| Sign in: |
| Members log in here with your user name and password to access the your admin page and other special features. |
|
|
|
|
|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Asus Eee PC 1000 Impressive performance
Jeff Mills, Photographer, Photo Editor
 |
Columbus | OH | USA | Posted: 2:48 PM on 04.29.09 |
->> I know theres been some discussions in the past about the "netbook" pc's and how viable they are for the working photographer so I thought I'd share my first hand experiences so far with a new Asus Eee PC 1000HE.
Basically for those who don't know, these are ultra compact laptops, 10" screen, about 10"x8"x1.5" and weight around 3lbs. 160gb HD, built in Wifi and bluetooth, 1gig RAM expanable to 2, 3 USB 2.0 ports
Its very compact and certainly can fit into most any photo bag which is the real draw of them for me. I've personally never been a fan of carrying the typical 15" laptop because its simply too big and heavy to always take with me. This is a tool you can always have you with you as its so small and light theres no excuse not to bring it.
Another nice feature, of the 1000HE especially is the battery life, 9.5 hours! These machines are designed to give very long battery life and last all day without needing a power supply and adapter, which frankly always drove me crazy as it was more weight and items to carry. Whats the point of always have a computer with you if you've got to always be looking for a spot to plug in it.
Now there are a good number of very compact and light ultra portable laptops on the market by Fujitsu, Sony, Lenovo and Apple with some great specs and power but typically they run over $2000 which simply wasn't an option for me. The 1000HE by comparison is a mere $379.
Now because this is a $379 netbook your certainly not getting the latest 2.5ghz dual core desktop replacement technology, rather your getting a 1.66ghz Atom processor thats designed for web surfing and light computing needs.
Much to my surprise though, it actually runs CS3 and Photo Mechanic quite well. Came with 1gig of RAM and its apparently easily upgradable to 2gig so I'm planning on doing that ASAP which should definatly help with those applications.
For basic edition and captioning it works fine though. Doing basic editing such as cropping and levels doesn't slow it down at all. I havent tried any RAW conversion in Lightroom yet but dont really plan to, nor have a need, for any serious editing work in the field. I doubt it would work well for working with lots of layers and 16bit TIF files.
The screens on the small side at 10" and with a resoltuion of 1024x600 but its actually a nice and bright LED backlit display thats quite sharp. I'd hate to work on it all day but found the size acceptable for some quick edits and writing captions.
Speaking of captions the keyboard is actually quite nice for its size, 92% of a full size keyboard and it uses the "chicklet" style keys like a Mac which also helps it feel larger than it is. I've got smaller hands but I've found it very easy to type and adjusted to it really quickly.
This isn't going to serve as a laptop replacement for everyone but if your looking for a very compact and affordable pc for doing some basic editing and transmiting 15-20 images in the field I think these are a great buy.
Likewise this would be an ideal tool for when you want to travel light on vacation. With the 160gb HD its got plenty of room to backup each days shooting and lets you review your images each night, check your email, read SS, etc.
I'm going to Florida in a week and defiantly will be taking this with me. I doubt I'll even have to bring the charger! |
|
Rich Cruse, Photographer
|
Laguna Niguel | CA | USA | Posted: 3:26 PM on 04.29.09 |
| ->> Bring the charger Jeff! You never know! Thanks for the heads up! |
|
Max Simbron, Photographer, Assistant
|
Phoenix | AZ | USA | Posted: 5:16 PM on 04.29.09 |
->> Jeff, glad you like the netbook.
I've got a Dell Mini 9, and plan to run OS X on it very soon. I hear it runs very efficiently, but even with the basic Ubuntu OS that was preinstalled, I already got Photoshelter Uploader working and was able to throw on some converted DVD's for my Iphone on there. Watching Robocop on the go is pretty cool. |
|
Matthew Bush, Photographer
|
Hattiesburg | MS | USA | Posted: 2:07 PM on 04.30.09 |
| ->> Max. I have a Mini running OSX and you will love it. check out mydellmini.com for loads of info. I keep it in my truck for tracking weather, getting directions and mobile uploads to the papers site instead of yanking out the macbookpro |
|
Max Simbron, Photographer, Assistant
|
Phoenix | AZ | USA | Posted: 7:08 PM on 05.01.09 |
->> Matthew,
I just finished the upgrade. Using the Runcore SSD from MyDigitalDiscount, I was able to do most of the install on my Mac Tower instead of on the Dell itself. Very easy after that.
Now I'm off to install apps on the MacMini! |
|
Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer
|
Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 7:12 PM on 05.02.09 |
->> I'm using my Lenovo s10e with Lightroom. The only issue I've run into is the fact that some LR dialogs won't fit on the screen and there's no way to reposition them or resize them so that they do. RAW really bogs the machine down, though. Picasa 3 works well on it too most of the time (P3 is a little buggy on my Core 2 Duo notebook too).
I love that it fits into the pad pocket of the Think Tank Speed Whatever (the big one, who can keep the three versions straight) shoulder/belt bag.
That battery life is insane, though. I get about two hours out of mine on the standard battery. Is that a manufacturer claim (usually based on "running" nothing at minimal power usage) or have you really "used" it for that long on a single charge? |
|
Jeff Mills, Photographer, Photo Editor
|
Columbus | OH | USA | Posted: 12:30 AM on 05.03.09 |
->> Chuck, check to see if theres a hotkey to resize the display, thats a quick and easy fix.
The Eee PC runs 1024x600 which is fine most of the time, except the Photo Mechanic Ingest window is bigger than 600 pixels so I ran into problems with not being able to see the actual Ingest button at the bottom of the window.
Quick and easy fix is that I simply hold down the function key and press the hotkey to switch to a 1024x724 resolution. Its compressed and looks funky but I can view the window I need, click the button to start the transfer and then its a quick key press back to the normal resolution.
As far as battery life goes, I haven't test it in depth but I'm sure it wouldnt get close to 9.5hrs under demanding conditions, however running in max performance mode it still estimates about 4 hours of battery life.
Thats pretty impressive in my book still as I've had laptops with 4 cell batteries that literally would last about 30 minutes when really taxed hard.
You had about 20 minutes to get your work done and then had to really worry about finding a power supply.
I think the Eee PC should be able to handle any and all in the field editing and transfering I need on a single charge.
Frankly my eyes and nerves would give out before the battery because as decent as it is, there is no way in heck I could stand to work on a machine like that for 4+ hours lol |
|
Chris Ivin, Photographer
|
Sydney | NSW | Australia | Posted: 7:07 AM on 05.03.09 |
->> Since we're talking netbooks, I thought I'd recount my recent experience with the Acer Aspire One netbook (Atom 533MHz processor, XP, 160Gig storage, sub 1kg) which I bought specifically for a trip to India, primarily as backup storage to cards. Well fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at things, it died on Day 1 of the trip, with one days of shooting loaded. For the next 2 and half weeks the thing would not boot and a technical service call to Acer told me there was a BIOS issue (on a 3 week old machine). As it turned out this was poor troubleshooting by them -- infact it was a bad memory issue. The device is now fixed.
Assuming it is working, it's quite fast enough for jpg processing and Photoshop works OK too. RAW file processing is considerably slower (than a Dell XPS 1330) , but depending on your own personal workflow this may not be an issue. Battery life is about 3hrs. The screen is tiny -- 8.9in and clear, however you may need to have your eye's lasiked to get the most from it. The keyboard is a little fiddly so if you have fingers the size of sausages, forget it. Would I buy another. No. |
|
Mike Morones, Photographer
|
Fredericksburg | VA | USA | Posted: 8:32 AM on 05.06.09 |
| ->> Like Chuck I'm using the Lenovo S10. I typically just run PhotoMechanic on there as I can ingest/caption/crop/transmit from one program. I haven't really messed with PS on there though. I was planning on maxing out the RAM and maybe trying to run Mac OS on there but just haven't gotten around to it. The upside - light, compact and pretty solid battery life! |
|
Return to --> Message Board Main Index
|