ASUS Eee PC 1101HA Reviewed: Big Screen, Long Endurance

While it may be late to the 11 to 12-inch netbook party, ASUS makes a strong showring with the Eee PC 1101HA.  As we note in our review, the 1101HA has an excellent battery life of 8 hours and 44 minutes; that’s about 2.5 hours  longer than the 6-cell netbook average–and the majority of those times are from smaller 10-inch netbooks. Is this $429 machine worth the $100 premium over the 10-inch 1005HA ?

The 1101HA shares the same Seashell design as the 1008HA and 1005HA: its sides are rounded, and it has a black glossy finish, both on the lid and on the keyboard deck. It’s a classy look, but it picks up fingerprints easily. Like the Acer Aspire 751h, the 11.6-inch display on the 1101HA has a resolution of 1366 x 768, and objects on the screen looked bright and crisp. Unfortunately, the 1.33-GHz CPU was not up to the task of playing a 720p video clip. Most netbooks have a 1.6-GHz processor. Overall performance was also a bit below the netbook average; however, ASUS’ Eee Hybrid Utility lets you overclock the CPU to 1.73 GHz, which should give you better performance. Priced at $429, the 1101HA is $40 more expensive than the 11-inch Acer Aspire 751h, which has all the same specs, but lasts an hour and a half less on a charge. The 1101HA is $70 less expensive than the Lenovo S12 and the Samsung NC20, but those notebooks performed better on our benchmark tests–except for battery life. Head on over to our full review for the complete rundown.