Asus Eee PC 1004DN

Asus first entered the netbook arena with their Eee PC 701 which was probably the most basic netbook that time and was certainly the most popular too. Then come these other manufacturers that made newer and better netbooks that seem to chip away Asus’ market share in the netbook market.

The Eee PC 1004DN is another step forward for netbooks since this is the first to have an integrated Super-Multi optical disc drive which can read and write on optical discs for backing up of data on DVDs. This is really something new actually since an optical drive among others was the main difference between a netbook and a notebook, and now they seem to be slowly merging which I also see in the future that netbooks and notebooks will come as one meeting at some point or another.

It has the new Intel N280 processor which is faster than the commonly available N270 processor on older netbooks for enhanced processing power so watching the HD video will be a lot smoother on this device as compared to other netbooks. A 10.4″ LCD display is probably the next biggest size for netbooks since Dell has a 12 incher already. This 10.4″ screen estate seem just to be the fine balance between having an appropriate sized screen and power consumption. Speaking of power consumption, it has a 6 cell battery which is good for 5.9 hours of usage. The 5.9 hours of usage of course is the manufacturer’s estimate but even thought that it can only last for up to 4 hours, that would be good enough for me since a DVD movie is just around 2 hours and even with the power hungry DVD drive, I don’t think it can finish up the 6 cell battery pack of this netbook.

Other netbook characteristics are still present like it being easy on the back at just 1.45 kilograms that is really light on the bag and small enough to carry anywhere like a short trip to a coffee shop. WiFi, Bluetooth, and a 1.3 megapixel web cam are also present for connectivity and chatting purposes. Asus marks the keyboard 92% as that of a regular sized one and are designed to maximize every centimeter to avoid pressing other keys which always happen to people who have big fingers.

Versatile, Intuitive and Elegant - those are the words that Asus promises with this new netbook in their Eee PC line. I wonder though what happened with the easy to learn, work and play tag line.