ASUS EEE 904HA – REVIEW (warning, biggg! review)
The competition in the netbooks is getting fiercer and fiercer everyday. Everyday or so, we hear new computer manufactures jumping into the Netbook battle ground. ASUS, being the most experienced company has remained the leader so far in the netbook business. It’s new netbook, the EEE 904HA promises to give user excellent features at quite affordable price. Has it been able to impress us? Read the review to find out!
Unboxing
The ASUS has comes in a small box. The contents of the ASUS EEE 904HA are 100% same as 1000H, which includes the following:
- EEE 904HA (what else, Beyonce?)
- AC adapter/charger
- Restore XP CD
- 6600mAh battery
- Silicon Case
- Soft cleaning cloth
- Few documents
I received the ASUS EEE 904HA with 160GB HDD and not 80GB HDD like some EEEs. The extra space is always welcomed.
Bootup
The bootup times is quite fast thanks to the boot-booster which does not displays the splash screen upon hard boot. The XP Home which comes with the EEE 904HA loads up pretty quickly. It also seems that ASUS has tweaked the XP quite a bit to the EEE’s hardware. Also, it comes with hard disk and not SSD which also boosts up the boot times. Generally, the SSD that comes with the EEE is quite slow, which results in longer boot timings. the EEE 904HA has fast Seagate HDD of which we will learn about later in this review
Exterior, Size
The ASUS EEE 904HA adopts the shell/casing of the EEE 1000 series, though there are few differences too, which you will learn later in this review.
The EEE 904HA has shiny exterior, which looks very sleek. Currently, almost every netbook in the market comes with shiny exterior and 904HA is no exception. But, shiny exterior means that it also catches fingerprints easily. This may be another reason, why ASUS included cleaning cloth in the package.
On the left side of the unit, you will find the familiar ETHERNET port, a USB port, microphone and earphone jack. Note that it does not have Dolby Digital support.
On the other(right) side, you will find the VGA output port, AC adapter port and 2 USB 2.0 ports. You will also find the MMC/SD card reader, which is integrated into the unit. It is SDHC compatible meaning that it can read/write all those high-capacity SD cards in the market. The capacity of these cards go upto 32GB.
MMC/SD slot
Unlike ASUS EEE 1000H, it has matte, grainy interior. I like matte interior over the shiny black interior of EEE 1000 series. This makes it not to catch the fingerprints. It also prevents you palm slipping away from the keyboard while you type. Nice touch ASUS!
Keyboard
This is the best part of the EEE 904HA. It is just fabulous. You can type on it just the way you type on any normal laptop keyboard. ASUS claims it to be 95% of the usual laptop keyboard. This makes typing on it a no-learner job. Anyone can just start typing on it without making any adjustments. This is a great news for those people who work or blog on the go. Since the size of the EEE 904HA is smaller than the conventional laptop, it makes it an ideal companion for everyone who do a lot of input and are always on the move.
The keyboard is big and it is spacious!
Screen, Resolution
The ASUS EEE 904HA comes with a 1024 x 600 resolution, which is definitely better than the shabby resolution of the EEE 700 series (800 x 480). The screen of the ASUS 904HA is nice and bright. The text is easy to read on it. The images looks crisp. You can work on this netbook for an hour and your eyes won’t feel tired at all. Webpages, office documents all look fine and you won’t find yourself scrolling like you had to do in EEE 700 series. The speakers surround the screen just like they did on EEE 700 series. I personally like the front facing speakers as the sound does not get muffled when you are using the netbook on your lap.
notice the 1.3MP camera on the bezel
Battery, Battery life
The EEE 904HA comes with a big 6 cell battery which promises really nice run times. It is 6600mAh and is exactly the same as the one used in 1000H. I tested its battery in 1000H and vice-versa and it worked fine in both cases. In auto-powersaving mode and normal brightness, I got nearly 5 hours with wifi on. In power saving mode, you may be able to squeeze out even more.
SHE (Super Hybrid Engine) – The actual player behind the great battery performance
All credits to its awesome battery life goes to the SHE. It gives you to underclock the EEE when you feel that you don’t need all the horsepower. The result: long runtimes. You would absolutely love this feature. You can toggle between: power-saving, auto power-saving, high performance, auto high performance and super performance modes with a touch of a button. By default, it is assigned to the 3rd button from the left in the top row.
Multitouch Touchpad
The touchpad of the EEE 904HA supports multi-touch. You can use various gestures like moving your fingers apart at the same times will trigger zoom in in a webpage or image and bringing your fingers together will zoom out. In a web browser, you can use two fingers to scroll up and down. Three finger tap to a right click and so on. The touchpad is also much more comfortable when compared to many of its rival netbooks like Lenovo Ideapad S10, S9 or its little brother ASUS EEE 700 series.
Basic tests of applications
I loaded up the following applications and they all ran fine.
- Office 2007: runs flawless
- Visual Studio 2005: runs great and EEE 904HA can be a huge asset for programmers
- Firefox
- Opera
- klite codec
- Microsoft Activesync: to sync with my windows mobile device
Size Comparisons
This is the part I like to most: comparing it to other gadgets.
EEE 1000H and EEE 904HA
EEE 1000H, EEE 701 and EEE 904HA
Thickness comparison of the ASUS EEE 701 and EEE 904HA
Keyboard comparison: I would like to reiterate the fact the EEE 904HA is perfect for typing making it great for businessmen who work on the spreadsheets and office documents; perfect for the students and programmers who would appreciate it nice size.
like the wallpaper of my EEE 701? ;)
Ability to upgrade? = Yeah!
You can easily upgrade the RAM module and HDD of the EEE 904HA. You have to unscrew the backdoor panel of the EEE 904HA to gain access to the RAM module and HDD.
Take extra care of the ‘holders’ of the RAM chip and take the RAM module out.
The HDD is fast @ 5400rpm and has 160GB storage capacity. You need to unscrew the 6 screws to take the HDD out. Now since it is the normal 2.5″ HDD, you can also swap-in a 2.5″ SSD in the future.
Here is the RAM module that came with EEE 904HA. As you can see, it came with 1GB DDR2 RAM.
I took the 2G Transcend RAM @ 667Mhz bus speed out from my EEE 701 and swapped it in to the EEE 904HA. It worked fine. Note that if you don’t go into the BIOS, your device won’t recognize the newly added 2G RAM as the boot booster is enabled by-default. Infact, it will still think that only 1GB RAM module is there. To enter into the BIOS, repeatedly press F2 immediately after hitting the power button. Then, you must press F10 to save the changes. After that, your device should be able to use the full 2GB RAM.
Final Verdict
It is around 100gm lighter than the 1000H and has front facing speakers. It has the same resolution as the EEE 1000H. The difference of screen size is just 1.3″, which is just not noticeable to me as I was using both the devices at the same time. It is also around $50-80 cheaper depending upon from where you buy it. But to me, the front facing speakers and lighter weight wins the battle over 1000H.
Thanks to the ASUS for the review unit!
Sponsor Love
Give protection to your ASUS EEE 904HA. Get yourself PDAir protection for just $60
Here are some bigger pictures of the ones used in the review. It also includes some which were not used in the review at all. Click on the thumbails too the bigger pictures:
Read these reviews too:
Aspire One D150 Netbook review
ASUS EEE 1002HA review
Lenovo S10 review
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Thanks for such lengthy but the extensively informative review of this ASUS mini notepad. I have been waiting to buy one for my on the go blogging and for kids and with this review and some good deals (eBay+MS Live Cashback+Paypal) over black Friday, I have bought this model. Thanks.
Phoenix2life
Glad that you liked the review. The little machine is great for blogging for sure
Great review! There are many subtle differences between these models, and this helped to clear up the changes that have been made. Mine comes in the mail next week…
Great review. Just a few questions regarding the 904HA. What is the maximum resolution when a monitor is attached via VGA? Is the internal 160G drive an IDE or SATA? Will this EEE boot from an externally attached USB CD/DVD or flash drive? Maybe these questions were answered in the review and I missed them?
Thanks Very Much In Advance
Ron
Hi Ron!
1) Max resolution: I guess it should go upto 2048×1536 as it is using Intel GMA 950
2) SATA
3) Yeah. I installed vista that way and it worked fine
Glad that you liked the review
Hi Ron,
I just got a 904HA. I noticed that I can purchase 2GB of RAM for about $30. Would you recommend doing this? Any other upgrades you would make?
Thanks,
Mark
Yes, absolutely. Esp if you plan to run vista/windows 7 on it.
HI
Super review one question are the dimensions the same as the 1000h 160gb ie w26.6 d 19.1 h3.8cm
thanks
sean
@ Sean: Yes
Hi, thanks for the reviews and pictures. It helped me make my decision to buy one, but now with the super glossy fingerprint-prone exterior, I want to get a leather case for it. I’ve noticed there aren’t many for the 904, but a lot for the 1000. Asus’ websites list the same dimensions for the 904 series and most of the 1000. Do you think a leather case for the 1000 would fit the 904? Seems like you have both to compare! Thanks.
Yes, the case for 1000H would fit the 904HA perfectly
[...] reviews:Gadgetmixumpcportal [...]
[...] желающие могут прочитать обзор Eee PC 904HA (сейчас это одно из самых популярных устройств на [...]
[...] Read entire review HERE [...]
Your generosity in posting the most exhaustive review I’ve seen yet is greatly appreciated! (BTW – I’ve seen about EVERYthing on the web about this newer laptop)
doc
Are their two ram slots or is there only one?
There is only 1 slot for RAM. So, you have to replace the original one with the one you have bought
hi great review
i have been wanting to get one of these for a bit now. i really like this one, but how do you install programs on it (i dont see a cd drive) if i got one and wanted to install office on it would i need an external cd drive?
There are two ways to install apps:
1) copy the setup files to a USB flash drive/USB external HDD and install the apps from there
2) install via network. You can connect your other computers and you can connect your EEE virtually (via wifi) or physically (via LAN cable). Then, you can share the setup folder or CD drive and install the application from the shared folder/driver
Excelent review! thanks to this I bought one :P
Hello, what are you’re toughts when running Windows Vista on this machine? How about the performance? I’am really interested in bying one when it comes to Belgium.
On the pics the battery seems quite large?
Greetz, Andy
@jp: Glad that you liked the review
@ Andy: Since the hardware is same as of 1000H, see my article of 1000H’s performance with vista and how to make all the drivers work
http://gadgetmix.com/index/?p=1167
Excellent review! Very informative especially for the upgrades option.
May i know what is the different between the 904HA and 904HD ? Thanks.
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Have always read reviews for anything expensive we have bought in the past but this review is by far the best review I have ever read.
Question… do you see any problems tethering a Cell with the 904HA when using a cell in the “phone as a modem” mode?
Thanks,
Fred
Fred, no problem with the phone as modem. Works fine just like other phones.
Thanks to everyone for appreciating me and the 904HA (although I am not an ASUS employee ;))
@kelv: 904ha uses ATOM processor while HD model does not
Great review, thanks, you’ve convinced me to go ahead and get this. For me the keyboard is the deciding factor as I’ll mainly be using it for email, blog posting, typing documents etc.
Hey, just a quick error I found in your review. The speakers do not surround the screen as you pointed out, but rather they are located underneath the machine and still face downwards. The area beside the screen is just filler plastic to make up for not having the 10″ screen of the 1000 series.
Well, it has tiny speakers underneath those grills though they are not as powerful as the ones found on 701s
Tiny speakers under the grills beside the screen?
@playafly187: Yes. Many of the websites say it there to cover the excessive bezel. But, some sound does come from it AFAIK
Thanks for the informative pictorial! I just ordered one of these for my wife! Merry Christmas!
Now I’m curious if the PDAir case you allude to will trap heat, or block sound? I do see small holes int case for heat release, but it seems it would trap the EEE PC in a bit, with no feet, stifling airflow. What do you think about that?
Thanks again! Happy Holidays!
Adam
I have a PDAir case for my EEE 701 and it is similar in design. It does not trap any heat.
OK then – Good to know! Thanks!
Hey Kamal, pretty much everything in this review is correct and accurate, and very helpful. I own a 904HA and I noticed 1 mistake. The said speakers are !NOT! in the bezel. They make it look like they are, but they are actually located on the bottom of the machine. the sound gets muffled when it sits on your lap. But trust me, there are NO speakers on the bezel. Other than that fact, this is a great review
Great that you appreciated the review.
The speakers being in the front is a moot point now. Many people believe that there are tiny speakers in the front.
Not that they are produce sound like the ones at the bottom of the unit, but people say that they do produce some sound
I plan on buying a netbook, and your review was very helpful. However, the most important aspect of a netbook for me is the sound quality on headphones. I have a large MP3 collection (@ 320) on a external hard drive which I would connect to the netbook. I listen to classical music, and sound quality is everything. So, how is the sound?
Glad you found the review helpful.
The sound quality is great on headphones. Your MP3s would sound just fine
Good luck on your purchasse
Thank you so much Kamal. You’ve provided a real service. I’ll order the netbook this morning.
Thanks Jim for those words!
BTW, ASUS S101 is going to arrive this week at my doors! So stay tuned
This is a great informative review. I just got a 904HA and like it so far. I do have a small issue with color in LCD screen where it does not appear normal (not sure how else to put it). I tried to calibrate/color correct using the intel tool but still cant get the color to match my laptops or my LCD monitor. Did you have any issue with color?
Thanks
Mir
Mir, you should not face any such problem.
There is definitely something wrong with your EEE’s display
I got this unit 2 days ago. Its freaking amazing. I love it. Got the 2GB stick and it took me 5 mins and a swiss knife to get that in there.
The only bitch was that the moment i loaded Windows Live Meesenger, it opened up ports for trojans and pop-ups. I had to get BAM and adaware to clean up then i loaded MCAfee then IE7. If i had loaded IE7 first i could’ve saved me some headache. I wist the screen was 1/2 inch bigger on each side but its no biggie.
2 GB stick makes it boot fast and XP is way better than vista to begin with.
Gonna try and dual boot with ubuntu this wk end.
Fingerprints on the outside are a pain but the performance and size of this unit makes it well worth the money….until intel releases a dual core version of this chip ;)
BUY IT!!!
I want to use this in my car between appointments. Can you see the screen if the sun is out.
Thanks,
David
Yes, you can The screen has a matte finish (non-glossy surface)
Great Review. It helped me make my decision to buy one. I Love it. Have you ever done their automatic BIOS update?
Id just like to point out that the speakers are not front facing…do not be mistaken the dimpled side panels on either side of the screen are not speakers…the speakers are on the bottom of the 904HA. I got mine yesterday and tested.
I have just ordered my 904HA I cant wait for it to come to my door on wednesday! I live off laptops, i currently run a macbook pro, macbook air, sony vaio and now this new one, hopefully it makes doing my work on the go easyer when combined with my air!
can you reccomend a good site to get external DVD/RW drives from, ive never had to order on before
I am ordering this machine soon and I must admit I’m a bit of a newbie at hardware replacement so do you have any suggestions on specific 2GB so-dimms to purchase for this upgrade? Thank you for this great review!