Many users were happy with many aspects of the Eee PC 701, and unhappy with other aspects, we know the perfect netbook may not exist, but there are some that are very, very close. Some fans of the 70x series replaced the keyboard with what they thought were more useful or appropriate keyboards, and some users found a way to do something else as well; replace the screen.

Probably just as many purchasers of the 70x series loved the small screen as much as there were those who hated it or found it a tad too small. Then the 90x came out with the larger screen that many argued belonged on the 70x, but a 70x with a larger screen never made it to the market. Until now.

Eeeuser forum member RandyLude92 has a long forum thread detailing how he managed to retrieve the larger screen from the 90x and maneuver it into the 70x. This involves carefully lifting the screen from the 90x, placing it into the 70x and even updating the BIOS to support the larger screen (to remove the screen size limitation, otherwise the whole screen would not be properly utilised).

So if you are feeling adventurous, give it a go, it appears to be a wonderful modification project. Warning, not recommended for the faint of heart, those still under warranty, if you have no backup plans in case anything goes wrong or those without a sense of adventure.

The tutorial (in Italian) explains how to get it all going. The first script rotates the little LCD screen and touchpad so you can actually treat the Eee PC as a book, while the second script reverses the first and sets your Eee PC back to normal.

The tutorial further goes into detail revealing how to set up CDisplay for the comic fans and Foxit Reader to respond to the trackpad.

Quite an interesting and fun way to expand on the list of great things you can already do with your Eee PC, as well as giving new life to the original Asus Eee PC 701.

UPDATE: The English translation is available here.

In essence, the kit comprises a replacement lid that allows you to turn the screen over in order to fit a touchscreen and create what is effectively a tablet PC from an Eeepc 701. In the process, the keyboard and touch pad are removed. There are openings for the loudspeakers and space for the screen controller, and USB hub / touchscreen controller (which you supply yourself, along with the touchscreen panel itself).

Head over to the thread to find out more.

Clove Technology, a UK supplier of Eee PCs and accessories, has begun offering a cheap alternative to the (as yet unseen) ASUS extended battery. These are made by the Chinese firm Cameron Sino, and are available in 4-cell 5200mAh and 6600mAh 6-cell variants.

Given the uncertainty over the ASUS UK 900 Eee PC battery upgrade offer, it seemed a good idea to revisit these batteries, and perform some comparative performance tests against the ASUS batteries that come with the 701 and 900 Eee PC variants.

Appearance.

First off, let’s consider the appearance. All the batteries here are suitable for fitting to white Eee PCs. The CS (Cameron Sino) 5200mAh battery has been sprayed with a pearlescent finish that is very close to, but not quite the same colour as, the standard ASUS Pearl White batteries. The difference is quite difficult to capture with a digital camera.

See what I mean? The CS is on the right, but this shot exaggerates the differences somewhat. In practice, you barely notice the difference; it is slightly darker in shade. The CS 6600 mAh battery is a different matter, though, as it is finished in matte white plastic, unpainted, so it is very similar to the finish of the Eee PC 700 (2G) Surf models. Fitted to the 900, it doesn’t really matter that much; all you are missing out on is a bit of pearlescent sheen.

I’ve tried to take a better shot in daylight of all three here (CS 6600mAh on the top, CS5200 bottom left, ASUS 4400 bottom right).

The CS batteries are, of course, available for the Galaxy Black Eee PCs, but I’m not able to compare their colour against a black Eee PC as I don’t have one to hand.

Update : eeeuser forum member GrahamK posted some excellent images here.

Physical dimensions and fit

The CS 5200mAh battery, as has been commented on elsewhere, is a little bit tight fitting, because it is marginally bigger in size when compared to the equivalent ASUS battery. No such problems with the larger 6600mAh CS battery, though; it seems to fit much more easily into the Eee PC’s battery slot. However, because it is a six cell battery, the manufacturers have had to make a decision as to where to put the extra two cells, and they have elected to extend the battery backwards.

There it is, sticking out by around 1cm. The other option would have been to mount the extra cells underneath the battery pack, thus raising the back of the machine. What the CS battery does, therefore, is not alter the height of the rear of the keyboard, but in return you are unable to open the screen as far as you would have done had you opted for the other design. This next picture demonstrates how far back you can push the screen, before the CS battery gets in the way.

Weight-wise there’s not much difference between the three 4-cell batteries – they all come in around 200g on my (admittedly not too accurate) kitchen scales. Understandably, the 6-Cell battery weighs an extra 75g.

Performance

Before I state how much battery life each of the batteries on test yielded, I’ll explain my testing method.

All testing was performed with a 20Gb Linux 900 upgraded to 2Gb of memory. The test comprised of fully charging the battery under test, then (from within a shell window) launching a shell script (click on the link to see it – I posted it in the UK battery thread last week) that writes a timestamp and some battery information into a file, then repeatedly touches the file with a 10 second delay. The Linux “touch” command simply updates the “last altered” timestamp on the file. Then, with the wi-fi turned on and associated with an access point, a compressed AVI file was run in the foreground using SM Player on repeat. The machine was then left alone to run down its battery (at which point it would shutdown automatically). The next time the machine was booted, the file was examined and the in-file timestamp compared with the file’s last modified timestamp (using the command “ls -l <file>”) to derive a run time duration for the battery. This was done for the ASUS 4400mAh battery (supplied with the UK 900), the ASUS 5200 mAh battery (supplied with the UK 701), the CS 5200mAh battery and the CS 6600MAh battery.

The results, then:-

• ASUS 4400mAh : 1 hr 58 minutes
• ASUS 5200mAh : 2 hrs 34 minutes
• Cameron Sino 5200mAh : 2hrs 17 minutes
• Cameron Sino 6600mAh : 4hrs 37 minutes

For some reason the 6600mAh battery is giving much better performance than might otherwise be expected, considering it only has an extra 1400mAh capacity over its smaller sibling. I re-ran the test, thinking that I’d made an error of some sort, and again it yielded 4hrs 39 minutes. Impressive.

Some other things I’ve observed whilst using the 6600 mAh battery:

• With wi-fi off, and watching uncompressed video stream files from a WD Passport LifeDrive (320Gb) USB powered hard drive, I usually manage 1hr 20 mins before getting the first low power warning with the ASUS 5200 mAh battery. With the CS 6600 mAh battery, I can do this for twice the time and still have 60% battery life.
• The CS 6600mAh battery will take around 3 hours 45 mins to recharge from flat.
• Running the standard test without wifi turned on will give you over 5 hours of usage with the 6600mAh battery.

Here’s something else that is interesting. If you divide the rated power of the battery by the number of minutes of life, you get an approximation of the average number of mAh that the life of the battery is reduced by every minute. For all the batteries under test, apart from the CS 6600mAh model, this figure is around 35mAh. The figure for the 6600mAh battery is 23.8, much lower. This is not because the Eee PC is drawing less power from the battery, it is because the battery has more capacity than is stated on its label. Working backwards from a drain of 35mAh / minute for 4 hrs 37 mins (277 minutes) gives you a theoretical capacity of 9695mAh, which is a real surprise.

Please note that I’m not asserting it really does have this capacity. We observe in the test that it is giving uenexpectedly long life, so I’ve used some simple math to try to quantify what that extra capacity might be.

A note about “jump starting”.

Some reviewers have noted that the Cameron Sino batteries suffer from the so called “Jump Starting” problem. This is where you change to a CS battery, but the machine refuses to boot up until you plug it into the mains adapter. Then, on unplugging, the battery continues as normal.

I’m pleased to say that this has not occurred once with these particular batteries.

Prices.

There are many places to get these batteries from, but most of them are overseas eBay sellers. My recommendation would be to leave them and order from a reputable UK source. Thankfully, Clove are offering them at reasonable prices (£29.38 inc. VAT for the 5200mAh variant, and £41.12 inc. VAT for the 6600mAh) and as they have a reputation for top notch after sales service you can buy with confidence.

Conclusion.

I have to recommend the Clove Technology / Cameron Sino 6600mAh battery on performance alone. Sure, it sticks out a little at the back of the machine and interferes with the screen’s normal opening angle, but it lasted much longer than I had any right to expect, and in normal use the extra bulk isn’t such a big deal. That’s why I put my money where my mouth is, and bought one.

So, with this battery, the Eee PC 900 delivers on its promise of portability. Just imagine how much more mileage you’ll get on a 701…

Final note : My thanks to Clove Technology for supplying the two Cameron Sino batteries for testing.

We’ll have to wait and see if the battery shortages play a large role with inventory of current Eee PC 70x’s– or if it causes a delay in the Eee PC 900 series.

According to this Reuters article, the Windows based Eee PC will cost (or start at?) approximately $400. ASUS expects that the Windows based devices will make up about 60% of sales as well.

“The 9-inch touch panel-equipped Eee PCs will adopt “four-wire resistive touch screen technology” adding just $15 to the manufacturing cost of the new tablet-esque gadget.”

While less precise than the five-wire garden-variety panel, the touchscreen interface is a much anticipated addition that would further add to the image of the Eee as a competitor to the recently introduced MacBook Air in the ultra-portable laptop category.

Bic Camera (a Japanese electronics store chain that makes Best Buy look like a mom and pop store) will begin to carry the Eee PC on January 25th. It appears as though they’ll be carrying them in black and white. Interestingly, they will also come with Windows XP preinstalled, instead of the default Linux distribution.

They will cost 49,800 yen, which is about $465 usd.

[Thanks, Richard!]

The real question, does it work? Of course I had to try it!

I went ahead and installed Windows XP, and followed the instructions in the second video. Low and behold, it actually works! I used it on Windows XP Home and simply ran \utilities\setup.exe from the zip file. It appears as though the driver essentially makes the screen space larger, and then scales the elements on the screen to appear as the proper resolution.

There’s a nine page thread in our forums about the driver featuring posts from LazerTag, the man behind the driver, if you’d like to read it for more information.

I have no idea if there are any possible consequences or problems that can occur with your device (or it’s warranty!) with the use of these drivers. So, use at your own risk, or keep an eye out for more information.

Also mentioned at the conference were plans to upgrade the Eee’s LCD screen with multiple sizes ranging from the current 7 ” to 8″ and 8.9″.

Windows XP will be an officially supported/shipped operating system and a commitment to worldwide availability at launch and low-entry point MSRP’s was reiterated.