Disclosure: Some links on this page are monetized by the Skimlinks, Amazon, Rakuten Advertising, and eBay, affiliate programs, and Liliputing may earn a commission if you make a purchase after clicking on those links. All prices are subject to change, and this article only reflects the prices available at time of publication.

Asus has been pumping out netbooks for longer than anyone. And in a lot of ways, the Asus Eee PC 1005PE is just an incremental update over previous models. The laptop still has a 10 inch screen, chiclet-style keyboard and Intel Atom processor. But as the first Eee PC with an Atom N450 Pine Trail CPU, the Eee PC 1005PE represents the biggest change in the Eee PC line since the jump from 7 inch screens to 9 and 10 inch models in 2008.

Fortunately, Asus got a lot of things right in the latest update. The laptop is thin and light, and while it gets stellar battery life, the battery doesn’t jut too far out from the bottom of the laptop. The keyboard is very easy to use, and the textured touchpad supports multitouch gestures.

As for the new processor, it’s a mixed bag. It doesn’t offer much of a performance boost, and the PC actually feels like it might be slower at some tasks than one with an Atom N270 or N280 processor. But Intel’s goal wasn’t so much to boost performance with the new CPU, but to improve power consumption. And the Asus Eee PC 1005PE gets the kind of battery life that will let you use your laptop on a cross-country trip from New York to LA… twice.

The demo unit Asus sent me to review came equipped with a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, GMA 3150 graphics, 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, and Windows 7 Starter Edition. It has a 6 cell, 5800mAh, 63Whr battery. You can pick one up for under $370 from Amazon.

Design

The Asus Eee PC 1005PE measures 10.2″ x 6.9″ x 1.4″ and weighs about 2.8 pounds. It’s almost exactly the same size and shape as its predecessor, the Eee PC 1005HA. The primary physical difference is that the new model has an updated chiclet-style keyboard with more space between the keys.

Along the sides of the laptop you’ll find 3 USB ports, a VGA port, Ethernet jack, and mic and headphone jacks. There’s also an SDHC card slot.

The 10.1 inch display is reasonably bright. It features a glossy finish, which looks fairly decent in  a dimly lit room. But the screen has a tendency to turn into a mirror in direct sunlight.

The laptop is available in several colors. The review unit I received is blue, but you can also find the Eee PC 1005PE in black or white. All three models feature a shiny finish, which is attractive enough until you start to notice your fingerprints all over the lid.

Like the Asus Eee PC 1005HA, the Eee PC 1005PE is designed so that the 6 cell battery doesn’t take up a lot of space on the bottom of the unit. While some netbook batteries are awkwardly placed to resemble cancerous growths out of the back or bottom of a laptop, the Eee PC 1005PE battery is just a small round bump that gives the back of the laptop a little bit of elevation when placed on a table.

On the base of the unit you’ll find a single access panel for upgrading the RAM.

Keyboard and TouchPad

I’m a fan of chiclet-style keyboards for small laptops like the 10 inch Eee PC 1005PE. While the keyboard isn’t quite full size, the chiclet arrangement allows each key to have a decent amount of surface space while still leaving space between keys so that your fingers won’t accidentally slip onto an adjacent key.

I took a typing test using the keyboard and notched a score of 96 words per minute, which is about as high as I can get on any keyboard. Your results may vary.

A number of keys serve multiple purposes. For example, hitting the Fn key plus the F5 or F6 buttons will adjust the display brightness. Fn + the right arrow key = End, while the left arrow key does double duty as a Home key.

The touchpad is flush with the palm rest area of the laptop, but features a bumpy surface which makes it easy to detect the edges. Because the touchpad supports multitouch gestures such a pinching to zoom in some applications, or two-finger scrolling in most applications, it’s not really that important to be able to detect the edge of the touch area. I don’t miss searching for just the right spot to move my finger up and down to initiate a scrolling action.

Underneath the touchpad is a single large button with a rocker in the middle. It’s not that hard to register a left or right click, but I generally prefer two individual buttons.

The touchpad supports multitouch gestures such as placing two fingers on the pad and dragging up or down to scroll or pinching to zoom.

Above the keyboard there are essentially two power buttons. Press the one on the right side and Windows 7 boots up. Hit the one on the left, and you’ll boot into the Splashtop quick-boot environment that lets you launch a web browser, Skype, or a handful of other applications without waiting for Windows to load.

Performance

The Asus Eee PC 1005PE is the first laptop I’ve tested that has Intel’s new Atom N450 Pine Trail processor and GMA 3150 graphics. In a nutshell, the performance is almost exactly what you would expect from a netbook with an Atom N270 or N280 processor and GMA 950 graphics. In other words, the Eee PC 1005PE isn’t significantly faster than any other netbook that’s been released over the past year or two.

What is different is that Intel has combined the graphics, memory, and CPU functions onto a single chip. And that helps reduce energy consumption and increase battery life — without sacrificing performance.

I ran my standard raft of benchmarks, and found that while the Asus Eee PC 1005PE outperforms an Atom N280-based system in some respects, it’s a tiny bit slower in others. Basically, I’d say things are about a wash.

The chart below shows compares the results for this notebook with those for an Asus Eee PC 1008HA, a similar netbook with an Atom N280 CPU, GMA 950 graphics, and Windows 7 Starter Edition.

The tests involve transcoding a 4:34 video using VirtualDub, a 13:24 audio clip using WinLAME, and copying and zipping the contents of a 478MB folder containing 2186 files.

I’ve also added a few new tests to my routine, including timing how long it takes to open two of the slowest-loading program I use on a regular basis: GIMP and OpenOffice.org. Unfortunately I never got around to running this test on the Asus Eee PC 1008HA, but I did grab a stopwatch and time the HP Mini 311, which features a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU. Here’s how the Asus Eee PC 1005PE stacks up against that notebook.

The Asus netbook sort of wiped the floor with the HP model here, but it’s probably worth pointing out that I found the Mini 311 to be overall pretty sluggish for an Atom powered netbook, possibly due to its high resolution display. Of course, the HP Mini 311 also has NVIDIA ION graphics, which give it a huge performance boost when it comes to playing HD video, 3D video games, or performing other tasks that take advantage of NVIDIA’s CUDA technology.

The netbook was able to handle smooth playback of a 720p HD video I grabbed from the Windows Media HD Showcase, although CPU usage was stuck at around 90% or higher throughout the clip. 1080p HD video was another story. While the sample video started playing smoothly, after a few seconds the audio and video were out of sync, and about 10 seconds into the clip the movie turned into a slideshow.

HD Flash video is out of the question, since there’s no Adobe Flash acceleration for the integrated GMA 3150 graphics. But standard definition Flash videos looked good in both windowed and full screen modes.

Overall, the netbook has plenty of power to handle day to day tasks such as surfing the web or editing documents. But you shouldn’t expect miracles. It’s not going to play Call of Duty 4. The PC also felt a bit sluggish with some Javascript-heavy pages such as Google Reader.

Battery

Asus describes the 63Whr battery that comes with this version of the Asus Eee PC 1005PE as a “14 hour” battery. It’s not. But it’s easily a 10+ hour battery.

In fact, I’ve had a pretty difficult time getting this battery to die. Rather than run specific, unrealistic battery benchmarks, I’ve taken to turning on a netbook at the start of a work day, using it for web surfing, some light viewing of online videos, and other tasks throughout the day until the battery dies. This one just doesn’t.

After using the laptop for about 7 hours one day, Windows reported that it had about 3 hours left to go.

Asus also loads up the Eee PC 1005PE with its Super Hybrid Engine utility which lets you adjust the processor clock speed. If you need a bit of a performance boost, you can use the High Performance or Super Performance modes, which run the Atom N450 processor at full speed or at a slightly overclocked speed. If you want to squeeze even more battery life out of the computer, you can switch to Power Saving mode, which underclocks the CPU. You’ll take a bit of a performance hit, but as long as you’re not watching video, you probably won’t notice much difference.

Software

Like most netbooks on the market today, the Asus Eee PC 1005PE ships with Windows 7 Starter Edition. This means you get many of the benefits of Windows 7 including the new and improved start menu and taskbar and the ability to resize windows by dragging them to the left or right edge of your display. But as the cheapest version of Windows 7, Starter Edition lacks some functionality, such as the ability to change your desktop background.

Asus also loads up the Eee PC 1005PE with its standard compliment of netbook software. Most of these applications I could live without. I see absolutely no use for the Eee Dock, for instance, which lets you access Eee PC utilities all in one place by scrolling over the top of your screen. That’s what the Windows Start Menu is for.

But the most useful application Asus installs on all of its netbooks is the Super Hybrid Engine, which allows you to overclock or underclock the CPU depending on whether you need to improve performance or battery life. You can also leave it on auto mode so that the utility will underclock the CPU while you’re on battery power and run at full speed when plugged in.

Verdict

If you have an Asus Eee PC 1005HA or 1008HA and you’re looking for a reason to upgrade to the latest model, there’s only one here: The Asus Eee PC 1005PE gets spectacular battery life. Performance-wise, it functions like virtually every other netbook that’s been released since mid-2008.

That said, if you’re in the market for a new netbook, the Eee PC 1005PE is a strong contender. It has an excellent keyboard and touchpad, a slim and attractive design, and it offers decent performance for an Intel Atom powered netbook. The sub-$370 price tag doesn’t hurt either.

The mdoel featured in this review is the Eee PC 1005-PE-PU17. There’s also a cheaper version called the Eee PC 1005PE-MU17 which comes with a lower capacity battery and lacks Bluetooth. You can pick up that model from Amazon for about $331.

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,545 other subscribers

29 replies on “Asus Eee PC 1005PE review”

  1. I just got a 1005PEB since I unfortunately broke the screen on my 1000H. I personally like the keyboard upgrade, but I miss the track pad from the 1000H. The LED screen is much nicer IMO.

  2. Can anyone tell me if the 1005HA or PE have stereo audio input? I’m looking for a netbook for a ham radio application and trying to get this information is not easy. Thanks!

  3. It is a joke to see netbooks, instead of going down in prices like most electronic prices (eg plasma etc) it has been going higher in prices the past 2 years.

    Now, instead of talking about $199 to $250 netbooks, people have gone back to talking the $330 onwards figure.

  4. I have an Eee PC and it really is a nice little machine. Great battery life, quick, and it looks pretty slick too.

  5. It sounds like a good deal. IMO; 10 inch is the biggest one can have for a netbook; any bigger is – IMO – a notebook or mini-laptop. It would be nice to have a choice of operating systems.

    I am watching ReactOS. I think since it requires little resources, it is Win compatible and is free it would be an ideal netbook os.
    https://www.reactos.org
    It is still in developement but I think it has potential.

    I would like to see a netbook with an OLED screen; it uses less energy since it is self-illuminating (no back light required) and has clearer image (can be seen at any angle); IIRC.

    I would also like to see an AMD powered netbook. 🙂

    1. There are plently of AMD powered netbooks. Look at the new X100e from IBM. You can also check out the MSI Wind U210 and the HP DV2. You’ll find that the battery life is going to be on the low end.

      Regarding OLED screens; I doubt you’d want to pay the premium.

      1. The original poster considers 10 inch to be the max. for a netbook, so I doubt that these bigger AMD systems count 🙂

        Also they are more expensive and have abysmal battery life, so by all accounts (size, price, battery life) these heat producing and battery guzzling AMD notebooks are not really netbooks…

      2. I will check them out.

        Personally I think netbooks are in the 10 inch and smaller category.

        I read that AMD does not make an netbook cpu. I think they should make one.

  6. I really like my 1005ha, but I would not have bought it with a crippled os. They(MS) just want more money out of you.Why sacrifice the reasons you bought it for in the first place battery life and speedier os.

  7. No point buying this. There is really no performance difference at all from the much cheaper 1005HA.

    Being a “new” product, its commanding a premium in price. Why do you want to pay more for merely a few hours more of battery life.

    Seriously, does 8 hours or 10 hours battery life make a difference in your life? I rather save money buying the older N280.

    The older N280’s are going so cheap these days. Adding to that, you can get an XP model which probably has as good battery life than this PE model as it has been established that Windows 7 eats more battery life.

    This is really a sad improvement. Weight and size remains the same too. In the light of smartbooks weighing 700g, this is like a monster.

  8. Brad nice picks but you know ASUS has not really change much in their product line except for the minor upgrades I guess theres only so many changes you can make to a netbook or any computer for that matter. I would really like to see some new chassis, and bold designs on these mini computers that I love so much from all manufacturers.

    1. This model only comes with Windows 7 Starter. If you want Windows XP you’ll
      either need to install it yourself or pick up an older model like the Asus
      Eee PC 1005HA which is available with either Win XP or Win 7.

    2. Windows XP? I just got the 1005HA with Windows 7 Starter and the only thing that irked me was the inability to change the background, however, I found this article that has a link to an Asus program that does exactly what you want (see below).

      Since the 1005HA and this new version have 32 bit processors they should run anything that you know and love. You’ll find Windows 7 more stable and much more usable (no more crazy large start menu etc). I have Windows 7 on this machine, a desktop and laptop at home and my work laptop and it is wonderful.

      One of the best features is the Home Group where all your home PCs can share their documents, picture etc without doing the crazy share stuff that you have to do in XP.

      It’s a case of once you try it you’ll never want to go back!

      Here are the links …

      This has a link in one of the messages where you can download the wallpaper changer from Asus 🙂
      https://gadgetmix.com/index/how-to-change-wallpaper-in-windows-7-starter-asus-eee-pcs/

      This link shows you how to change the logon background 🙂
      https://www.withinwindows.com/2009/03/15/windows-7-to-officially-support-logon-ui-background-customization/

        1. I did’t know that, it may be worth the extra money for the 64-bit processor but the processor is still single core with hyper threading.

Comments are closed.