Gizmodo
According to DigiTimes, recent Hong Kong purchasers of the new Asus Eee PC 900 (it's that Eee with the bigger screen) found that their batteries weren't as nice as those given to reviewers. Speaking from experience, that sort of thing happens all the time. Real world testing is always more rigorous than reviewer testing. But in this case, consumers were not talking about battery life itself, but a straight-up battery capacity rating. Then, in a turn for the even loopier, Asus actually admitted to giving different batteries to reviewers and consumers. What??? Yeah.
Reviewers were given a 4-cell, 5800mAh battery. Consumers, on the other hand, were given a 4-cell, 4400mAh battery. Big difference. Asus claimed that the batteries given to testers were a mistake and that they'd planned to roll out the larger batteries to the public shortly. And at the moment, Asus is considering a replacement program.
With a super portable machine like the Eee PC, battery life may be the most important factor in day to day usage. Let's hope this issue gets sorted out. [digitimes]
Comments
That's pretty sketchy... hmmm has to be deliberate.
I am outraged! How about you give the me the option to just buy it with a 6 cell for a little more and we call it even?
That is pretty bad. You might as well write "asus" on a different brand and send it to the reviewer. It either IS the right product, or it ISN'T. there's no in between.
On the other hand, they came out and admitted it and are working to remedy the situation with the consumers. seems like they are trying to do the right thing, even to their own detriment.
I sort of remember Asus trying to remedy things on a couple prior occasions; they seem to be pretty open about it and I reckon that deserves quite a bit of credit. Too bad I don't remember what those occasions were, but they were here on the Giz, and blame my bad memory;-)
looks like for the other models, there are 2 upgrade batteries, 4 cell 5200 mah, and 6 cell 7800 mah
the reviewers may have been given the first level upgrade battery
not giving them a pass by any means, reviewers need to have the same stuff i do in order to be accurate
but the six cell battery isn't available yet, at least i haven't been able to find one, and i want one danmmit!!!!!
What happened to you Asus? You used to be cool.
That is brilliant. Next they should start giving them wholly different computers.
Screw-ups in the name of shadiness are still shady.
Hearing something like this really changes a consumer's perspective on a company. I understand they admitted their mistake and are trying to reconcile, but they are only doing this after being called out on it by their customers and their "response" to the error seems half hearted
I doubt it was a screw-up. More likely, deliberate intent but lets come clean and admit to a "mistake" if we're caught.
According to Godwhacker, there are options for batteries. So, why, exactly do you all expect the company to give the reviewers the lowest possible?
When reviewing cars, the reviewer get all the bells and whistles.
I'm a little confused at to why this is SUCH a big deal.
Kinda smells of the controversy with Nvidia a while back, making their driver code optimized strictly for 3dMark, but ran actual games poorly.
Next we'll have car makers giving the EPA high-efficiency engines to get their MPG rating up, while actually selling us cars that get 3 MPG.
Well cissyrene, it wouldn't have been a big deal until Asus "admitted" that it made a "mistake".
Also, the higher capacity battery is NOT an option. Asus has only said that they plan to offer it later, but only said that after this controversy arose.
If the higher capacity battery is not available to consumers in any way now, then why ship it to reviewers?
@ackthbbft: No way, this is nothing like the 3DMark scandal. That was a very deliberate attempt to make themselves look good, in a way that a consumer could never duplicate.
This product comes with an option for the same battery, so you could very easily have the same battery the reviewers have. Like cissyrene said, it's just like how care reviewers always get the heated leather seats. If you want to spend the extra, you can have it too, so why would you care?
@cissyrene:
The higher capacity battery is NOT available to consumers. Asus has only said (after this battery issue arose) that they plan to make it an option sometime in the future, so the question is: "Why ship something to reviewers that is not available to consumers?"
They've been doing this with the 701 in the UK for a little while from what I've read. It seemed at first that they were just mistakenly shipping low-capacity Surf batteries in the non-Surf Eees, but then people started getting batteries with capacities in between the two and it all started to look very dubious.
Nothing to see here, go get your panties in a bunch somewhere else...
" seems like they are trying to do the right thing, even to their own detriment."
You mean, "after they were caught", right?
Hm, I recently reviewed a UK Eee PC 900 and had the *reverse* situation.
The review model was supplied with a 4400mAh battery but Asus UK stated that the final unit would ship with a higher capacity cell -- it couldn't say which (TBC), but I guessed 5400mAh.
See for yourself at [www.mobilecomputermag.co.uk]
Until Asus comes up with final confirmation or the first Eee PC 900 is sold though, I guess it's all speculation at this point -- at least for the UK.
i wish they'd release the damn 6 cell battery already. it's been saying "coming soon" since the eee was released.
how come Sony can make a laptop battery (TZ) last 6-7 hrs ... and other manufacturers can't?
Why lie to your consumer when you can manipulate someone else into doing it for you?
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