Last month, I was asked by one of our readers to recommend a netbook. We all debated on what the best netbook is for the price. I ended up concluding that the ASUS Eee PC 1000HA was mighty compelling for under $400. The ever-changing market has me reconsidering what I’d recommend if asked the same question today. I’m pretty sure I’d change my tune ever so slightly to the key of E, as in 1000HE.

Amazon recently had the netbook in a pre-order status for $374, but Liliputing says the product page now shows a 2-3 week ship date. At this price, I think the 1000HE is hard to beat if you’re looking for a 10-inch display. Harry McCracken is looking for netbook recommendations and folks seem to agree, although the 10-inch Acer Aspire One competes well on a spec-for-spec basis. The biggest difference I see between the two is the ASUS model using a slightly newer and faster Intel Atom CPU. That and the 9.5 hours of run-time ASUS claims with the battery and their Super Hybrid Engine. I’m expecting we’ll see 7-8 hours, and that’s fine by me.

I try not to get too excited about every new ASUS Eee PC model, but I’m making an exception for the new 1000HE with 10-inch LED backlit display. It’s available for online pre-order now at $399 and it addresses many compromises that netbooks typically offer. Although I haven’t tested it, I’d expect that it performs a tad better than most current netbooks due to the CPU & GN40 chipset. The 1000HE runs on a newer Intel Atom: the N280, which is a 1.66GHz CPU. That’s only a minor tweak over the current N270s running at 1.6GHz, but the Front Side Bus (FSB) of the N280 is boosted to 533MHz to 667MHz. I’m not expecting a stellar performance jump, but it should be there.

Battery life is addressed with an 8700mAh power pack that’s flush with the chassis. Sweet! Between the battery and the exclusive Super Hybrid Engine, ASUS expects up to 9.5 hours of run-time. If that translates to eight hours in the real-world, the “all-day computing” claim is met in my book. Even with the large battery, the device weighs 3.2-pounds, which is about the top-end of what I like to carry on a regular basis.

ASUS redesigned the keyboard, which we expected. It’s 92% of standard size and the keys are chiclets. Look at that: they put the Right-Shift key where it belongs too! That alone has me pulling out my credit card. I like my MSI Wind, but the new ASUS is worth of upgrade consideration now.

Storage for the 1000HE is provided by a 160GB hard drive and ASUS is also including 10GB of online storage. I’m looking for more information on the 10GB; I’m curious if it looks like a mounted drive when you have connectivity or it’s less integrated than that. The netbook keeps support for multi-touch capability on the wide trackpad with two buttons; it also includes 802.11n and Bluetooth. ASUS is offering more information directly through their Facebook group.

Earlier this month, I offered a video look at Phoenix HyperSpace, a fast-booting partition that enables quick access to the web on a netbook or notebook. While I found value in the product, I thought that the subscription-based model that Phoenix offered was going to be tough for consumers to swallow. Many of you agreed. Back then I felt that a deal with OEMs would provide a better value to end-users and today, the first such deal was announced.

Phoenix just shook hands with ASUS, so you can expect to see HyperSpace in “next generation notebooks”. Now the question becomes: will you have to pay more for the HyperSpace feature in an ASUS notebook or will it be hidden (or subsidized, even) in the notebook cost? Frankly, I see far more chance of success with these types of OEM deals than directly through consumer sales. We asked the folks at Phoenix Technologies and ASUS for some clarification on the details and will update if and when we hear back. I’m also curious if the agreement applies to ASUS netbooks as well as notebooks. Remember, there are two versions of HyperSpace: Dual is for Intel Atom and Celeron devices, while the more functional Hybrid product is geared for traditional notebooks with Intel Core Duo CPUs and up.

If you’d rather not wait for HyperSpace-enabled ASUS device, you can always try the product for 21-days at no cost. You’ll need a supported device like those mentioned on the HyperSpace Product Specifications page.

Updated – I heard back from Phoenix Technologies PR firm on my questions:

• HyperSpace will ship on a variety of ASUS models, such as the recently announced Omega Series notebooks and the well known ASUS EeePC netbook.
• HyperSpace will be pre-installed. The Hybrid product will appear on the higher performance devices, while netbooks will see the Dual product. That’s the product I saw on the Lenovo S10.
• Here’s the kicker: ASUS will ship HyperSpace with a standard annual subscription. That’s $39.95 for the Dual on a netbook, $59.95 for the Hybrid on a notebook. Again, I see this model as a very tough sell and was hoping that the OEM would absorb some of the cost. No dice.

Asus S121

There’s an interesting phenomenon going on right now and I’m still trying to get my head around it. Netbooks originally offered a new product choice: full laptop features with a 7-inch display. That screen proved to be a bit small for some and also didn’t provide enough room for an efficient keyboard. So netbooks moved up to 8.9-inch displays and higher resolution.  Ten-inch displays quickly followed, which brings you closer to the 12- and 13-inch small notebook segment. But things didn’t stop there, did they?

Continue reading »

I had a chance to run through the Asus booth and it’s amazing how much focus is on the Eee PC line. Asus has a decent amount of floor space and I’d guestimate that at least half of it is devoted to netbooks. I was joking last night that I’m waiting to see Asus “create” a new model that was exactly the same as an older one. How they keep all these straight with the minor feature differences is beyond me.

I did get my hands finger on the Asus Eee PC T91 to tap the resistive touch-display. Since the unit was looping a vid, all I could do was move the cursor around: nothing earth-shattering in the experience as it’s the same as any other decent resistive touch panel. I was happy to see N10J with the improved keyboard. Have a walk around with me….

Huzzah! It’s true! Asus is indeed modifying the keyboards in their Eee PC line! Before CES, we heard reports of Asus revamping their Eee PC keyboards so that the Right-Shift key was in a more traditional spot. While I was literally Eee-shooting Eee-pictures from alongside him, Brad Linder was chatting with the Asus folks. He’s reporting that the new keyboard layout will be on most every new Asus Eee PC going forward. One exception is the T91 convertible touch-eee, feel-eee netebook, but considering that’s still a semi-concept device, we can always hope it gets the change as well.

In honesty, not everyone cares about the Right-Shift key as much as I do. It’s a challenge I jumped on right away when I noticed on a netbook and I haven’t stopped barking about it ever since. But as I said earlier this week: netbooks are already using a compromised keyboard in terms of size, why further compromise with non-standard key placement? In any case, I suspect most Eee PC layouts will look what Brad saw recently in a manual for the 1002HA & S101H.

Asus Eee PC keyboard design

Call me crazy, but the Eee PCs will definitely make the cut on some people’s “netbooks to consider” list after this. I feel more productive just thinking about this. R-eee-ally!

Way back in the old days of netbooks I bought an Asus Eee PC 701. And by way back, I mean in October of 2007 when they weren’t called netbooks, which just might happen again in the near future. The little device was very usable for me; so much so, that it was the sole device I used to report from the slow-paced and relaxing hellaciously maddening Consumer Electronics Show last year. I distinctly remember pounding out a post while leaning next to a pillar at the vast Microsoft and Intel booths, which is something I simply couldn’t do easily with other devices I owned at the time.

The one bit that really hit my productivity wasn’t the low-resolution screen, although that didn’t help matters. What killed it for me was the small Right Shift key that was on the far end of the keyboard row. Time and time again, I’d hit the Up Arrow key during my touch-typing which made a stressful situation even worse. Think about it: you’re trying to type as fast as you can and all of a sudden, your cursor jumps to the line above and you’ve typed ten characters in the middle of another sentence before you even realize it. Folks that don’t truly touch-type won’t get too bothered by this, but I for one am thrilled to hear that Asus might be revamping their Eee PC keyboard layout. This info isn’t based on any news out of Asus, but instead comes from a manual for their 1002HA/S101H models that’s featured on Liliputing.

Netbooks are already compromising a number of other key aspects, so why compromise on the correct placement of a heavily used key? I’ve steered away from netbooks that don’t use a mainly traditional keyboard layout, which is one of the reasons that I purchased an MSI Wind. The Lenovo S10 I’m looking offers the same feature challenge as the Asus models, so as a content producer, my productivity is getting hammered when using it.

Instead of waiting for Asus to “shift” their keyboard layout, or if you have a netbook with the same Right-Shift key challenge, there is a way mitigate it. I got so frustrated with my Eee PC keyboard that I physically pulled the two keys and swapped them. Using a free utility for Windows, I then re-mapped the key functions. You can’t easily change the size of the keys, but you can change what they do. Maybe I’m just a keyboard snob… is this shift key that much of a big deal to you too or am I pressing the wrong buttons?

The year is winding down and it’s always appropriate to review what we saw in mobile gear this year to prepare our minds for what’s in store in 2009.  This year was highly unusual as we saw a number of new things appear that changed the mobile tech landscape.  Here’s my take on 2008.

Netbooks

No question the biggest mobile tech this year was netbooks.  The first EEE PC appeared in late 2007 but it was this year that saw the genre explode in sales and popularity.  Asus was quickly followed by all the major players who produced similar netbooks of their own: Lenovo, Dell, Acer, HP, Samsung.

Asian company MSI produced one of the most popular models in the Wind which rapidly proved that while price is important consumers would spend extra for a 6-cell battery.  Battery life continues to be an important decision factor with consumers and they’re willing to pay for that even in a low price platform like netbooks.

As the netbook year unfolded the market proved that bigger devices were more desirable as the 7-inch form was mostly replaced with 9 and then 10-inch devices.  This was no doubt due to the additional screen real estate for web surfing along with the bigger keyboards that could be used on the bigger netbooks.

Smartphones

The other mobile tech area that saw the most activity in 2008 was the smartphone area.  This year saw major shifts in the top players with Apple releasing the iPhone 3G which took major market share away from the leaders.  RIM released a good number of handsets which allowed them to cross the bridge into the consumer market allowing them to grab a lion’s share of the smartphone market.

Long-time major players saw their market share drop a good bit due to RIM’s and Apple’s surge.  Nokia dropped significantly but battled back valiantly by adding enterprise features such as Exchange Server compatibility to try and cross over into that realm.  Windows Mobile released minor version 6.1 but it didn’t play a major role in the smartphone world this year.

The popularity of the iPhone convinced many smartphone makers to produce their own touch phones and we saw a fair number of those appear.  HTC released several touch phones and Nokia and RIM followed suit with varying degrees of success.

One of the biggest events in the smartphone arena this year was the release of the T-Mobile G1, the first phone to run on the Google Android platform.  The phone received mixed reviews but all agreed it was a solid effort for the very first phone on a new platform.  The Open Handset Alliance, the group behind the Android effort, kept adding new members this year.  There are now quite a few major players and carriers behind the Android effort and they are becoming a force to be reckoned with down the road.

The Apple App Store racked up over 300 million downloads proving the validity of the concept.  Virtually all the major players have now produced or are working on their own app stores for their respective platforms.

Notebooks

We saw a marked shift into thin and light consumer notebooks this year.  Notebooks continued to outsell desktops and the major players introduced models to appeal to home users.  Since notebooks are beginning to be used as home entertainment systems we saw the release of models with large HD-capable screens with advanced components like Blu-Ray drives.

Apple

The folks in Cupertino refreshed the entire MacBook line this year but it’s too early to tell if their sales are impacted by the poor economic climate.  Apple advanced the usage of aluminum in the notebook chassis and emphasized how green they have become.  A loud cry was heard this year for an Apple netbook but Jobs insisted they don’t know how to make a cheap computer that is worth anything.

This is our year in review, at least the major areas of interest as we see it.  The netbook phenomenon will continue to grow which will begin to seriously impact the bottom line of notebook makers next year.  We’ll be offering our predictions for next year soon.

Looks like Asus is hopping aboard the Android train with a handset planned for the first half of 2009 in Taiwan. No word yet on if they’ll be offering two dozen different models, but expectations are that they’ll be building and offering Android phones for overseas clients. Expect an Asustek branded unit to hit first and then we’ll see the clone wars begin under other brands.

Although Asus wasn’t what I’d call a big player in the Windows Mobile space, they do have a few handsets on that platform. It’s going to be interesting to watch traditional WinMo handset makers and see how many take a multi-platform approach like HTC and Asus are doing.