ASUS Eee PC 1002HA reviewed: looks cool but the battery stinks

Laptop Magazine's reviewed the ASUS Eee PC 1002HA we've been hearing so much about lately, and they're pretty impressed with what they're seeing. They gush over its looks, design and slimness, noting the similarity to the more expensive S101, and think the keyboard's decently comfortable. The reviewer found the 10-inch screen to be pretty cool for watching My Best Friend's Wedding on, though viewing at an angle was not necessarily awesome by any means. The 1002HA is a fast booter, and pretty speedy in general, with a strong WiFi connection. Where it really fails, however is in the fact that the two-cell battery (which ASUS claimed would last for five hours) made it only a sad 3 hours and 39 minutes, and the company isn't planning on offering an extended life model either, apparently. So much for watching My Best Friend's Wedding and Notting Hill back to back, huh?

[Saad Rabia @ Dec 4th 2008 12:59PM]

Hey BobDobalina, the 1000H got 4 hours and a half and on a 6-cell battery, you dangling nut sack!

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/asus-eee-pc-100h.aspx?page=4

[Corey @ Dec 4th 2008 12:15PM]

3 hours and 39 minutes isn't great, but pretty damn good for 2 cells.

[Dillon @ Dec 4th 2008 12:22PM]

Wait - 3 hours and 39 minutes isn't good? I don't know of any mainstream laptops that last longer than 2.5...

[Eric @ Dec 4th 2008 12:31PM]

I know, my damn 14" Compaq laptop's battery barely lasts me 1 hour. Of course, it's probably just time for an upgrade or new battery, but even when new it was only about 2.75-3 hours.

[BlurMagic @ Dec 4th 2008 12:38PM]

Im not going to buy a netbook until one charge lasts for all eternity, three hours is nothing for me. I need my netbook to run FOREVER!!!

[tekd @ Dec 4th 2008 3:35PM]

3:39 is pretty good considering it's a 2-cell, but I guess it's still a bit disappointing compared to the 1000H/HA. But you gotta realize batteries do get worse as they get older so if you start at 3:39 once it's a little older you'll start seeing a lot less than a laptop that's starting with 6 hours to spare.

And I've been terribly spoiled by my 9-cell Dell Vostro 1400 and ASUS 1000H so at least partially it's just a matter of not wanting a newer laptop that runs less than an older one.

They should at least give people the option of putting in a larger battery though, even if it makes the laptop all bumpy.

[LondonConsultant @ Dec 5th 2008 9:21AM]

I'd be happy with 3.5 hours battery. A nice-looking machine.

[Hey Ya @ Dec 4th 2008 12:16PM]

Two cell, huh?

That's really good run-time from two cells. It's pretty pathetic that they didn't drop a three cell in there, though.

[shawnmos @ Dec 4th 2008 1:38PM]

Yeah, that's crazy. The 6-cell battery in my MSI Wind only lasts about 5 hours.

[Hey Ya @ Dec 4th 2008 2:52PM]

I'm getting between 3.5 and 4 with the 4-cell on my Dell Mini.

What kind of magic is Asus working with this battery/netbook combo?

[1234321 @ Dec 4th 2008 4:21PM]

msi wind 3 cell gets like 2.5 hrs

really theres more to a battery then just cells, not to mention asus may have improved other parts of the hardware itself

[Ma2T @ Dec 4th 2008 5:35PM]

Yeah like 1234321 said, there is more to it than cell numbers.

http://www.netbooknow.net/asus/eee-pc-1002ha/ says "There is a two cell battery, but with each cell a larger 4200mAh in 2 cells."

[Mark @ Dec 4th 2008 5:44PM]

It has a Li-Poly battery, so each cell is bigger.

[John H. @ Dec 4th 2008 12:18PM]

Why must it have all those smudge attracting bits? I'm sure I'm not the only person who is obsessive about it staying fingerprint-free!

[Fanfoot @ Dec 4th 2008 2:35PM]

This ones not as bad as some. The bits around the screen are glossy fingerprint magnets, but the outer case is actually aluminum and fingerprint free!

[StalematE @ Dec 4th 2008 12:22PM]

5 hour 2 cell battery? yeah maybe in sleep mode...

[Kris120890 @ Dec 4th 2008 12:28PM]

Is this released yet. UK Price ?

[Tony @ Jan 23rd 2009 6:10AM]

Kris120890, This is the answer to your question
http://www.bestdealsonar.com/good-and-cheap-asus-eee-pc-1002ha-10-inch-netbook/

This model received tons of good customer feedbacks.

[Mulyadi Kurniawan @ Dec 4th 2008 12:30PM]

They should put solar cells at the back of the monitor. Then we can at least watch My Best Friend's Wedding and Notting Hill during day time in a place with plenty of sun light.

[Chicksta @ Dec 4th 2008 12:31PM]

If you were watching movies that crappy, maybe the battery was just trying to do you a favor...

[striggity @ Dec 4th 2008 12:36PM]

scooorrrreeeeeeeeeeee :-D

[paul eastwood @ Dec 4th 2008 12:50PM]

Hey, those are two of my wife's favorite movies. . . .

[MyHeadisFed @ Dec 4th 2008 7:37PM]

Damn Paul, sucks for you. I don't allow such things to be put on my television.

[Lowest Ranked @ Dec 4th 2008 12:31PM]

So, what exactly does the battery smell like?

[Saad Rabia @ Dec 4th 2008 1:03PM]

Sorry mate. Didn't want to post this here, but apparently Engadget did some post deletions, in the spirit of free speech and true thought sharing.

[BobDobalina @ Dec 4th 2008 1:05PM]

I was talking real-world. If you want to go with their numbers the 1002HA lost almost an hour over the 1000H findings:

"On the LAPTOP Battery Test (continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi) the Eee PC 1002HA lasted 3 hours and 39 minutes. This is lower than the mini-notebook average of 3:48, and 49 minutes shorter than the 1000H. The identically priced Samsung NC10 lasted 6:34 in our tests, nearly three hours longer."

[Jeremy @ Dec 4th 2008 12:39PM]

This looks surprisingly like my Aspire One, who came first that chicken or this egg?

[aeth @ Dec 4th 2008 6:48PM]

Don't you mean that egg this chicken?

[eggothewaffle @ Dec 4th 2008 12:41PM]

Hey! Don't you remember when Apple claimed we could get the full internet experience with the iPhone and then they omitted Flash and Engadget called them out on it and said the iPhone stinks?

Oh wait.

[DWells55 @ Dec 4th 2008 1:11PM]

As much as I love my iPhone, I wish Apple would just swallow their pride/open their wallets for the license fee/whatever the hell they're waiting for and give us Flash support already. I'm not a huge fan of Flash or anything, but let's face it - Flash has been a very crucial part of internet browsing for the past several years.

[eggothewaffle @ Dec 4th 2008 1:18PM]

The thing is, I don't think it has anything to do with their pride or license fees (although I'm sure arrogance played a part in watering down the internet browsing experience on the iPhone...I swear it's almost like Apple is seeing how much they can get away with before their fanboys call them out on it)...

...I don't think the iPhone is powerful enough to handle Flash and still have the same fluidity as it did before. Maybe if it had some Tegra and OMAP 3 goodness, but you can't exactly package those into a firmware update :p

[Sentax @ Dec 4th 2008 12:48PM]

And from the looks of it in the picture you get a slew of pre-installed applications on it with just about every single one running in the notification area.

From my experience that adds to the performance greatly.

/sarcasm

[Fanfoot @ Dec 4th 2008 2:38PM]

Looks like your post didn't work correctly. Should have been:

[sarcasm]From my experience that adds to the performance greatly.[/sarcasm]

[bangladeshiluv @ Dec 4th 2008 12:49PM]

just saw the pricing on the 2nd Android phone. ~$400! wtf! might as well put a cell phone in a net PC rather than a net pc in a cell phone.

[X-Blade™ @ Dec 4th 2008 12:51PM]

Stupid ASUS.

I love my NC10, 5 and half hours easily with a 6 cell battery.

[BlurMagic @ Dec 4th 2008 1:01PM]

Stupid ASUS? Or you're an idiot? This laptop gets 3 hours and 40 minutes, out of a 2 cell battery. That's amply more then half of what you are getting with 3 times the amount of battery.

[manny @ Dec 4th 2008 1:36PM]

Surely battery capacity in mAh would be better than cell count for comparison, as different cells can have different capacities can't they?

[X-Blade™ @ Dec 4th 2008 1:37PM]

Why put underpowered battery when you can get more juice with a
better one?

"On the LAPTOP Battery Test (continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi) the
Eee PC 1002HA lasted 3 hours and 39 minutes. This is lower than the
mini-notebook average of 3:48, and 49 minutes shorter than the 1000H.
The identically priced Samsung NC10 lasted 6:34 in our tests, nearly
three hours longer."

Someone will say maybe the cells are bigger, but to make things
worse:

"Note that the 1002HA's battery doesn't slide into the back edge of
the system; rather, it is buried on the bottom, so users won't be
able to use a standard Eee PC battery."

Seriously, they had to screw it up. I guess the guy who design these
got bored and wanted to make this identical than their
every-day-new-eeepc netbook.

[Fanfoot @ Dec 4th 2008 2:41PM]

They wanted to make it thinner. Which is a great idea. And I think the default battery life out of a 2-cell is great honestly. But given that the battery ended up on the bottom. And a lot of connectors ended up on the back. And ASUS doesn't plan to offer a bigger battery. And given the location there may not even be a possibility for one...

[BobDobalina @ Dec 4th 2008 12:52PM]

The old 1000H got 7+ hours out of the box! If this is "progress" then call me a luddite.

Anyway, the post is just summarizing the review, which made an issue of battery life, so go yell at Laptop Mag.

[Prestor John @ Dec 4th 2008 2:13PM]

Fraudulent Foes with the strength of hercules, the way you on my **** must really hurt your knees.

[HelloCatFood @ Dec 4th 2008 3:42PM]

Ok, didn't know that one. Damn, 7 hours! Makes me wanna exchange my 17" brick for one of those

[pika2000 @ Dec 5th 2008 5:52AM]

7 hours is on paper. In real life, it's more like 4 to 5 hours tops, which is not bad, but not great. I expect better for a low power Atom machine.

[nizzy1115 @ Dec 4th 2008 12:54PM]

So the HP not only has a bigger screen, but is lighter and in a smaller form factor?

ASUS Eee PC 1002HA
10"
10.4 x 7.1 x 1.1 2.6


HP Mini 1000
10.2"
10.3 x 6.6 x 1.0 2.4

[Fanfoot @ Dec 4th 2008 2:42PM]

They're all 10.2" screens. And all the 9" laptops have 8.9" screens. And all the 11" laptops have 11.1" screens.

[Sentax @ Dec 4th 2008 1:00PM]

I agree. This is great for the battery. But you know they have to find something wrong with every review.

[BH789104 @ Jan 6th 2009 2:56AM]

Thats amazing for a 2 cell battery, i mean come on i have a standard sized asus laptop that comes with your average 6 cell battery and in power save mode, which honestly kind of sucks i get around 3 and a half hours of battery life, if i try to turn up the settings higher to say something just like a standard setting my batter life drops to under 3 hours, so if this was a real world test, i wonder what kind of power settings they where using.

[Sam Zebian @ Dec 4th 2008 1:02PM]

One of the main reasons I've liked the eee series is because of their awesome battery life (ever since the asus 901 and 1000 came out at least). If they continue o screw with us like this, they're not going to have many more people buying their netbooks. I got the Asus N10 netbook for a few reasons, one including batery life. With a 'rated' 6 hour (maybe 5, idk) battery, it gets about 4-4.5 hours. And that's AFER I replaced the 160gb hdd for a 60gb ssd!

[m-p{3} @ Dec 4th 2008 1:03PM]

Is the battery embedded in the laptop, or it can be upgraded if a newer, bigger model comes out?

[Oscarv77 @ Dec 4th 2008 1:29PM]

This is Asus we're talking about, not Apple.