Eee PC 1005HA Seashell

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http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,39030093,49302841,00.htm

Reviewed 1 July 2009

Reviewed by Dan Ackerman

We're very fond of the previous Asus Eee PC netbook, the 1008HA Seashell, which represents a radical design change from the boxy Eee PCs of the past. But its high-end price puts it out of reach for many, and its non-removable battery isn't as long-lasting as those we've seen in other Eee PCs.

The latest Eee PC, the Eee PC 1005HA Seashell, keeps the slim, tapered design, but ditches the somewhat cumbersome cover flaps on the ports and adds a more traditional six-cell battery. This means a slightly thicker and heavier system, but also one that's our current netbook battery-life leader.

UK pricing hasn't been announced yet, but we'll update this review as soon as it becomes known.

Design
The 1005HA's design is based on the slightly slimmer 1008HA model. There's a tapered front lip, but the new model lacks some of the space-saving features of the 1008HA, such as the angled Ethernet jack and hidden mini-VGA port. Rather than a potentially smaller solid-state drive, there's a standard 160GB hard drive inside.

While slightly thicker and heavier than other recent netbooks, it's still a vast improvement over the first few generations of mini laptops, which had a universally boxy, toy-like feel. Our review unit was glossy black and prone to picking up fingerprints. There's also a blue version.

The 1005HA's keyboard is one of the better ones we've seen on a netbook. A welcome feature is the full-size right shift key

The flat, wide keyboard, similar to that of the 1008HA, is among the better netbook keyboards we've used. The touchpad, demarcated by a rectangle of raised dots on the wrist rest, works well, although we found ourselves going into the touchpad settings and jacking up the default pointer speed.

A single quick-access button above the keyboard disables the touchpad -- handy if you're using an external USB mouse. Asus' different preset power profiles are accessible by hitting the 'fn' key plus the space bar. New to this model is a software suite that acts as a software dock popping out of the top of the screen. From there, you can access functions such as screen brightness presets and media players. Most netbook users we talk to are no-nonsense types who just want to surf the Web or send email, so learning the ins and outs of a proprietary menu bar system may not be high on their list of priorities.

The 10.1-inch LED-backlit display offers a 1,024x600-pixel native resolution, which is standard for a netbook, although higher-end systems are starting to add 1,366x768-pixel display options. The LED-backlit display allows the lid to be very thin, and also means it uses less power than a more traditional LCD display.

The 1005HA offers a fairly standard set of ports and connections, lacking only the ExpressCard slot we've seen on some high-end netbooks. We prefer to have our connections out in the open, rather than hidden behind hinged plastic doors, as with the 1008HA model, although we have to admit that the 1008HA's tiny, angled Ethernet jack is an impressive engineering feat.

Performance
With an Intel Atom N280 CPU, the system performs, unsurprisingly, on a par with other current netbooks, even those with the slightly slower N270. We have yet to meet an Atom-powered netbook that vastly outperforms or underperforms the pack. The basic rule of thumb is that, for basic tasks such as word processing, Web surfing and email, an Atom netbook is more than adequate, as long as you keep your expectations modest.

The real star is the system's battery life. Asus has always had some of the longest-lived netbooks, and the new 1005HA racked up an impressive 6 hours and 51 minutes in our video-playback battery-drain test -- about 30 minutes more than the previous leader, the Eee PC 1000HE, and over 2 hours more than the non-removable battery in the 1008HA.

Asus also includes its 'super hybrid engine' feature in the system. It's essentially a series of power-saving presets to further extend battery life. These are mostly power-consumption tweaks that you could perform individually, but it's handy to have them all in one place.

Conclusion
Asus' Eee PC 1005HA Seashell is a great netbook. While its performance is par for the netbook course, a great keyboard, attractive design and fantastic battery life help it to stand out from the crowd.

Additional editing by Charles Kloet