ASUS Eee PC 1005PE: Pineview Arrives

Mobile Test Setup

Below are the specifications for the ASUS 1005PE we're testing. We'll include performance results from other similarly priced laptops, with a bit of leeway on total cost. The 1005PE targets a price of $300 to $380, so it's basically filling the same role as previous Atom netbooks. $30 more brings in competition from entry-level laptops and CULV offerings. We'll include ASUS' own UL80Vt as the high-water mark of what you can get for $800 (twice the price for well more than twice the performance), and we'll toss in results from a Gateway EC5409u with SU4100 CULV CPU. Spoiling our future article somewhat, we'll also have preliminary results for the Eee PC 1201N. Test specs of these laptops are included below.

Before anyone complains that the EC5409u is substantially more expensive than the Eee PC netbooks, let us again mention the Acer Aspire 1410. It has 2x1GB RAM, a smaller HDD, and an SU2300 CPU, which makes it about 15% slower than the EC5409u. Basically, the two systems should perform roughly the same, and the Aspire 1410 costs $417 (which is already up $20 since we started talking about it two weeks ago).

We'll include the usual assortment of application benchmarks along with a few graphics tests courtesy of 3DMark. If you're wondering, actual gaming performance with the new Atom N450 is still unacceptable on anything but the least demanding titles. Battery life is arguably going to be the most important aspect for these systems, so we'll run our usual assortment of battery drain tests. Given the timing of our receiving the 1005PE and our NDA deadline, we were only able to run one of our battery life tests over the weekend, but we will update with additional battery life tests as we complete them.