A funny thing happens when you stick a larger, higher resolution display into a computer: The power consumption goes up. So it’s probably no surprise that the Eee PC 900 battery doesn’t last as long as the Eee PC 701 when performing common tasks like surfing the web or playing video. French site Blogeee ran a battery of tests (pun intended) on the Eee PC 900 and found that its battery performance kind of stinks.
Making matters worse is the fact that Asus has been shipping at least some Eee PC 900 units with a 4400mAh battery rather than the 5800mAh battery that the company included with test units. In fact, Blogeee ran their original tests with a 4400mAh battery and the Eee PC 900 performed laughably, conking out after just an hour and a half of web browsing and document editing with the screen brightness turned all the way up. So Blogee threw in a standard Eee PC 701 5200mAh battery and things got a little better. But just a little.
So while I’ve been unimpressed with the HP Mini-Note battery, I suspect its performance is similar to the Eee PC 900.
There is a very extensive report on the 900 at eeeuser.com from someone in the UK. It has the 4400 battery. Interesting is that it appears that the wireless is not as good at picking up a signal in the 900 as in the 701.
That doesn’t seem too bad to me considering the larger screen and the Eee 900 also runs the CPU at the full 900MHz, not 630MHz like the 701.
According to the tests done here, the battery life of the Eee 900 far outlasts all the similar products tested including the HP mini-note (with extended battery) and the Sony TZ.
https://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=14&id=2543&pg=3
28-33 minutes difference… I’d say that’s acceptable by my standards.
I plan to get my 900 with the 5800 anyway. Maybe the 5200… But not the 4400.
Plus I want to get the 10400 mAh battery too. Would be nice to see results of the 10400 on the 900 compared to the 700.
Slightly off topic but related- a couple blogs yesterday reported that US pre-orders for the 900 would begin today. None of the retailers listed in those reports seem to be offering them yet.
Do you have any info about this?