Asus EEE 904HG – Netbook with embedded 3G

A few weeks ago I reviewed the HP Mini 1000 netbook in the article called “HP Mini 1000 review and benchmark with HP Mini 110“. One of the features I missed was embedded 3G, on this highly portable device.

In this article I will cover the Asus EEE 904HG -a netbook from the Asus EEE 9-series- which features embedded 3G. I will shortly address the functional design and specifications and look at some of the unique highlights of this device.

Specifications

The Asus EEE 904HG netbook features the same specifications as the Asus EEE 904HA, except for the embedded 3G module. On the Asus EEE family website you can read the following specification overview of the Asus EEE 904HA:

Operating System: Genuine Microsoft Windows® XP Home;

Display:  8.9″LED Backlight;

Intel CPU & Chipset:  Intel Atom N270;

Memory:  1GB (DDR2);

Wireless Data Network WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11b/g;

Hybrid Storage:  160GB HDD and additional 10GB Eee Storage [1]

Webcam: 1.3M Pixel

Audio: Build-in stereo speaker and Digital Array Mic

Battery:  4-Cell Li-polymer 5600 mAh battery (+/- 5.9 hr) [2]

Dimensions:  266mm(W) x 191.2mm(D) x 28.5mm~ 38mm(H)

Weight:  1.4 kg

Julian Prokaza, Editor of the Brittish Mobile Computer Magazine, has conducted a review of first itteration of the Asus EEE 904 back in July 2008. And despite the review might seem to be outdated, there are some excellent benchmark graphs included which compare various Asus EEE models on the market at that point in time. It’s onlya two page review, so it won’t take much time to read through it.

Furthermore I have highlighted two cool features, of which the Asus EEE Storage will be coverd in more detail later in this article. Overall it looks like a really nice machine, with all the connectivity options a mobile professional needs.

 

Asus EEE 904HG Product Design

While the first section with the specification list, provides a good overview of features and technical options of the Asus EEE 904HG, the current section will have a detailed look at the product design.

The frontside of the Asus EEE 904HG is very clean, and you can only see the two buttons of the touchpad, and right next to the buttons the four activity LEDs for showing  e.g. the status of Wi-Fi, harddisk activity and the charging status.  Furthermore on the Asus EEE 904HG netbook there is no locking mechnism to keep the screen locked (like on the Lenovo X60 tablet I own).

On the right side you can see (from left to right) the embedded multimedia card reader, two USB 2.0 ports, a VGA port, and the connector for the charching adapter. I must complement Asus for including a standard VGA port, to connect the Asus EEE 904HG with an external screen or beamer. HP used a kind of non-standard proprietary connector, for which an adapter cable was needed.

In this side perspective you can also see very well that the 4-cell Li-Polymer 5600 mAh battery tilts the Asus EEE 904HG, which improves an ergonomic typing experience. Furthermore you can see that the hinge for rotating the screen is massive, while I also like the power connector to be on the right side of the device. The latter is probably a use of habbit, since this is also the case on the Lenovo X60 tablet.

The backside of the Asus EEE 904HG is clean, and doesn’t feature any connectors or ports. This view however shows very well the hinge to rotate the screen, and the massive 5600 mAh battery which is slided into the device between the “legs” on the left and right. Later in this article a picture is shown, in which the battery is removed from the Asus EEE 904HG.

Without any connectors or ports there is nothing more to say about the backside of the Asus EEE 904HG.

The picture below shows the left side of the Asus EEE 904HG. The left side features (from left to right) a kensington lock port, and ethernet port, a USB 2.0 port, a grill for the airflow, and finally  two 3.5 mmm jacks: one for the headphones and one for the microphone. With the connectors both on the left- and right side the Asus EEE 904HG is quite balanced connector wise, and also both sides feature almost an equal number of connectors.

While the HP Mini 1000 only offered a headphone out/Microphone-in combo jack, the Asus EEE 904HG offers two separate audiojacks. For example when I use Skype I hook up a Plantronics .Audio 90 Analog Headset, which features the standard two separate audio jacks. Also in this case Asus is simply following the market standards, which might not be very innovative but very helpful in some specific situations.

In all the pictures above all the different connectors and ports on the different sides of the Asus EEE 904HG are covered, and in the upcoming part of the product design it’s time to open the Asus EEE 904HG and have a look at the screen and keyboard. Let start with looking at the upper part in the picture below and cover both the screen and the webcam.

The 8.9″ screen has a resolution of 1024 x 600 (the same as on the HP Mini 1000), which could be adjusted with the Asus Tray Utility. Furthermore I could use this utility to quickly switch on/off bluetooth, Wi-Fi and the 1.3 megapixel webcam. It is a utility that makes daily work more efficient.

Clinton Fitch, Windows Mobile MVP and Editor in Chief of Clinton Fitch.com, concluded in his HP Mini 110 review:

“I highly recommend that if you are considering a Netbook to not compromise and get a 10″ screen over an 8″ one.  Your eyes will thank you later.”

The picture below shows the 8.9″ screen with a black brushed aluminium border around it, which both fit into the casing of the Asus EEE 1000-series. And despite that I personally didn’t have any problems reading from the 8.9″ screen, I can agree with Clinton Fitch if the difference in pricepoint is reasonable.

Another argument to opt for a 10.1″ screen (from the Asus EEE 1000-series) is because you get rid of the black brushed aluminium border, which is a different material than the Asus EEE casing of the 1000-series. The use of the same materials, in order to make it feel more like one piece, might be a consideration for the next itteration of  the Asus EEE 900-series.

Furthermore you can see that in the casing, left and right below the EEE PC logo, there are two microphones for use with Skype (if you don’t have a headset with you). 

The picture below gives an overview of the keyboard and the touchpad. I must admit that the keyboard design in terms of look, feel and keypress comes very close to the keyboard on my primary notebook the Lenovo X60 tablet. However there is one thing that I had problems with, which is the postition and size of the right shift-key. Unfortunately I really had problems to adjust to this implementation, since both the HP Mini 1000  and the Lenovo X60 tablet have a different set-up.

Furthermore there is one general netbook-keyboard problem, if you use the “Home”-, “End”-, “PgUp”- and “PgDn”-keys very often on your notebook or desktop. On a netbook these functions are only available via a key-combination. In most cases this is Fn + Arrow-key, and again I would like to emphasize that this isn’t something Asus EEE specific, but a general implemantation among all available netbooks on the market today.  

Just above the keyboard you notice the silver strip, which embeds five buttons. On the right you see the power button to turn the Asus EEE 904HG on and off, while on the left there are four shortcut-keys as well. The two buttons on the left can be used to turn off the screen, or to change the screen resolution (same as via the Asus EEE Tray Utility). While the two shortcut-keys on the right can be mapped to an application of choice. By default one of the buttons is mapped to the Super Hybrid Engine, while the other one is mapped to Skype.

Finally we have to discuss the touchpad of the Asus EEE 904HG, and I will compare it with the HP Mini 1000. At first the buttons and border around the touchpad are from brushed aluminium in a silver color, which gives the Asus EEE 904HG some nice business accents. You notice that the mouse buttons are at the below the touchpad, and not on the left and right side of the touchpad like on the HP Mini 1000 or the Acer Aspire One A150. The press moment of the mouse keys is a little heavy and you hear a clear, loud click, while furthermore there is also no scroll bar on the right part of the touchpad. However these are just some details, while overall the touchpad is very usable.

The bottom of the Asus EEE 904HG shows five sets of slits for cooling and aire in-flow to keep the Intel Atom processor and memory nice and cool.  Furthermore there is one large lid, probably to access the RAM memory of the Asus EEE 904HG. Finally you can see in the picture below that the massive 5600 mAh battery is (quick) released from the Asus EEE 904HG, and the screwdriver certainly isn’t needed due to a clever locking and release mechanism.

Furthermore you can see a simcard-slot in the left corner where the battery fits into the Asus EEE 904HG. It is very easy to place or change the simcard due to a mechanism we already know from (micro)sd-card-slots. In this case it works exactly the same, however your Asus EEE 904HG is now ready for a cellular data connection.

 

 

Highlights of unique Asus EEE software

While the hardware design and specifications are covered in the previous sections, I would like to zoom in on some software highlights as well. Asus has included some cool applications in addition to the already mentioned Asus EEE Tray Utility.  In this section the Asus 3G connection manager, Asus EEE Storage service and the Asus Super Hybrid Engine will be extensively covered.

Asus 3G connection manager 

The first Asus application that will be covered is the Asus 3G connection manager, very essential if the key feature of the Asus EEE 904HG is embedded 3G. On the first screenshot the “About Info” of the Asus 3G connection manager is shown.

Remarkable in this screenshot is the brand and type of the internal 3G modem: Huawei – EM770 HSUPA. I have a good experience with my Huawei E160 HSDPA dongle, which I always carry with me in my Crumpler Beancounter XL Messengerbag. Furthermore you see the version number of the Asus 3G connection manager, and the Asus EEE 904HG operating system information.

In the second screenshot above you can see that the Asus 3G connection manager not only consists of an application window, but there is also a tray-icon as well. The interface of the Asus 3G connection manager consists of three large buttons: (1) connect/disconnect, (2) SMS, (3) Contacts, and furthermore a pulldown “Menu” on th right (just below the Asus logo). In the large rectangular part of the interface you see the operator, the connection time, the network strength, send and received bytes and speeds, and finally the number of received sms-messages (value is 0 in the screenshot).

Furthermore you see the yellow tray icon of the Asus 3G connection manager. The color of the tray icon depends on the network strength: green – with good coverage, yellow – with moderate coverage and red – with bad or no coverage. If you right click on the tray icon a helpful quick menu is opened, and via this menu you can access the same options as via the application window of the Asus 3G connection manager.

The second button of the Asus 3G connection manager interface is the “SMS” button, and as shown in the screenshot above you can compose and sent an SMS Message directly from your Asus EEE 904HG netbook. This can be very convenient for a mobile professional.

However you would need to cleverly think about a duo-simcard solution if it is a problem to have two separate mobile numbers (one for your smartphone and one for your Asus EEE 904HG netbook). You can write a text message extremely fast on a full sized fully QWERTY keyboard on a netbook like the Asus EEE 904HG.

The third button of the Asus 3G connection manager interface is the “Contacts” button, which opens a window to manage the contacts on your simcard and device. The contact manager has an easy to use two window interface, so you can’t go wrong adding new contacts or managing your current contacts.

The screenshot below shows that there are also some more advanced features and options as well. For example there are logfiles, with filters per connection, or like the screenshot shows a modem dialogue (which shows the modem “activity”).

 

 

Asus EEE Storage

The second application that caught my attention is the Asus EEE Storage application / service. On the Asus EEE Storage product page you can read the following description of EEE Storage:

“Eee Storage is an Internet Storage service for you to store files online. You can access your files anywhere through the Internet, and you can also share your data, like photos or documents, with friends. In addition, Eee Storage provides data backup and online virus scanning features to better protect your precious data.”

The first screenshot above shows that the Asus EEE Storage application is very well integrated with Windows Explorer, and in the screenshot of the account settings below you can see that Asus EEE Storage offers an impressive 10 GB online storage.

I personally use Microsoft Live Mesh, which offers 5 GB of online storage and can be accessed from a Windows Phone as well. The latter is not the case with Asus EEE Storage, since there is no mobile client available (yet).

While the main goal of course is to store your files online, you can see in the screenshot below that there is also an option to share documents and files as well.  The directories with the green “Live Messenger” icon in it are three sharing folders.

Furthermore this screenshot proves how good the Asus EEE Storage application is integrated with Windows Explorer, and I hope that in the future this cloud storage will be available for other clients as well, like Gladinet Cloud Desktop.

“Eee Storage service is complimentary for the first 18 months. Please register account information for 6 months extension (depend on country)”

  

Super Hybrid Engine, setting the clockspeed

On the Asus EEE 904 product page you can read the following description of the Super Hybrid Engine:

“Super Hybrid Engine offers a choice of performance and power consumption modes for easy adjustments according to various needs. ASUS exclusive Super Hybrid Engine for longer battery lifespan of 5.9 hours (depending on configurations and personal usage).” 

It is very clever from Asus to implement this application, which sets different device parameters in order to have a certain performance or battery life. The screenshot above show that the different modes can easily be switched via right clicking the tray icon. Another option is to use the shortcut key in the silver strip above the keyboard.

 

Concluding thoughts

The review above is pretty extensive, so therefore I will try to wrap-up and summarize my conclusions in a compact way. At first I would like to compliment Asus for creating and shaping -to some extent- the netbook market, and the design of the Asus EEE 904HG certainly shows why Asus deserves this compliment.

However I would like to make some small remarks and put forward some thoughts. I already addressed that I personally would prefer a 10.1″ screen both for technical and optical reasons. Furthermore I could not get used to the position and size of the right shift-key.

The Asus EEE 904HG features a high capacity 5600 mAh battery, which should be able to provide up to 5.9 hours of batterylife. In practice the batterylife wason average about 3.0 hours and therefore I didn’t feel the added value of the massive battery if compared with the HP Mini 1000.  However it might be caused that I reviewed a demo-unit, which could be a little different than the final production build.

Overall the Asus EEE has a solid and well balanced design, both in terms of hardware and functional design as well in terms of innovative software and services. Foremost users and mobile professionals are able to work anytime and from everywhere, with all connectivity options onboard. The embedded 3G is certainly a valuable addition I would like to see in other netbooks as well.

If shipped at an interesting pricepoint, this will really be a device to be adopted quickly in the mass market, however I personally prefer the sleek more compact design of the HP Mini 1000 I currently own.