Posts by red death

Asus speaks out on UK Eee PC 900 battery issue

@ Steve

The 900 has been on sale for over 3 weeks now and there are no official specs. Most retailers just quote what Asus produced for the 70x series Eee ie 2.8-3.5 hours battery life. Is it not reasonable to expect the new flagship model to have at least the same battery as previous top models? The 900 is more power hungry (bigger screen and faster operating processor) than the 8GB 701 yet comes with a smaller battery...

Plus some reviewers were supplied with a 5800 battery when the retail units were coming with 4400 batteries - that is dishonest or a mistake.

But the real point is about how can a laptop that is designed as a UMPC be expected to function with such a poor battery and why should we in the UK just roll over when it seems that everyone else is either getting a replacement battery or the 5800 from the start?

C'mon people let's not be side-tracked by the red herring of the warranty issue.

This is really about useability not specs or warranties.

Sounds like they have spun you or us a line

The initial response from Asus was that the suppliers were at fault for ordering the wrong model and they offered a choice of batteries. That was soon de-bunked by any discussion with retailers who confirmed that they were given no choice.

The latest from Asus has been that Asus UK is reviewing the situation...

The real issue here is that the 4400 mAh battery for a UMPC is about as much use as a chocolate fireguard. Even with the screen dimmed and without Wifi activated the battery life is pretty pathetic - for word processing I think the longest I have had is 2 hours and frequently less. With Wifi on and doing anything more intensive then word processing it is even more limited.

No offence to you Tony but when many of us bought our 900s your review was not available and we had to go on reviews from abroad which all had the 5800 mAh battery.