t e c h i e - t a l k s ::: technology at its best

So we’ve heard about the Intel’s revolutionary ATOM chip which consumes less than a few watts of power. Coupled that with a mobile device, it gives you the ability to have a longer battery life without much sacrifice with regards to performance. Asus saw the opportunity and used the Atom chip on its ever-popular Eee-PC.

The ASUS Eee-PC 901 will be running the Atom Z520 processor, overclocked at 1.33Ghz and consuming power at about 2W peak. The average power of this processor is said to be at 220mW. Compared to the 19W of a Conroe celeron processor, the Atom chip has lots of power saving potential. Thus, this will allow the Eee-PC 901 to have a longer battery life as compared to its predecessor. To date, no credible benchmarks have been made to show how much longer the Eee-PC 901 can last.

The Windows XP version of the Eee-PC 901 will retail at USD$649 while the Linux version will retail at USD $549. Skeptics have shown displeasure with regards to the steeper pricing of the newer Eee-PC as one could get a better-horsepower laptop with $649. However, one must take note that the Eee-PC is not aimed at replacing laptops but it is more geared towards the ultra-portable laptop market. At the current price, it beats all contenders with its lower-pricing and general aesthetics.

However, it’s still unknown whether the increased price due to the inclusion of the Atom processor is worth it. In my opinion, the Atom processor is best used in mobile phones and other portable media players so as to fully utilize the power of the Atom processor, i.e an x86 compatible processor with minimum power consumption. The predecessors of the 901 has in itself an x86 compatible processor. It is yet to be shown how much battery life could be saved on the Eee-PC. Thus, only time will tell.