Asus Eee PC 1005PR Review

Asus Eee PC 1005PR Overview

The Asus Eee PC 1005PR is a new addition to the Eee PC family recently. It has almost the same specs and design as the Eee PC 1005PE with 2 additional features:

• built-in Broadcom Crystal HD Accelerator
• 1366 X 768 high resolution display

This gives the 1005PR the capability to play high definition video even without a discrete graphic card like Nvidia ION. Here’s a video that shows the difference between a netbook with and without Broadcom Crystal HD chipset.

Specs for the Eee PC 1005PR:

• Intel Atom N450 (1.66GHz, 512KB L2 Cache)
• 10.1-Inch Color-Shine 1366X768 WXGA LED Display
• Intel UMA graphics with Broadcom Crystal HD Accelerator
• 1 GB DDR2 SODIMM memory, Max Capacity 2 GB
• 250GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM) + 500GB Free Web Storage
• 802.11 b/g/n
• Bluetooth
• 0.3MP Webcam
• Chiclet Keyboard
• Up to 11 Hours of Battery Life
• Windows 7 Starter Operating System

Review Roundup

In terms of design, the Eee PC 1005PR has a matte, textured lid, which not only looks good but also helps to prevent fingerprint — a nice change from the 1005PE’s glossy lid. The keyboard however is said to be a little noisy, and the the right shift key is a little too small, but they do not affect the overall typing experience much.

In terms of performance, the Eee PC 1005PR actually score slightly lower than other similar class netbooks, such as the Dell Inspiron Mini 10, in the PCMark05 test (1319 vs 1412). In real-world use though, you probably will not notice any difference if all you do with your netbook is surfing Internet, checking email, and processing Word document.

The Broadcom HD chipset does help to play HD video files (WMV, MOV, etc.) from hard drive smoothly. Playing HD versions of Flash video content from YouTube or Hulu, however, is choppy when played in full screen.

Battery life is excellent — with continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi, the 1005PR lasted for 8 hours and 45 minutes; while for continuous video playback it lasts 6 hours and 45 minutes.

Conclusion

Despite the complains about its imperfect keyboard design, and slightly lower performance score, the overall usability of the Eee PC 1005PR is still pretty decent. The Broadcom HD Accelerator does provide a better HD experience for locally played video, but not for Flash video content from YouTube or Hulu. If that’s acceptable for you, this netbook is about as good a Netbook deal as you’re likely to find for $399.

Video Review

Here’s a short video review of the Eee PC 1005PR from CNet:

Source: CNet, Laptop MAgazine