$399 XP Asus 1000HE Netbook in oz.

[David L. Jones]

Jeßus wrote:

In article <02e72a17$0$1328$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>,
nicetry@migo.com said...

keithr wrote:
snip
I'm using one now, the 10" screen is fine (1024x600) my only problem
with it is the tiny shift key.

The claimed 9 hour battery life may be a bit expectant though, I've
never managed much better than 6 hours with the screen turned down,
WiFi, camera and bluetooth turned off, and the CPU at the lowest
clock speed. Realistically with WiFi on the battery lasts 4 hours
give or take.
I have put a 2 gig DIMM in in place of the 1 gig supplied.

Probably goes some ways to explaining the decrease in battery life.

Would RAM really chew that much extra power though?

Some back of envelope calcs:

Taking a random 1GB SODIMM datasheet:
http://download.micron.com/pdf/datasheets/modules/ddr2/HTF16C128_256x64H.pdf
(not sure if it's actually compatible, but should give a reasonbale estimate
anyway)
The typical active standby current is almost 1A @ 1.8V, or 1.8W, and that's
doing nothing. Can be over 6W peak when doing stuff.

The 1000HE battery pack is around 90Wh (8700mAh @ 10.8V), so would use
roughly 10W for 9 hours. The standard 1GB SODIMM would take almost 1/5th of
that power just sitting idle doing nothing. Likely to be significantly
higher in actual use, so say the SODIMM might be as high as 30% of the
consumption.
So the double capacity SODIMM would be a fairly significant extra
consumption, and the figures would roughly match up to what Keith gets.

Dave.

--
================================================
Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast:
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[Clocky]

Jeßus wrote:

In article <02e72a17$0$1328$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>,
nicetry@migo.com said...

keithr wrote:
snip
I'm using one now, the 10" screen is fine (1024x600) my only problem
with it is the tiny shift key.

The claimed 9 hour battery life may be a bit expectant though, I've
never managed much better than 6 hours with the screen turned down,
WiFi, camera and bluetooth turned off, and the CPU at the lowest
clock speed. Realistically with WiFi on the battery lasts 4 hours
give or take.
I have put a 2 gig DIMM in in place of the 1 gig supplied.

Probably goes some ways to explaining the decrease in battery life.

Would RAM really chew that much extra power though?

RAM is quite power hungry, even at idle. Skip a few posts down, someone else
has done some math.

 

[David L. Jones]

David L. Jones wrote:

Jeßus wrote:
In article <02e72a17$0$1328$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>,
nicetry@migo.com said...

keithr wrote:
snip
I'm using one now, the 10" screen is fine (1024x600) my only
problem with it is the tiny shift key.

The claimed 9 hour battery life may be a bit expectant though, I've
never managed much better than 6 hours with the screen turned down,
WiFi, camera and bluetooth turned off, and the CPU at the lowest
clock speed. Realistically with WiFi on the battery lasts 4 hours
give or take.
I have put a 2 gig DIMM in in place of the 1 gig supplied.

Probably goes some ways to explaining the decrease in battery life.

Would RAM really chew that much extra power though?

Some back of envelope calcs:

Taking a random 1GB SODIMM datasheet:
http://download.micron.com/pdf/datasheets/modules/ddr2/HTF16C128_256x64H.pdf
(not sure if it's actually compatible, but should give a reasonbale
estimate anyway)
The typical active standby current is almost 1A @ 1.8V, or 1.8W, and
that's doing nothing. Can be over 6W peak when doing stuff.

The 1000HE battery pack is around 90Wh (8700mAh @ 10.8V), so would use
roughly 10W for 9 hours. The standard 1GB SODIMM would take almost
1/5th of that power just sitting idle doing nothing. Likely to be
significantly higher in actual use, so say the SODIMM might be as
high as 30% of the consumption.
So the double capacity SODIMM would be a fairly significant extra
consumption, and the figures would roughly match up to what Keith
gets.

I just noticed they have the current specs for the 2GB module too.
In some cases the 1GB module is higher, what-the?
You'd have to actually compare the 2GB module used to the 1Gb module it
replaced. Likely to be large differences between brands etc.

Dave.

--
================================================
Check out my Electronics Engineering Video Blog & Podcast:
http://www.eevblog.com

 

[Don McKenzie]

Andy wrote:

Step up the CPU grunt, and screen res, and they will replace PC's as we
know them.

If you say so. Then again, if you step up the CPU specs, and screen
resolution (presumably with a bigger screen to match), you end up
with... a laptop.

perhaps I should have specified, what I mean is more res on the vga
external output.

when it can run my 22-24" screen, and have the power of my PC, then I
don't need a PC anymore.

Don...


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[Bear]

"Don McKenzie" <5V@2.5A> wrote in message
news:7jni2cF33kat7U1@mid.individual.net...

http://www.catchoftheday.com.au

$399, how can you go wrong?

I just picked up 2 at the 12:00 sale.
asus eeepc 1000HE, 9 hour battery life.
and it is one of the best netbooks around.

Geez, how much are Asus making them for?
What does Micro$oft charge Asus for XP?

Don...



--
Don McKenzie

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I paid over $800 for mine a few months ago!

 

[terryc]

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:38:24 +0800, Bear wrote:

I paid over $800 for mine a few months ago!

Yep, the usual price of consumer technology over time.
Might be;
1) end of Life for the model,
2) approaching end of line,
3) having a cash shortage,
4) decided there needs to be more out there to boost demand (marketing
tactic),
5) ???

 

[terryc]

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:34:52 +1100, son of a bitch wrote:

Would RAM really chew that much extra power though?


Wouldn't make that much difference

More memory will use more juice, but your saving less access to the disk
and the disk would be powered down more often. So it sort of balances
out.

Only if the ram power down time is very very short and there is no power
and significanttime penalty on spin up.

I thought the idea of HD spin down was to save power when the machine was
idle. So, if the cpu is doing work over a certain load, it would be
expecting to use the HD swap space or access the HD anyway and thus have
it spinning.

 

[son of a bitch]

terryc wrote:

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:34:52 +1100, son of a bitch wrote:


Would RAM really chew that much extra power though?

Wouldn't make that much difference

More memory will use more juice, but your saving less access to the disk
and the disk would be powered down more often. So it sort of balances
out.

Only if the ram power down time is very very short and there is no power
and significanttime penalty on spin up.

I thought the idea of HD spin down was to save power when the machine was
idle. So, if the cpu is doing work over a certain load, it would be
expecting to use the HD swap space or access the HD anyway and thus have
it spinning.

With tons of memory, don't need a swap under normal circumstances.
Windows by default likes to swap everything, with 2 gig I like to do a
No Swap File. Will make it faster. But if you decide to do video editing
it will crash.

 

[keithr]

On 16/10/2009 10:54 AM, David L. Jones wrote:

David L. Jones wrote:
Jeßus wrote:
In article<02e72a17$0$1328$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>,
nicetry@migo.com said...

keithr wrote:
snip
I'm using one now, the 10" screen is fine (1024x600) my only
problem with it is the tiny shift key.

The claimed 9 hour battery life may be a bit expectant though, I've
never managed much better than 6 hours with the screen turned down,
WiFi, camera and bluetooth turned off, and the CPU at the lowest
clock speed. Realistically with WiFi on the battery lasts 4 hours
give or take.
I have put a 2 gig DIMM in in place of the 1 gig supplied.

Probably goes some ways to explaining the decrease in battery life.

Would RAM really chew that much extra power though?

Some back of envelope calcs:

Taking a random 1GB SODIMM datasheet:
http://download.micron.com/pdf/datasheets/modules/ddr2/HTF16C128_256x64H.pdf
(not sure if it's actually compatible, but should give a reasonbale
estimate anyway)
The typical active standby current is almost 1A @ 1.8V, or 1.8W, and
that's doing nothing. Can be over 6W peak when doing stuff.

The 1000HE battery pack is around 90Wh (8700mAh @ 10.8V), so would use
roughly 10W for 9 hours. The standard 1GB SODIMM would take almost
1/5th of that power just sitting idle doing nothing. Likely to be
significantly higher in actual use, so say the SODIMM might be as
high as 30% of the consumption.
So the double capacity SODIMM would be a fairly significant extra
consumption, and the figures would roughly match up to what Keith
gets.

I just noticed they have the current specs for the 2GB module too.
In some cases the 1GB module is higher, what-the?
You'd have to actually compare the 2GB module used to the 1Gb module it
replaced. Likely to be large differences between brands etc.

Dave.

I would expect the current draws to be fairly similar, the main
difference that I would expect is that there are twice as many cells to
refresh on the 2gig part so, in terms of watt hours it will be more
power hungry. However, I wouldn't expect it to be hugely different.

Maybe I'll work up the enthusiasm to put the original DIMM back in and
check the difference, but it is not easy so set up a completely
controlled test.

However, I find the battery life good enough for most purposes and
significantly better than the Dell Lattitude laptop that my employer
provides me with, that could not manage much more than 2.5 hours even
when it was new.

 

[Clocky]

terryc wrote:

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:28:38 +0000, terryc wrote:

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:38:24 +0800, Bear wrote:


I paid over $800 for mine a few months ago!

Yep, the usual price of consumer technology over time. Might be;
1) end of Life for the model,
2) approaching end of line,
3) having a cash shortage,
4) decided there needs to be more out there to boost demand
(marketing tactic),
5) ???

There is also the possibility that they have a successor in the
pipeline and they want to move as much of the old stuff before word
gets around.

Whatever the reason, it's still a bargain ;-)

 

[keithr]

On 16/10/2009 8:55 AM, Andy wrote:

Don McKenzie wrote:

son of a bitch wrote:
Don McKenzie wrote:

http://www.catchoftheday.com.au

$399, how can you go wrong?

I just picked up 2 at the 12:00 sale.
asus eeepc 1000HE, 9 hour battery life.
and it is one of the best netbooks around.

Geez, how much are Asus making them for?
What does Micro$oft charge Asus for XP?

Don...




A full 10" screen eh....

I've seen a 13" wide screen HP and even banging up a notch
the DPI to 120 it is only just readable.

So the question is, how usable is it?

I got 4 of the old 7" models, and they were really just a toy.

I'm now into my 4th 10", and they are really sweet.

I am 66, and have worn glasses since I was 24, so I feel they are very
workable. For traveling, they are ideal.

I have run my business on them during PC downtime, and maintenance
periods. I have one PC down right now. Windows XP update went wacky, and
we may have to back up from acronis, or re-install xp. The joys of
windows.

Asus also has a stand alone mini-PC called the Ebox B202:
http://www.getprice.com.au/Asus-E-Box-B202-PC-Gpnc_25--40380475.htm

well this 1000HE is cheaper than that, and you can still plug in a large
screen, keyboard, and mouse. Netbook screen can then be switched off,
and case shut, if you wish.

These things aren't lightning fast, but they tackle most jobs that most
people need.

Step up the CPU grunt, and screen res, and they will replace PC's as we
know them.

If you say so. Then again, if you step up the CPU specs, and screen
resolution (presumably with a bigger screen to match), you end up
with... a laptop.

Netbooks have only been around 2 years. Another 2 years, we will see
even more dramatic changes in the PC market. Netbooks now outsell
standard notebooks. Go Google.

I've never seen the appeal of such tiny screens and even tiner
keyboards (which can be flat out unusable for those of us with fat
clumsy fingers )

Especially given the full size laptop w/ 2.2GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, 160GB
HDD, DVD burner and 15.6" screen I'm typing this on cost me $598 brand
new. I also got to pick it up in person an hour after ordering it
instead of waiting 8 days.

And I've just checked, they're now selling them for $558. Bastards!

Cheers,
Andy.

I've been carting full sized laptops around for the last 13 years, but I
find the netbook much more pleasant to travel with, smaller, lighter,
and if you do use it on your lap, much cooler too. If all you want is
something neat to sit on the desk, then a conventional laptop is great,
but if you are going to cart it around and use without furniture, then
the netbook has the advantage.

 

[Don McKenzie]

Clocky wrote:

Whatever the reason, it's still a bargain ;-)

And why do Asus only fit 1 Gb memory with an easy to open hatch for
upgrades?

Micro$oft won't supply XP home to manufacturers who peddle 2 Gb netbook
machines.



Cheers Don...



--
Don McKenzie

Site Map: http://www.dontronics.com/sitemap
E-Mail Contact Page: http://www.dontronics.com/email
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[terryc]

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:28:38 +0000, terryc wrote:

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:38:24 +0800, Bear wrote:


I paid over $800 for mine a few months ago!

Yep, the usual price of consumer technology over time. Might be;
1) end of Life for the model,
2) approaching end of line,
3) having a cash shortage,
4) decided there needs to be more out there to boost demand (marketing
tactic),
5) ???

There is also the possibility that they have a successor in the pipeline
and they want to move as much of the old stuff before word gets around.

 

[Don McKenzie]

kreed wrote:

On Oct 16, 12:54 pm, Don McKenzie <5...@2.5A> wrote:
Clocky wrote:
Whatever the reason, it's still a bargain ;-)
And why do Asus only fit 1 Gb memory with an easy to open hatch for
upgrades?

Micro$oft won't supply XP home to manufacturers who peddle 2 Gb netbook
machines.




why

Mr Google finds many mentions, and explanations:
http://apcmag.com/microsoft_hobbles_xp_mininotes_with_1gb_ram_limit.htm

Cheers Don...



--
Don McKenzie

Site Map: http://www.dontronics.com/sitemap
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[Jeßus]

In article <4ad793ff@dnews.tpgi.com.au>, keith@nowhere.com.au said...
:
:Jeßus wrote:
:> In article <02e72a17$0$1328$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>, nicetry@migo.com
:> said...
:> :
:> :keithr wrote:
:> <snip>
:> :> I'm using one now, the 10" screen is fine (1024x600) my only problem
:> :> with it is the tiny shift key.
:> :>
:> :> The claimed 9 hour battery life may be a bit expectant though, I've
:> :> never managed much better than 6 hours with the screen turned down,
:> :> WiFi, camera and bluetooth turned off, and the CPU at the lowest clock
:> :> speed. Realistically with WiFi on the battery lasts 4 hours give or
:> :> take.
:> :> I have put a 2 gig DIMM in in place of the 1 gig supplied.
:> :
:> robably goes some ways to explaining the decrease in battery life.
:>
:> Would RAM really chew that much extra power though?
:
:Very unlikely, SODIMM RAM uses very little power

That's what I thought.

 

[Jeßus]

In article <4ad7b1a1@dnews.tpgi.com.au>, bitchin_2008@yahoo.com said...
:
:Jeßus wrote:
:> In article <02e72a17$0$1328$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>, nicetry@migo.com
:> said...
:> :
:> :keithr wrote:
:> <snip>
:> :> I'm using one now, the 10" screen is fine (1024x600) my only problem
:> :> with it is the tiny shift key.
:> :>
:> :> The claimed 9 hour battery life may be a bit expectant though, I've
:> :> never managed much better than 6 hours with the screen turned down,
:> :> WiFi, camera and bluetooth turned off, and the CPU at the lowest clock
:> :> speed. Realistically with WiFi on the battery lasts 4 hours give or
:> :> take.
:> :> I have put a 2 gig DIMM in in place of the 1 gig supplied.
:> :
:> robably goes some ways to explaining the decrease in battery life.
:>
:> Would RAM really chew that much extra power though?
:
:
:Wouldn't make that much difference
:
:More memory will use more juice, but your saving less access to the
:disk and the disk would be powered down more often. So it sort of
:balances out.

Good point on the HDD, I didn't think RAM would use much power.
CPU is another story, of course. Not that you get to upgrade many CPUs
in laptops

 

[kreed]

On Oct 16, 12:54 pm, Don McKenzie <5...@2.5A> wrote:

Clocky wrote:
Whatever the reason, it's still a bargain ;-)

And why do Asus only fit 1 Gb memory with an easy to open hatch for
upgrades?

Micro$oft won't supply XP home to manufacturers who peddle 2 Gb netbook
machines.

why

Cheers Don...

--
Don McKenzie

Site Map: http://www.dontronics.com/sitemap
E-Mail Contact Page:http://www.dontronics.com/email
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[Jeßus]

In article <AvOBm.104011$u76.99485@newsfe10.iad>, altzone@gmail.com
said...
:
:Jeßus wrote:
:> In article <02e72a17$0$1328$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>,
:> nicetry@migo.com said...
:>>
:>> keithr wrote:
:> <snip>
:>>> I'm using one now, the 10" screen is fine (1024x600) my only problem
:>>> with it is the tiny shift key.
:>>>
:>>> The claimed 9 hour battery life may be a bit expectant though, I've
:>>> never managed much better than 6 hours with the screen turned down,
:>>> WiFi, camera and bluetooth turned off, and the CPU at the lowest
:>>> clock speed. Realistically with WiFi on the battery lasts 4 hours
:>>> give or take.
:>>> I have put a 2 gig DIMM in in place of the 1 gig supplied.
:>>
:>> Probably goes some ways to explaining the decrease in battery life.
:>
:> Would RAM really chew that much extra power though?
:
:Some back of envelope calcs:
:
:Taking a random 1GB SODIMM datasheet:
:http://download.micron.com/pdf/datasheets/modules/ddr2/HTF16C128_256x64H.pdf
not sure if it's actually compatible, but should give a reasonbale estimate
:anyway)
:The typical active standby current is almost 1A @ 1.8V, or 1.8W, and that's
:doing nothing. Can be over 6W peak when doing stuff.
:
:The 1000HE battery pack is around 90Wh (8700mAh @ 10.8V), so would use
:roughly 10W for 9 hours. The standard 1GB SODIMM would take almost 1/5th of
:that power just sitting idle doing nothing. Likely to be significantly
:higher in actual use, so say the SODIMM might be as high as 30% of the
:consumption.
:So the double capacity SODIMM would be a fairly significant extra
:consumption, and the figures would roughly match up to what Keith gets.

That really surprises me - 1.8/6W!
Very interesting, thanks Dave.

 

[Jeßus]

In article <02e7a4f7$0$1278$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>, nicetry@migo.com
said...
:
:Jeßus wrote:
:> In article <02e72a17$0$1328$c3e8da3@news.astraweb.com>,
:> nicetry@migo.com said...
:>>
:>> keithr wrote:
:> <snip>
:>>> I'm using one now, the 10" screen is fine (1024x600) my only problem
:>>> with it is the tiny shift key.
:>>>
:>>> The claimed 9 hour battery life may be a bit expectant though, I've
:>>> never managed much better than 6 hours with the screen turned down,
:>>> WiFi, camera and bluetooth turned off, and the CPU at the lowest
:>>> clock speed. Realistically with WiFi on the battery lasts 4 hours
:>>> give or take.
:>>> I have put a 2 gig DIMM in in place of the 1 gig supplied.
:>>
:>> Probably goes some ways to explaining the decrease in battery life.
:>
:> Would RAM really chew that much extra power though?
:
:RAM is quite power hungry, even at idle. Skip a few posts down, someone else
:has done some math.

Indeed, I had no idea they consumed so much power.
I guess given the large capacities these days explains why.

 

[L.A.T.]

Mine has been "shipped".
Not sure what that means, but they have given us a tracking number.