Review: Asus Eee PC S101 mini laptop

The Asus Eee PC S101 takes the company's mini laptop line upmarket, but also pushes up the price significantly, bringing it more in line with full-sized portables that have more power and bigger screens.

Available now, the Eee PC S101 is larger than earlier Eee PC models, and uses the space to fit in a 10.2in display and a more spacious keyboard. The underlying specification remains much the same as most other so-called netbook models, which makes it desirable but pricey by comparison.

In tests, we found this model much more pleasant to use than some rival models. It has a comfortable keyboard that bears comparison with that of a full-sized laptop, yet it weighs just a tad over 1Kg and has a footprint smaller than an A4 sheet of paper. It also feels reasonably sturdy, and should easily survive being carried around in a briefcase.

For business users, the Eee PC S101 should prove a nice machine to work on while out on the road, with the usual caveat that it ships with Windows XP Home edition, which lacks several features of Windows XP Professional, the most important being the ability to join a corporate domain and come under Group Policy management. It also lacks corporate features such as a Trusted Platform Module security chip and fingerprint scanner.

The new Asus has a specification that is now common for netbooks: a 1.6GHz Intel N270 Atom processor, 1GB of memory, and a 16GB Flash solid state drive (SSD) instead of a standard hard drive. The Linux-based version of this model has 2GB of memory and a 32GB or 64GB SSD instead.

We found that the Eee PC S101 had quite reasonable performance for running most software, especially the kind of tools you might want to access while travelling. Its Winstone 2004 benchmark score reflects this, which at 13.5 is not far off the scores we have seen from some larger laptops, and about 40 per cent higher than Dell's Inspiron Mini, which we tested recently. The reason for this seems to be the faster Flash SSD that Asus has fitted to the Eee PC S101.

Our review model had a 4900mAh lithium polymer battery pack, which lasted for two hours and 59 minutes when we tested the system using the Battery Eater Pro version 2.70 benchmark.

This was for the 'Classic' mode, which simulates use of the laptop. With the 'Reader' mode, which simulates someone just reading the screen, the system lasted for four hours and 12 minutes. This suggests that the Eee PC S101 has a slightly longer battery life than some other mini laptops, especially earlier Eee PC models.

One of the first things you notice about the Eee PC S101 is that it looks different from earlier Eee PCs. A lot more effort has gone into styling compared with the stark white of models such as the Eee PC 900, which looked somewhat like an engineering sample rather than a finished product. Three colours are available, ours coming in a kind of pearlescent brown effect.

The keyboard of this model is good, with well-spaced keys and a full set of function keys forming the top row of the keyboard. Our only quibble is that we kept hitting the up arrow key instead of the right shift key because of the positioning of the two. The touchpad appears to have just a single button, but depressing either end causes a left or right mouse click as you might expect.

Just below the screen are two further buttons. One is for power, the other for the Asus Super Hybrid Engine, designed to optimise the power use of the system. The button cycles through three modes: super performance, high performance and power saving, plus a fourth option of automatic.

The 10.2in screen makes good use of the available space and offers a resolution of 1024 x 600. This gave a perfectly acceptable display, although we had to scroll up and down a lot when viewing web pages.

For connectivity, the Eee PC S101 has an 802.11n Wi-Fi adapter, 10/100 Ethernet port and Bluetooth 2.0. The wireless interfaces can be turned on and off using Fn + F2 on the keyboard, and users should note that Windows does not seem to be aware of their status; when Wi-Fi is disabled, it simply reports that no wireless networks can be found, for example.

The remaining I/O consists of three USB ports, audio jack sockets, external VGA and a 4-in-1 slot for MMC, SD Card, Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro Flash cards. Oddly, the Flash slot is at the rear right of the case, rather than the front or one of the sides. Our review model came with a 16GB SD Card.

Software installed on the Eee PC S101 included two suites - Microsoft Works and StarOffice 8 - plus InterVideo WinDVD, Skype, Windows Live Mail and Windows Live Photo Gallery. Asus also provides a tool to update the system firmware.

Overall, we liked the quality feel of the Eee PC S101, and found it a convenient system to carry around and use for work during our tests. However, with many comparable systems costing around £300, some buyers may find its £449 price tag too high to justify.