The Asus Eee PC 1101HA is plagued by a slower processor

Other than that, it features pretty much the same specs as other netbooks

 Being the first 11.6” system from Asus, the Eee PC 1101HA has always been considered as a kind of hybrid between the netbooks and the notebooks. The folks at Liliputing got their hands on a sample to review, and I would say they must’ve found it pretty much the same machine as some other Eee PCs like the 1005HA.

The biggest drawback of the system is the slower processor. The Z520 has a clocking of only 1.33GHz, which is significantly less than the N270 (1.6GHz) and the N280 (1.66GHz) which are found in most of the netbooks in the market today. This also means it consumes less power, which inturn can enhance the battery life. But that’s not an excuse for a slow speed, so slow that the sample felt slow with even the basic stuffs like browsing net with multiple tabs open.

The exterior is shiny, glossy black, which will attract your fingerprints. Unlike this the keyboard is matte, where most of your fingers will be. The 11.6” display does not look much larger than the 10.1” panels, but that does not stop Asus from squeezing in a higher resolution. But unlike the similar resolution in a 10” panel, this one accommodates it pretty well, and the texts and icon don’t feel too small. It is also pretty lightweight at about 3 pounds only.

On the sides of the unit you’ll find 3 USB ports, an Ethernet jack, a VGA port, mic and headphone jacks, an SDCH/MMC card slot, the power connector, a lock port and a single vent – as reviewed by Liliputing. The bottom has all the vents in the world, also the memory slots which are pretty easy to access to upgrade the RAM. There are some extra utilities like the Super Hybrid engine (for overclocking the CPU to boost performance or underclocking it to extend battery life), and the Advanced BIOS settings.

Although the 1101HA doesnot have full HD display support, it can decode a few formats because of the presence of the integrated Intel GMA 500 graphics card. This doesnot apply to the Web flash videos and they are a pain while full-screen – as reports Liliputing.

One surprise is the battery life, which Liliputing reports gives over 10hrs, which is awesome by any standards. The 6 cell, 5600mAh, 63Whr battery protrudes a little bit, but not irritatingly.

The keyboard is comfortable but not bigger than that in a 10” netbook. The trackpad is situated below the keyboard, with the single wide mousebutton below it. The keyboard uses the Fn function a lot due to the restriction of space to put all the keys. The touchpad also supports multitouch gestures including pinching to zoom and “chiral motion” which lets you scroll by swirling your finger in a circular motion.

The bottom line is that this piece is for someone who is extremely active and wants an extraordinary battery life, along with sharper pictures and videos, but can forgo the performance. Although you can overclock the processor up to 1.73GHz, but stay clear off it if you are a power-user.

It comes for less than $400.