MaximumPC 2008 12

Simply put, our standard benchmark suite won’t

run on these netbooks—installing Photoshop

alone took more than an hour, and the results

were noteworthy only for their excruciating

slowness. So we asked ourselves, “What would

we use a netbook for?” Web browsing—clearly

they’ll all do that. Word processing? More than

capable. Playing movies? Granted, there’s no

optical drive but that can be worked around.

Gaming? We’d never expect one of these ma-

chines to run a graphics powerhouse like Crysis,

but we’d like to believe there’s some level of

gaming to be played.

Here’s how we went about testing the wee

machines.

PHOTOSHOP CS3

We kept our standard benchmark suite’s

Photoshop script as an easy point of com-

parison between the netbooks we’re testing

here and the beefi er processing power of our

more usual fare.

DVD BATTERY RUNDOWN

As we do with all notebooks, we tested the

battery life of these netbooks by playing a

video continuously until each machine ran

out of juice. Since each netbook shipped with

a diff erent DVD media player (and no optical

drive), we leveled the playing fi eld by install-

ing a player that none of them shipped with:

CyberLink Power DVD 8. Normally, we’d use a

7.17GB DVD rip of Magnolia for this purpose.

Trouble was, the Asus Eee 901’s 12GB of stor-

age, which is divided between a 4GB and 8GB

drive, didn’t supply suffi cient space for the

fi le. So we grabbed an episode of The Rockford

Files (a 1GB, 46-minute-long variable-rate

VOB fi le) and played it on repeat on each

machine, at 50 percent screen brightness and

50 percent volume, until the batteries gave

out. And now we hate that episode.

Note: We reviewed all netbooks as shipped.

This means the MSI Wind and Acer Aspire One

shipped with three-cell batteries, as is standard,

while the Eee shipped with a six-cell battery.

QUAKE LIVE

So as not to set the gaming bar too high, we

turned to Quake Live, a still-in-beta, free web-

based version of Quake III, which came out nine

years ago.

H.264 PLAYBACK

H.264 is a popular video codec, but it requires

a decent bit of power to render. We used a

1.92GB MPEG-4 of Return of the King, played

from the desktop, and looked for any sort of

stuttering, skipping, or hesitations.

Putting Netbooks to the Test

Unique devices deserve unique benchmarks

64 | MAXIMUMPC | DEC 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com

Asus’s Eee PC kick-started the netbook craze

and remains the brand most associated with

the category. Early iterations were praised

for their low-cost Linux-based architecture,

but lately Asus has ratcheted up its product

line to compete with higher-end netbooks,

like the HP Mini-Note 2133 (http://tinyurl.

com/5lu4un). The 901 runs on Intel’s Atom

architecture at 1.6GHz and has 1GB of DDR2

RAM clocked at 533MHz.

Both versions of the 901 come with two

SSD drives, but the Linux SKU ships with

20GB of total hard disk space, while the

Windows model has just 12GB. Presumably

Asus wants to save the folks springing for

Windows some money, but we have a better

way: Use real hard drives. SSDs read fast,

but the cost per gigabyte is high, and their

write speeds leave much to be desired.

Indeed, the 901 took more than twice as

long to complete our Photoshop benchmark

as the other two netbooks here. On the other

hand, the 901’s standard six-cell battery far

outstripped the competition’s three-cells,

eking out more than fi ve and a half hours

in our video-rundown test—the other two

netbooks lasted barely two hours.

The 901 is extremely well built, and its

thick barrel hinge makes the screen sturdy.

Its trackpad is multi-touch and quite com-

fortable, though we found its sensitivity too

high. The keyboard, however, is too small

and cramped—our normally nimble fi ngers

kept missing the mark.

The Eee PC hits a lot of our

buttons—we love its battery life

and sturdy construction. But we hate

its miniscule storage capacity, cramped

keyboard, and frighteningly slow benchmark

results. You won’t want to run Photoshop on

any of these netbooks, but the fact that the

901 took twice as long with this benchmark

as two less-expensive models is worrying.

If you love long battery life and have dainty

hands, this is the machine for you.

VERDICT

$600, http://eeepc.asus.com/global^6

ASUS EEE 901

Asus Eee PC 901

A machine that looks better on paper

Netbooks

DISPLAY 8.9” LCD @ 1024x600

PROCESSOR Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz, Socket 437

RAM 1GB DDR2/533

STORAGE 4GB SSD (OS volume), 8GB SSD

PORTS 3 USB, VGA-out, audio in/out, SD reader

WIRELESS Bluetooth, 802.11b/g

LAP/CARRY WEIGHT 2 lbs, 8 oz/2 lbs, 15 oz

SPECIFICATIONS

in our video-rundown test—the other two

The 901 is extremely well built, and its

thick barrel hinge makes the screen sturdy.

Its trackpad is multi-touch and quite com-

fortable, though we found its sensitivity too

high. The keyboard, however, is too small

and cramped—our normally nimble fi ngers

its miniscule storage capacity, cramped

keyboard, and frighteningly slow benchmark

results. You won’t want to run Photoshop on

any of these netbooks, but the fact that the

1,530

YES

WNR

5:30

PHOTOSHOP (SEC)

H.264

QUAKE LIVE

BATTERY LIFE (HRS:MIN)

BENCHMARKS