eee PC 1000HE, and more than 2 hours better than the nonremovable battery in the 1008HA model.

Asus also includes its Super Hybrid Engine feature in the system, which is essentially a series of power-saving presets to further extend battery life. These are mostly power consumption tweaks one could perform individually, but it's handy to have them all in one place.

Hide Review Next page

Asus covers its laptops with a standard, one-year parts-and-labor warranty, and it offers online Web-based help and a toll-free phone number. The company's support Web site has improved over the past few years, and includes easy to find driver downloads FAQs.

Multimedia Multitasking test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Jalbum photo conversion test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Video playback battery drain test (in minutes)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Find out more about how we test laptops.

System configurations:

Asus Eee PC 1005HA
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 224MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Hitachi 5,400rpm

Asus Eee PC 1000HE
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 128MB Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Seagate 5,400rpm

Asus Eee PC 1008HA
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 128MB Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Seagate 5,400rpm

HP Mini 110
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 128MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Seagate 5,400rpm

Toshiba Mini NB205
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 128MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Toshiba 5,400rpm

Acer Aspire One AOD250
Windows XP Home Edition SP3; 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270; 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 224MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 950; 160GB Seagate 5,400rpm

Previous page

View the original article here