ASUS Announces Atom N280-Equipped Eee PC 1000HE

Despite the fact that Intel hasn’t yet announced their Atom N280, ASUS sent out a press release today touting that their Eee PC 1000HE is the first to come equipped with the new processor. Thanks to a general lack of choice, most netbooks on the market right now use the 1.6GHz Atom N270, while the N280 will boost the clocks to 1.66GHz. The FSB will also be bumped, from 533MHz on the N270, to 667MHz on the N280.

Although a performance boost of any sort is welcomed, I’m not too sure such a small bump in clock speeds will reveal much benefit in real-world scenarios. However, given that the performance on netbooks is, to a degree, lackluster, any increase should be a good one. The new CPU isn’t the only thing ASUS is pushing though, as the battery-life has also been increased, to around 9.5 hours.

That figure was achieved by turning off Bluetooth, Wireless and the camera, and also while using the LCD at 40% brightness. Exactly how battery-life directly compares to the 1000H will be up to the reviewers to figure out. In addition, the 1000HE also includes a new Chiclet keyboard (with the right shift key in the proper location), a 160GB hard drive (plus 10GB online storage), Wireless 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth and 1GB of RAM. Price? $399. Not bad for such a full-featured 10″ netbook!

With the extra power of the Intel Atom N280 processor, users will be able to boot faster, get work done quicker, and enjoy higher performance compared to other Atom N270-powered netbooks. The Eee PC 1000HE also features ASUS’ exclusive Super Hybrid Engine (SHE) technology, which can boost CPU speed for extra power or lower it to preserve battery life, all at the touch of a button.