Asus Eee PC 1005PE

Asus' new mid-range netbook succeeds the Eee PC 1005HA-M. Aesthetically close to this model, it retains the same "elegant and natural" design and matte panel. However, there's a new keyboard and new touchpad and it moves over to Intel's Pinetrail platform.

Handling, design and build: no surprises, comfortable but too glossy

Available in black or white, the Asus Eee PC 1005PE keeps the same design as its predecessor. All in glossy plastic then, except the underneath of the netbook. While this wasn't a problem on our white test model (with the exception of the area around the screen), it is much more so on the black models which quickly attract finger marks. This detail apart, what you have here is a robust, well-finished computer.


The 1005PE's keyboard has better spaced keys (14 x 13 mm). Keying is quiet and rapid, with keys that are sufficiently firm to give comfortable typing. The reduced size and positioning of certain keys is however regrettable. "Ctrl" left and "Shift" (capitals) could have been a bit wider. Overall it's nice to use and look at.

There's now a multitouch touchpad on most Asus laptops. This one is perfectly set into the chassis and makes up an area of 6.5 cm by 3.5 cm. Small raised dots allow you to distinguish it from the surrounding plastics. The glide is fine, though the 1008P KR does better here (matte surface and not glossy). Precision is good. There's a good quality chrome click bar just underneath.

The webcam gives a good image in spite of the lack of contrast and a tendency to overexpose light areas of the image. Fluidity remains good however, as does sharpness, although definition is a little weak (0.3 Mpixels only).

The Asus Eee PC 1005PE is well cooled and quiet. It hardly heats up at all and its fan is almost inaudible when you're working on office docs. During more demanding tasks (photo work, video encoding), it still remains discreet. In fact, the hard drive is what you hear most.

Connectivity is very standard with 3 USB 2.0 ports, 1 RJ45, 1 headphones 1 mic and a 2-in1 card reader. Wi-Fi b/g/n is also included.

Under the laptop a single panel opens to give access to RAM. The rest is not accessible, apart from the moveable battery.

Power, VGA, USB 2.0, antitheft and fan	Glossy plastics
Touchpad and click bar	Memory card reader, headphones, mic, 2 USB 2.0s, RJ45

Processing: mainly office docs
Windows 7 index: 2.4. Details: CPU 2.4 - Memory 4.5 - Graphics 3.0 - Gaming graphics 3.0 - Main hard drive 5.8.

The Intel Atom N450 now includes a graphics solution. While performance levels are no better than older netbooks (the Asus 1008HA generation), they are sufficient for office document usage. Energy consumption is however lower (and you therefore gain in terms of battery life and noise levels). The score obtained on our index is 19, compared to 100 for our reference machine, the Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Xi3650 (equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo T9400). You can still carry out tasks other than office work and Internet browsing (photo and video editing/encoding) as long as you're patient (processing takes between 3 and 6 times longer than on a standard machine).

You won't be able to play HD 1080p (Blu-Ray equivalent) on this one but will have to make do with DVD type videos or compressed DivXs.
The new graphics solution, the GMA 3150, is limited to HD 720p video, which is a real shame when the Poulsbo platform (Intel Atom series Z processors) is able to give you 1080p playback.

3D gaming: old, undemanding titles

Generally speaking, gaming on netbooks is only for real enthusiasts willing to put up with highly compromised quality. Only models with ATI or NVIDIA ION graphics chips can handle a few recent games and even then as long as the CPU doesn't cut down performance too much (a single core Intel Atom is insufficient).

Audio: use the headphones for decent quality

As usual on netbooks, the audio leaves plenty to be desired. The speakers give very mediocre sound. It saturates rapidly and lacks precision. Treble dominates and there's a comlete lack of bass. The headphones out is however clean (no hiss). We advise you to use headphones!

Mobility, battery life: close to the best

The Eee PC 1005PE has a much better battery life than the 1005HA. You'll get 6H16 video playback (Wi-Fi disactivated, headphones plugged in and brightness at 100 nits). This is still 50 minutes down on the Samsung N210 (7H06) but we should point out that the 1005PE only uses a 4400 mAh battery compared to 5900 mAh for the N210.

We were pleased to find Asus has used its tiny charger for this netbook. At 1.27 Kg and 3cm thick on average, the netbook itself is comparable to others currently on the market.