ASUS has updated and refreshed its lineup of ASUS Seashell netbooks with Windows 7.
Updated specs:
Eee PC 1101HA – 11.6”, Atom Z520, Windows 7 Home Premium, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 9.5 Hour Battery Life
Eee PC 1008HA – 10.1”, Atom N280, Windows 7 Starter, 1GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 6 Hour Battery Life
Eee PC 1005HA-H – 10.1” (Matte), Atom N270, Windows 7 Starter, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 10.5 Hour Battery Life
Eee PC 1005HA-M – 10.1” (Matte), Atom N270, Windows 7 Starter, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 8.5 Hour Battery Life
ASUS has uploaded Windows 7 manual for the EEE 1101HA, which confirms that Windows 7 will be coming to the ASUS EEE 1101HA. It will also bring updated version of Super Hybrid Engine (version 2).
[Download Windows 7 PDF manual for EEE 1101HA]
Looks like very soon ASUS is going to announce Windows 7-based Seashell netbooks. Current Seashell models (1005HA (299 Euros), 1008HA (399 Euros) and 1101HA (399 Euros) ) are being spotted in some online stores.
The EEE 1101HA is complemented with Windows 7 Home Premium instead of Starter Edition like the 1005HA and 1008HA. Reason being the fact that in most of the countries, it is being sold with Windows Vista Home Premium. Also, looks like all of them will be undergoing HDD upgrades too. 160 GB are things of the past now and 250GB HDD will be used as new standard. Also 2GB RAM will come as default instead of 1GB.
Commentary: ASUS Eee PC currently comes with Windows XP and it is nice that ASUS is on toes in rolling out Windows 7 based netbooks. The Seashell netbooks, especially EEE 1008HA and EEE 1005HA, both have enjoyed enormous success and Windows 7 will make things only better.
Also read: EEE 1008HA review
Few months back, ASUS Japan launched the ASUS Eee PC 1101HA and confirmed that it would be released with Windows Vista Home Premium (thus making it freely upgradable to Windows 7 free upgrade). Sadly, that plan has been canceled. The reason behind this could be that ASUS may launching it with Windows 7 after Windows 7 has been officially released to the public.
ASUS EEE 1101HA is the first 11-inch netbook by ASUS that has built-in overclocking capabilities. It has extremely long battery life (8h+).
A user of eeeuser has confirmed that with the just released BIOS 0309, it is possible to re-enable the overclocking features with 2GB RAM. Until now, it you upgraded your EEE 1101HA to 2GB RAM, you won’t be able to overclock as the BIOS did not allow overclocking with 2GB RAM. Well, those are things of past now and now you can have 2GB RAM under the hood and enjoy upto 30% overclocking too!
You can obtain the driver from ASUS and use your update program to use the new BIOS.
Funny thing is that ASUS update will prompt you to downgrade to the 0308 version, which you should simply ignore if you wish to preserve the overclocking capabilities.
[Download 0309 BIOS]
Now you can get 1101HA 11.6-inch black netbook for only just $429.99 in the USA. The ASUS Eee PC 1101HA is the first ASUS EEE to have an 11.6-inch screen that runs at a high resolution of 1366 x 768. It comes with 1.3GHz Intel Atom (Menlow) Z520 processor, 1GB of RAM and 160GB of SATA HDD.The ASUS EEE 1101HA has a long battery life of up to 10 hours.
It has now been discovered that owners of ASUS EEE 1101HA can overclock their EEE PCs by upto 32%! This is a great news as ASUS was forced to use the weak Z520 processor their 11.6-inch netbook due to constraints laid down by Microsoft.
ASUS has finally made their upgrade policy for the Microsoft’s upcoming OS official. To qualify for free upgrade, you must buy an ASUS laptop or netbook between June 26, 2009 and January 31, 2010 that runs Windows Vista Business, Vista Home Premium or Vista Ultimate.
Call it fortunate or unfortunate, but most of the netbooks come with Windows XP OS. That said, there are two models that do become eligible to the upgrade: EEE 1101HA (with Vista Home Premium) and EEE 1005HA (with Vista Business)
[Check if you ASUS model is eligible for an upgrade]
ASUS has finally made the product page of its first 11.6-inch EEE online. ASUS EEE 1101HA comes equipped with the pathetic Atom Z520 processor. Other specs are pretty much standard: 160GB HDD, 1GB RAM, Windows XP and 3 USB ports.
[ASUS EEE 1101HA product page]
We have mentioned about this 11.6-inch netbook earlier too, which is going to be the first 11.6-inch netbook by ASUS. It will cost you around 399 Euros ($560). Let’s take a quick glance at its specifications:
- 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 CPU
- GMA 500 graphics
- 160GB HDD
- 1GB RAM
- 802.11b/g/n WiFi
- Bluetooth 2.1
- 6-cell Battery
- Weighs-3Pounds
- 11.3″x7.7″x1.3″
Again, this is plagued with the atrocious Z520 processor, which just sucks when it comes to performance. I had reviewed Acer Aspire 751 a couple of weeks back, which sported the same processor and the performance was not at all ‘ground-breaking’. Infact, it felt noticeably slower than Atom N270/N280 which runs at a clock speed of 1.6GHz.
ASUS has released new BIOS for the EEE 1101A. ASUS claims that it fixes Vista’s display problem, which should fix Windows 7’s blank screen problem too.
[Get the driver from here]
For the first time, ASUS is going to unveil its first 11.6-inch netbook, the EEE 1101HA. The EEE 1101HA is equipped with the Atom Z520 or Z520 processor and comes with a gig of RAM. It has a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels.
Two types of batteries are planned for it:
- 2200mAh which claims to give you 9.5 hours of use
- 2800mAh which claims to give you 11 hours of use
Commentary: I am unable to make out why the ASUS is doing the mistake which the Acer did with their Aspire 751 by equipping it with the Z520 processor. Also, what’s up with the 2200mAh battery ASUS? How can one get 9.5 hours out of it? Too many questions!
