JKK’s recent video showing an ASUS 901 running Vista makes you wonder why manufacturers aren’t actually releasing their netbook devices with Vista. So far, all the netbooks except the Gigabyte M912 are sold with just Linux or XP. There must be some customers out there that are interested in Vista, surely?
I had a long chat with JKK about the 901 last night. We both agree that as a mobile notebook it’s looking very nice. Possibly the best. Upgradeable, relatively small, good battery life useful UI control features through the multi-touch pad. In terms of platform power of course, it doesn’t have anything over the other Diamondville-based devices but its these little features that make the difference.
We did some battery drain tests with ‘perfmon’ and managed to get the battery drain down to an impressive 5.1W. That’s a figure I’ve only ever seen beaten by my modified Samsung Q1 Ultra (with SSD that can get down to 4.7W) and of course the Silverthorne-based Gigabyte M528 which can get down below 3W drain. If you push the 901 it will drain the battery quickly. 15W drain is possible if you push the device with gaming and Wifi usage on full brightness but even that would return three hours with the standard 6-cell battery. Its very impressive in the big market of ‘efficient’ notebooks.
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901 not perfect for ultra mobile users.
Despite what looks to be a good motherboard and radio components its the 6-cell 6600mah (48wh) battery that’s the main trick here and mobility users will pay for it, in weight. The 901 is 1.1KG (2.4lbs) which, for most of the ultra-mobile-concerned customers might be too much. It’s certainly above what I consider to be in the ultra-mobile range. There’s scope for improvement in a number of ways.
- Use high quality batteries and reduce to 4-cell. ASUS are using 1100mah cells but the best in the market can reach 1500mah. That’s a 30% improvement there. So if you remove 2-cells, you’re still at a similar capacity.
- Improve the build and use lighter casing and components.
- Use Menlow instead of Silverthorne.
The other option for ultra mobile users, and it’s one that I recommend unless you really are going to do multi-hour-long session in front of the screen or have eyesight issues, is to go the 7" 1024×600 route. Building a device with Menlow around the 7" screen size makes it possible to achieve much smaller case size and 20-30% reduction in weight.
I’m not expecting ASUS to do any of the above as it would be a relatively small customer base for this and it would increase design and build costs significantly but it shows that there’s still some niches out there and it’s the path that Kohjinsha are taking with the SC3.
For the average customer though, it looks like the 901 is just edging out in front. Slightly better usability. Better upgrade options and a 6-cell battery. My #1 netbook choice today based on what I’ve seen and discussed.
The Gigabyte M912X, an 8.9" Diamondville device, and the Kohjinsha SC3, a 7" Silverthorne device, both running Vista, are due to be here next and having seen this video now, I’m really looking forward to checking out how Vista performs.
Thanks for the Video and chat JKK.
Looks like you double-posted again (:
Too itchy trigger-finger Chippy!
Deja vu all over again…
I’m sure there are Vista fans out there (whatever floats their boat…) but one has to ask, what storage space is left available on those machines once Vista is installed? How quickly does the cost increase with additional storage space (especially SSD)? I know these are not meant as one’s “primary” machine, but it’s still nice to be able to take stuff with you without carrying a handful of SDHC cards that you have a hard time telling one from the other.
Same thing for super-efficient batteries to reduce weight, the additional cost is probably disproportionate to the benefit.
If Vista is ever fixed and reduced to a nice small footprint on my drive, and offers the option of getting rid of all the processor-hungry and superfluous eye candy it presently imposes, I’ll reconsider Vista as an option. But I’m not holding my breath. The whole Steve Jobs-inspired “form over function” thing seems to be an irreversible trend.
@dunstan
my vlited vista ultimate needs approximately 3,5 GB of storage space, which i find quite acceptable…you can probably make it even smaller, because there’s so much stuff that you won’t actually need on a UMPC/netbook…
Re: 7″ 1024×600 route (I agree)!
Isn’t that the route that, the previewed “AMD UMPC/Clamshell device” took in that trade show promo-demo prototype device that was seen and videoed at Computex, covered at UMPCportal & jkk, at that time? And it even had touchscreen and no touch pad (reduced size resulting).
Again, That is the device I am waiting to see. Any news yet on that one?
It might not be the wonderful Eee 901, but with a dual power mode processor, and the size, we only need to see where it stacks up in the battery area (one drawback for their battery life will be that they will have a smaller battery due to the small physical size of the unit)! It will be interesting how they can extend that AMD device past the projected 2.5 hours of life. Right now… we all agree that, with the battery life data, that the Eee 901 is the best portable laptop option (once it has touchscreen at the retail level then it will be even better).
As a fun observation, jkk is always loving his Microsoft install on these devices, so it is good to have these MS install reviews. However, does he ever play much with loading various Linux distros, or does he focus mostly on just the MS OS versions? Of note: adding to the cost of Windows over Linux is the additional price tax of course for Windows because of the NEEDED Anti-Virus subscriptions that must be used. With Linux, you can install a distro, lock down as “read only” the system files (can even be in own partition, unlocking those files just before system updates, then locking down again after system update is done), and that is all…! Other than that to run Windows in a quasi safe more… there will be another option in the future as Linux is building a native Kernel level Virtual Machine, so it will be interesting if a nonpersistent VM mode (does not save changes or viruses acquired during working session after shutdown of the VM session) will be available so that we can then run Windows in a quasi-protected mode where if we get a virus it does not live past shutdown of the VM Windows guest session. And run all this on top of LINUX VM Host in a locked down mode itself…AND do all this in a low power/long battery life and very pocket ready UMPC or Netbook?
For business to really love any of these small devices (to replace Blackberry), give the device at least an 8 hour use time on one battery.
Sarig, Thanks!
Livewriter reported a publishing failure. It lied to me!
i paused buying 901 because the sticker on 901 (chinese xp version) weight (selling at GOME shop in hk) states that it is 1.3plus kg. so it is not true that it is 1.1 kg or even 1.2 kg. i even suspect that the true weight could be up to 1.4kg or even more,given the not so honest behavier of some of netbook manufacturers. pls anyone who has 901 check the real weight for the sake of lifting the industry standards
of integrity.
Chippy,
Thanks for the above article, can you confirm if the gigabyte M528 Menlow based or silverthorne as mentioned above ?
“That’s a figure I’ve only ever seen beaten by my modified Samsung Q1 Ultra (with SSD that can get down to 4.7W) and of course the SILVERTHORNE-based Gigabyte M528 which can get down below 3W drain.”
Any predictions on the gb-912v as this looks a sweet spot in price performance.
cheers