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Eee PC 1000HE, anyone got one?

Ben Rubinstein

Active member
I commute to work (2500 mile commute) and spend a lot of time on planes. When at my place of work I need the ability to backup my files, transfer those files to an external HD and sort my photos as well as having something to keep me amused on the plane trips of approx 7 hours. I don't edit due to the lack of a decent calibrated screen, etc. Until now I've been using my powerful Toshiba laptop which although plenty powerful enough to do the editing as well, weighs 3 kilo and has heavy batteries that only last 1.5 hours each. I brought my neighbour a Toshiba netbook over from the UK a few months back and was extremely impressed with it to be honest. Doing my research now I see that the netbook with the best battery life is the Eee PC 1000HE, the built in webcam and mike are very welcome additions as is the cheap ability to up the RAM to 2GB. The price is also pretty good at present in the UK with a very reliable dealer (ebuyer) selling for £305 inc postage. I have experience with them and if there are problems they deal with the returns and the manufacturer.

Couple of questions to anyone who has one. Firstly, Lightroom 2.3. I know you need a 1048x768 screen to LR but the netbook has a 1048x768 screen emulator. Is the 1000HE powerful enough to run previews of 5D RAW files for culling? Would I be able to use it for applying crops? Would I be able to load up photoshop just to use Bridge for doing the sorting and culling (my preferred method)?

Does it ship with a whole lot of bloatware and is it easy to get rid of?

How easy is it to get hold of spare batteries? I see ebay equivelents but they are generic eee pc 1000 series compatible and not the extra long life battery of the 1000HE. Other than that I can't seem to find spares anywhere.

Any thumbs up or down in general?

Many thanks.
 

simonclivehughes

Active member
Ben,

I can't comment on the Eee, but I have an Acer Aspire One netbook which came with XP, 1 GB RAM and 160 GB HDD as well as the extended battery which gives about 6 hours. I run CS3 & Bridge on it no real problems. It was around $400 Canadian. Perhaps worth a look too?

Cheers,
 

bensonga

Well-known member
Ben,

I bought the Asus 1000HE about 2 weeks ago, primarily for the longer battery life and small size. I figured if it was rated at 9 hours, I might get 6-7 hours of "real world" use. I have not been disappointed in that regard. I haven't looked for an extra battery yet. I did add the extra memory to it from the get go (2 gb total now). I knew the Intel Atom processor and the graphics chip is not as quick as the full size Toshiba or Apple laptops I normally use, so I decided to load an older version of Adobe Photoshop on the 1000HE (PS 7, as I recall). It seems to handle that fine, but I haven't put it to any heavy use yet. I have not installed Lightroom on it, so can't help you there. Overall, I think it (and other Netbooks I've seen) are a good compromise when you really need the smallest size/weight and longest battery life. I bought this to use on my motorcycle trips this summer and in years ahead, primarily for e-mail, Internet access and having Street Atlas USA handy. No regrets. Amazon.com for $385 USD.

Gary Benson
Alaska
 

Ben Rubinstein

Active member
Thanks Guys. Also looking to immediately replace the RAM with a 2GB stick and the hard drive with a 320GB 7200rpm drive. Good to know that photoshop works. One of the beauties of still using the 5D is that I can use photoshop back to CS and LR 1 should I need to.
 

Jeremy

New member
Does anyone have any updates concerning the 1000HE for an ultra-lightweight Lightroom solution?

I'm looking at the 1000HE with a 2GB Corsair stick and a 320GB 7200rpm drive for running Lightroom 2.3 while I'm in Europe. I'll be shooting with a Lumix LX-2 and a Canon 1Ds Mk2n, both on SD cards to use in the built-in reader. I just want to be able to rate and keyword with minimal post processing. And I'm thinking of throwing the 160GB drive from the netbook into an external enclosure for back-up. This isn't a photography trip, but a research trip so most of my time won't be spent making photographs (just looking at them in books).
 

Jeremy

New member
I've got mine in and I've loaded a Western Digital Black Scorpio 320gb drive (put the 160gb that came in it into a usb2.0 enclosure for file back-up while on the road) and a 2gb chip. I have WinXP and Lightroom 2.3 installed, but no pictures to ingest so I'll shoot some later this evening and try that out. I also installed Ubuntu which will be my main OS for everything outside of running Lightroom.

Very cool little machine.
 

Ben Rubinstein

Active member
I just got mine, shot two weddings abroad and travelled back with it. I used only LR. ~1000 5D RAW files per wedding.

Firstly, the minuses. It's too slow and I upgraded to a 7200rpm HD and 2GB RAM. A 100% preview takes 26 seconds and that's with the 12 megapixel 5D files. Loading 100% previews on import of the 2nd wedding 1160 files, took 5.5 hours and it still takes 8 seconds for LR to retrieve the saved 1:1 preview and display it.

The screen is too small to work without using bigger previews even with the LR real estate maxed out, I can't see if a bride has her eyes open with a loose crop full length portrait. Therefore I have to zoom in and that takes too long.

LR is not designed for such a small screen, it's a nightmare doing such simple things as scrolling.

I loaded up CS4 and bridge is a lot faster and more useable than LR for sorting on this computer. Running full screen previews is faster and 1:1 is 15 seconds though interestingly, if you open the file in ACR a 1:1 preview is just 6 seconds! ACR will only work in the 'scrolling' 1024X768 mode. PS loads up suprisingly fast but simple tasks really strain the processor.

On the other hand the battery will give you 6 hours with full power and screen and I have an ebay aftermarket battery that will give me 8 hours, that's a whole heck of a lot of airplane time. It's a tiny and I mean really tiny laptop which makes my carry on luggage and ability to work in cattle class a real pleasure. Even the battery is tiny. It has wifi and bluetooth, a webcam and mic and that is essential for me when travelling. Bridge is actually very workable, far more than LR on the small screen and I'm looking forward to using it on my next trip (teus). As I discovered, when you plug a external screen into the laptop it becomes far more useable for rating, etc it's just bigger so less need to zoom in. The screen is better than that of my Toshiba Satellite Pro laptop, much better, don't know how easy it will be to calibrate, I deny that it's possible to calibrate a laptop anyway until the invent a screen that doesn't change brightness or contrast when you tilt it. It is of course great if you want to watch movies, listen to music while you work, etc. Loud speakers as well. It has probably the best keyboard of the genre, a mac style chiclet keyboard. I've got big clumsy fingers so I still find it a bit small. I like the fact you can program two buttons to call up whichever program you choose.

I also stuck the 160GB that came with inside a USB enclosure, actually my Lacie Rugged drive had died (2 years of very cavalier use!), I took out the Toshiba that was in it, replaced it with the seagate from the 1000HE, put back together and it works perfectly.
 
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