First Look: The Faster Asus Eee PC

The brand-new Asus Eee PC 1000HE Netbook is the first device anywhere to use the newly improved and supposedly faster Intel (INTC Quote) Atom N280 processor.

As much as I love Eee PCs for their size, portability and price, I also realize that they've also had their shortcomings -- especially handling processor-intensive tasks, such as streaming videos. Older Eees could do it but not very well. I always found videos played on machines running on Atom N270 processors somewhat disappointing. Watching videos on YouTube and TheStreet.com could be painful. I chalked this up to the fact that Eees, like all the Netbooks, were built to a certain price point, and I just had to live with this shortcoming.

Not anymore. This new 1000HE, running the N280 processor, does a much better job of handling streaming video than any older N270-clad Netbook. Testing this new device on TSC's Web site was a pleasure. Watching videos -- while not as perfect as when using a full-sized laptop with a bigger processor and more memory - is now "more than acceptable" in my book.

And I noticed that the new chip is faster with a lot of other computer chores, too, like installing new software. Installing Microsoft Office 2007 on this Eee took less than half the time than on the last Netbook I tried. Same for my antivirus software, my favorite media player, the company's VPN client and lots more. What usually takes a few hours was completed in less than 30 minutes. I was very impressed.