Asus to UK: You don’t really need a 2.5 hour battery, do you?

Asus has confirmed that the Eee PC 900 will ship in the UK with a 4400mAh battery, while customers in the US and several other markets will get a higher capacity 5800mAh battery. The Eee PC 701 2g Surf, for comparison, comes with a 4400mAh battery with an estimated life of just about 2 hours, while the Eee PC 701 4G comes with a 5200mAh battery that gets 2.5-3 hours.

In other words, UK customers will get a computer with a larger screen, a CPU that runs at its full 900MHz speed (earlier models were underclocked to run at 630 or 571MHz) and a lower capacity battery. All of this spells disaster for anyone who was hoping their ultraportable laptop would be able to run for 2 hours or more on a single charge. Maybe it’s just me, but if I have to lug a power cable with me everywhere I go to use my light weight, portable notebook, I start to think of it as a little less portable.

To be fair, this isn’t entirely Asus’s fault. A fire at an LG Chemical plant earlier this year has led to a global shortage of laptop batteries. So the company is conserving wherever they can. But it’d be nice if Asus would at least knock a few bucks off the price. As things stand, the company is trying to convince UK customers that they’re getting a good deal because the computer comes with a 2 year warranty. But which would you rather have, a 2 year warranty, or a 1 year warranty and a battery that lasts up to 30 minutes longer?


Thursday, May 22nd, 2008, 4:05 pm by Brad Linder
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