The good news doesn't end there, however, as the new Asus' battery results are also pretty impressive. Even in Super Performance mode - it's actually called that; it ups the CPU speed to 1.8GHz - it managed to keep going for 178 minutes playing our standard-definition test video full screen on repeat.
Switching down to High Performance mode - the stock 1.6GHz CPU speed - only eked out a further two minutes battery life, but dropping all the way down to Power Saving mode - the Atom runs at 800MHz - kept it running for a full 208 minutes - three and three-quarter hours.
Battery Life Results
Time in minutes
Longer bars are better
This is a harsh test because we keep the screen on maximum brightness and the CPU's doing a lot of work decoding the H.264 video stream. We'd say that 208 minutes of video testing amounts to a good five or six hours of more typical netbook usage.
That's still not quite up there with the likes of Asus' own Eee PC 901 and 1000, but it's better than a fair few netbooks on the market today.
Decent - but not exceptional - performance
The S101 comes pre-loaded with Windows XP Home Edition, but Asus is also expected to launch a Linux version based on Xandros, as per other Eee PCs. The Linux version packs in a 64GB SSD and 2GB of memory.
COMMENTS
@ 1280x800 on 8", 9" or 10".
I'm sure 170 dpi would be pretty unusable for many people. It'd be no use at all for the applications I keep on my Thinkpad, unless I strapped the screen to my face.
You can certainly change the font sizes in a browser, but not everything is adjustable. What about the web sites that have sections of text written on .gifs? My bank would be unreadable for a start. Setting the OS dpi to compensate would drop any benefit gained from the extra res' in the first place, and as before, this doesn't work with everything.
Oh, and the VIA CPUs used in the HPs are particularly shit. Let's not get carried away with what these things can do just yet.
3G?
Has this luxury netbook got 3G built in?
No? Then I don't want one.
@thomasthetanker
Yes, I do think HP has another netbook coming out, this time with a different processor:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/10/29/hp_launches_netbook/
HP
Please can you add the HP to the test, maybe get rid of the apricot and the CW as this is the first I've heard of them and they look pretty rubbish anyway.
They've really slashed the price on this, just in time for Xmas or do you think they've got a different processor one coming out?
Money
That's over twice what I paid on eBay, two weeks ago, for a nice second hand Thinkpad X31 and 2GB of memory and a new disk drive ('cos I don't trust second hand ones) and a slip case. I still love and use my Eee 701, but the X31 is far, far better than the larger netbooks.
And the Eee S101 is brown. Brown? Brown????????!!!!???????
Paris, because she costs a bit too and doesn't have much style either
