ASUS Eee PC 1005HA hands-on and impressions
By Laura June 
posted Jun 23rd 2009 9:00AM
posted Jun 23rd 2009 9:00AM
ASUS has certainly changed the netbook game a bit with its Eee PC Seashell line, aesthetically-speaking, anyway. Slimmed down and sleek, the Seashell's one of the handsomest netbooks we've seen. When we reviewed the 1008HA just a few weeks back, we had just a few minor issues with it, but overall, found it to boast a solid user experience. The Eee PC Seashell 1005HA is nearly identical to its elder brother, but presents some small changes for the better without sacrificing these now famous looks. Read on for our full impressions and hands-on photo gallery.
Specifications
The 10.1-inch 1005HA boasts an Intel Atom N280 CPU, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a 160GB, 2.5-inch SATA II HDD, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, and a 6-cell battery. As we mentioned earlier, it's nearly identical to the previously reviewed 1008HA -- so what is different here? Well, ASUS has canned the recessed ports and their accompanying flip doors in favor of more traditional, regular old ports. We have to say, this is a definite step up. Though the aesthetics change a bit, you don't sacrifice much in the way of looks for a big gain in function. Likewise with the VGA situation. On the 1008HA, ASUS creatively tucked the video port on the bottom of the chassis -- which, in practice wasn't really the best placement. For the 1005HA, it's on the left side, in a more convenient location (though we'd prefer output options beyond VGA). Other than that, you're still looking at 802.11 B/G/N Wi-Fi, 10/100Mbps Ethernet, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR. While the first Seashell we looked at boasted a 3-cell lithium polymer integrated (read: non-removable) battery. The 1005HA, on the other hand, sports a 6-cell, totally swappable battery -- likely to be a big plus for some.
Performance
Performance
The 1005HA, unsurprisingly performs nearly identically to the 1008HA. The keyboard is really comfy and easy to type on, the dimpled trackpad is one that we really, really enjoy using -- with a tactile chrome rocker and scrolling via dragging your finger along the right side of the pad which works very well. It boots pretty snappily, and then there's the battery. The addition of the 6-cell will surely be a positive for many users. It adds some noticeable heft to the machine, and also makes it rest a bit differently on the lap, but we got a full eight to eight and a half hours of decently heavy usage out of it -- pretty darn close to the 10-hour advertised life.
Overall, the 1005HA is a nice -- and understandable -- addition to the Seashell lineup. The few changes that have been made are good ones, and users who want the additional battery life (and to dispense with the port covers) probably won't mind the added weight (from 2.2 to 2.8 pounds). At $389, the 1005HA is a bit less cash than the 1008HA -- which runs around $430 -- as well. Check out the gallery for unboxing and hands-on photos, plus some comparison shots of the two models.
i wonder if i should wait for the 1005 or buy the 1008 today?
Honestly? if you can stand to wait, definitly get the 1005
it's not as sleek, but what it lacks in style it more than makes up for in versatility (9 hour battery? count me in!)
Honestly? if you can stand to wait, definitly get the 1005
it's not as sleek, but what it lacks in style it more than makes up for in versatility (9 hour battery? count me in!)
Does anyone else hear that echo?
Honestly? if you can stand to wait, definitly get the 1005
it's not as sleek, but...
...wait.
Does the white one have a bigger screen and keyboard? (last picture)
@OneLove: Nope, they're exactly the same -- just the perspective of that photo!
If it wasn't for that damn glossy screen finish I would buy into the 1005HA-H. I wish asus would read feedback on here and understand we want to use these things outdoors without putting our hands over the display to read anything.
Why do they always steal their ideas of apple stupid n00bs they have no life..
wha'?
apple has a 10 inch netbook?
@Brian
They did come out with the almost identical design.
Yeah, stupid Asus...I remember when they stole their motherboard manufacturing ideas from Apple.
Stupid ASSUS...no life.
NEWBES!!!
@nvidiagtx
Design is not the same as actual product. If Apple actually had the product out there on the market, there may be some validity in your comment. As it stand, we have the 1005, that's it. I do want to see Apples netbook though. Cost, specs, etc. I am curious.
@SlaterGS
Macbook air..
The Air is NOT a netbook.
@DBrim
No shit.. I was talking about the design and aesthetics...
Yes, yes, and Apple "stole" their design cues from Fujitsu (http://xkcd.com/533/). Companies see a good idea and work to apply and improve it. It's not theft, it's evolution.
@louis
That is total bullshit. And secondly asus copied apple because they don't wan't to spend any money on innovation or design instead they steal it.
I believe it was a joke, so to you, I say, "lol".
I didn't think they copied the air.................until I saw the right side of the laptop. I mean, come on, they even stole thelittle flip down door that hides the usb.
@nvidiagtx
Kinda like how Apple stole the user interface of the iPod from Creative? Or the chiclet style keys from Sony? Or Safari 4's interface from Chrome? Or how Apple stole basic idea of the dock in OS X from Next OS/Linux?
I could go on.
Apple has an affordable computing solution?!
Pfft!
Frankly, I'd rather wait for intel next gen netbook platform, Pine Tail. The power/weight savings and possibly better performance make it worth the wait...
And also when that will have a 3qi screen... awesomest deal on a netbook. That's when I will jump for one.
i'm waiting for Ion… then i'll be sufficiently interested
I agree
10 hour battery? That's pretty darned impressive. I don't travel much, but I definitely found out what it was like to only have a regular battery in my one-year old white MacBook. Working in Open Office was okay. Forget about booting up Parallels and running Windows. That effectively halves your battery life right there.
Why does this article not have the eee tag?
I would suggest the 1008HA. It is sleeker and lighter and really looks and feels cool. I love mine in white !
1008 = Girl Friend
1005 = Wife
1010 = Mistress
1012 = Escort Girl
1014 = The most convenient $20 hummer from a Hooker in Chinatown!!!
Yay more netbooks in a flooded market where the specs are all the same and buying one is no different to buying another brands model.
1008 = Girl Friend
1005 = Wife
Nice.
That's right.. with the 1008, you've gotta the toss the salad if you want access to the VaGinAl port.
Honestly, we have to keep waiting~~ buy this 1005 today, who knows if tomorrow another HA series will release??
Technology is improving everyday, So, very hard to tell. Can't wait to see Idea Pad S12 though.
Tend to agree. Might as well wait for Windows 7 to ship, and Pineview updates to trickle out. Probably looking at something late this year or early next. Lets see where we are then. Intel looks to be finally getting their act together on windows drivers for the GMA 500, Windows 7 should have better power management and better support for SSDs, Pineview supports 2GB of RAM unlike the Z-series Atoms, but still has the improved graphics and power consumption. Etc.
Time to sit on your hands.
if its not ION i dont care...design doesnt mean anything to me right now.. I want HDMI out ION and decent battery life..
Everything we have now is just boring.
BRING ON ION LENOVO!
This reads like the 1000HE, but thinner. I have the 1000HE and the "multi touch" drag two fingers anywhere on the trackpad to scroll feature is waaaay better than dragging up and down the right side, at least to my Apple spoiled fingertips.
Agreed. I bought a 1000HE a few months ago, and when the 1005HA was announced, I was disappointed that I didn't wait until I saw the lack of multi-touch. I had to deal with scroll bars on the touchpad for my last couple of laptops, and I will never do that again. Also, the rest of the two- and three-finger gestures are indispensable at this point.
Why would Asus change the behaviour of the trackpad this way? Is there no multitouch in sight for the 1005?
The 1005 HA I believe does support multi touch on their touchpad. Best Buy appears to have a watered down version 1005HAB for $299, waterdown, meaning no blue tooth, and they advertise only 4.5 hrs, so I'm guessing it only has the 3 cell battery. Processor is the N270. I have to see what a 6 cell battery goes for and blue tooth, might make sense to wait until the more standard units are avaliable to consumers that include the 6 cell 10 hr battery and blue tooth with the N280 processor.
New gateway just came out. AMD athlon processor...
I'm over there.
This is definitely better than Sony's upgrade of the Vaio P Series. I'm very interested in the 1005HA, but I wonder if I should wait and see what the competition comes out with...the price and design definitely is what I'm looking for in a netbook.
I realize why a lot of people like the swappable lithium Ion battery's as opposed to the fixed lithium polymer, I really do. But come-on Engadget, there are quite a few of us out here with perfectly legitimate reasons for preferring the lithium polymer. The least you could do is recognize some of the issues in your hands on and let us know how significant they are.
Namely, how much thicker does the lithium-ion battery make the 1005ha, compared to the 1008ha and does the battery protrude. Not everyone here likes a 1-inch tumor growing out of the bottom of their otherwise sleek netbook. Really you didn't even have to specifically address the issue in your hands on, just take the photo of the one angle that you missed, a side-on shot of both machines. It wouldn't hurt to let us know how much heavier those extra 3 cells and lower energy density of lithium-ion make the 1005ha either.
"users who want the additional battery life (and to dispense with the port covers) probably won't mind the added weight (from 2.2 to 2.8 pounds)"
It appears pretty obvious in the photos (in particular, pics 1, 17, 18 and 23) that the 1005 is thicker towards the hinge, but the battery doesn't protrude at all.
From the looks of it, removing the recessed ports probably made it easier for ASUS to make a larger removable battery without sacrificing the lines of the machine.
I had the same questions. those crappy angled comparison photos are awful. these are so similar that the ONLY real difference is the size difference, so i dont understand why a larger portion of reviews arent focused on this.
after lots of digging, i came across this comparison photo which erases all of my second thoughts on buying the 1008ha: http://www.newgadgets.de/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/eee-pc-1005ha-vs-eee-pc-1008ha-1.jpg
taken from here: http://www.newgadgets.de/2590/asus-pressekonferenz-live/
i just dont see how some people argue on this..
- waiting on better specs on a netbook? really? because you want play crysis or render autocad on a 10 inch screen?
netbooks are meant for just checking your email, and quick browses of the web.. do you really need any more spec
bumps for those uses? ion might bring HDMI into the mix, but why would you put netbook actions onto a bigger screen?
- stealing apples idea? asus practically invented the netbook category with this very line (Eee PC). years before current gen
'books' (heck even last gen) were out.
and ive never seen asus with an eee pc over 450 out of the gate. even the first eee pc was less than 400.
- same design cues? really?? theres only so much you can do with a screen, keyboard, and trackpad.
the people arguing this can be also seen arguing that car manufacturers are using same design cues as well.
i.e. tires, lights, windshield.
haha, not flaming anyone but i dont see anyones points to their arguments. much more amusing to me than informative.
@bzaclassic. It's all about portability my friend. I have no qualms about gaming,watching movies and such on a screen this size. Heck, I do it now on mine with a 8.9 inch screen. However, I don't want these options on a phone. To me, trying to do this on a phone is the too small/what's the point factor.
i just dont see how some people argue on this..
- waiting on better specs on a netbook? really? because you want play crysis or render autocad on a 10 inch screen?
netbooks are meant for just checking your email, and quick browses of the web.. do you really need any more spec
bumps for those uses? ion might bring HDMI into the mix, but why would you put netbook actions onto a bigger screen?
- stealing apples idea? asus practically invented the netbook category with this very line (Eee PC). years before current gen
'books' (heck even last gen) were out.
and ive never seen asus with an eee pc over 450 out of the gate. even the first eee pc was less than 400.
- same design cues? really?? theres only so much you can do with a screen, keyboard, and trackpad.
the people arguing this can be also seen arguing that car manufacturers are using same design cues as well.
i.e. tires, lights, windshield.
haha, not flaming anyone but i dont see anyones points to their arguments. much more amusing to me than informative.
I agree with the design point.
They stole the design from the Macbook Air...really?.....i mean....really? Thats the dumbest thing ive heard for quite awhile.
As for specs, i couldnt care less about Ion but netbooks could do with a bump in CPU speed/performance. Either that or Adobe needs to seriously optimize their flash code, lazy bastards.
Engadget arent hatin; on Asus like they used to, which i think is sad. Asus deserve it for flooding the market with model after model, confusing their own customers and for trying to spin off a new (shit) computer brand name...Eee...they are Asus machines not Eees.
Im happily typing away on my Mini 9. Its a shame the 9" netbooks got the flick. Size what what it was all about, and now they are getting bigger for no reason. My Mini9 is better than the Mini10 which is sad. The 10 has soldered ram, 3 cell battery, poor trackpad and less screen resolution yet Dell want an extra $100 for it (in Aus anyway).
Don't but it. The Atom processor is not strong enough. Wait for the Atom Dual coming out late next year. Needs Bluetooth enumerator.
http://jamesmsingleton.com
How fast exactly do you need a netbook to be in order surf the internet, edit office documents and check your email?
If you need a faster CPU then you should be looking at a LAPTOP and not a netbook.
Actually, I've run Propellorheads Reason 4.0 on my 1000HA and the screen real estate was okay, and the processor handled the task without too much drama for simple instrumentation (a few synths, a drum machine, a sampler.) I certainly wouldn't mind the combination of netbook portability while being able to fully realize a song, especially since I now have a USB condenser mic, meaning that whereever I go, I could record a whole song including vocals.
Dude, I don't know how many times people have to post this--the dual core Atoms are NOT targetted at netbooks. Their power profile is only appropriate for nettops.
Anybody who is waiting for dual core Atom's or Pineviews to show up in netbooks will be waiting a VERY long time.
how fast is the N280 CPU?
ever hear of google?
Slow. It's basically the same speed as the N270 (ok minutely faster) but uses a bit less electricity.
For better performance, the significant improvements are later in the next update (which I think has hyperthreading or out-of-order execution or *something* that should make it faster per-clock) and then the dual-core models.
For better battery life, the significant improvement is the ARM Cortex A9-based system-on-chips which should come out in cheaper Linux netbooks. (Right now there are some Cortex A8 and even ARM11 based netbooks, but while cheap and power-efficient, these make an Atom look like a speed demon.)
Both the new Intel and ARM-based chips are, I believe, expected in netbooks next year and there won't be any big improvements until then. (Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.)
does the the 1005HA still have the easy access RAM door on the bottom?
I've heard that some of the seashell line will be drop this, meaning removal of the entire bottom (similar to the wind..)
The 1008HA must be completely opened (including voiding your warranty) in order to change the the RAM.
The 1005HA on the other hand brings back a little door with just one screw on the backside, so RAM exchange is as simple as can be.
I'm waiting for the Lenovo S12 /w ion. I have a 900HA that I upgraded and I'm really enjoying it, so I was hoping Asus was going to release an ion version netbook (sans stiff left/right click track pad buttons).
I actually pre-ordered the 1005HA, but I can't decide if I should cancel it. I have a Dell D420 with a 12" 1200x800 display, 1.2Ghz Core Duo ULV processor, 2 GB Ram, and 80GB 4200rmp hard drive. The Dell runs Windows 7 like a champ, but something makes me want the EEE...
Any thoughts from the gallery here?
I'd say it depends on how often you carry your Dell around, and if having a smaller and lighter (though not too much lighter) machine will make life easier.
Portability is probably the biggest factor, as (IIRC) the D420 has pretty good battery life in it's own right, and performance/storage differences are more or less negligible from an end user point of view.
I will say this. Ever since I started using a netbook instead of a laptop, I find I actually take it to places where I wouldn't bring a larger machine, which has come in handy more than once.
That and the ASUS looks much nicer than the Dell. :)
Nice.
Why no pics of the bottom? Don't you guys (and gals) always put pics of the bottom?
I would buy this in one second if the ethernet were 10/100 and 1000...
the 1000HE weighs 3.2 I thought.
VGA out the monitor jack?
really? That's it? Not even XGA? or WXGA?
Really dumbs it down IMHO and puts a damper on the whole "home use" aspect of it.
It's a VGA port, that says nothing about the output resolution. Although I can guarantee you that it'll output more than 640x480.
The pictures Engadget should have included (side on, bottom/back edge):
http://www.slashgear.com/asus-eee-pc-1005ha-size-comparison-with-1008ha-seashell-2644803/
In the looks department it puts my 1000HE to shame :(
Looks as if you will be able to pre-order one of these with a 6 cell high capacity battery and N280 processor for $389
http://promos.asus.com/US/eeepc1005/preorder.html
Technical support drivers and info:
http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=Eee%20PC%201005HAB
Best Buy has it for $299 ($100 less than the toshiba and includes wireless N and multitouch). Although, it doesn't come with blue tooth and doesn't appear to include the extended 6 cell battery since Best Buy advertises only 4.5 hrs, I'm guessing it's the 3 cell battery. The model Best Buy sells is 1005HAB which I can't find specs anywhere so far. The 1005HA does have a model that includes blue tooth and extended battery version along with the faster N280 vs. the Best Buy's N270 processor, although I hear there really isn't much of a performance increase.
That looks just like the MSI wind, with a few small differences...hmm.
The Macbook Air is totally similar to this in regards to being made out of plastic, the screen size, the price point, and the fact that their both netbooks. /sarcasm
Amazing keyboard, plus those Home\End\PgUp\PgDn really are in a sweet and intuitive place and the right-shift problem fixed completely! Now where do I sign to get this with a matte screen?
Just got my 1005HA. Nice unit - check out the unboxing vid. ;-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xyS3mZkVAc
Agreed Add Nvidia ION chipset w HDMI out and im totally sold. I know its a bit over kill but it would be a great BTO option and to liven up the mundane netbook specs. Ill stick with my 1000H till then. But overall i am impreseed with the styling. still waiting on the U80V....
Why do ppl think ION with HDMI out is overkill/not necessary for a netbook? With this relatively small addition, your netbook suddenly becomes a 1080P portable media player/streamer.
Anyone know if the memory is upgradeable? On my the Lenovo S10, for example, you can remove the standard 512mb stick and replace it with a 1gb or 2gb stick. Makes running Win 7 practical.
Netbooks: K.I.S.S. (as in Keep It Simple & Stupid).
It's just to keep connected and make some notes.
Fine with 9in screen and small overall size. 10 is MAX.
Keep under 1kg. All matte finish.
And under 300$.
I have 14" Lenovo T400 for everything else, CAD and Graphics included.... and Flight Simulator. Plus 19" screen and full keyboard at my homeoffice.
Excellent deals out there with MSI Wind U100 or Toshiba UB100...
1005HA is nice machine - get rid off all that gloss! and I may, I WILL consider.
Yop, I like that Lenovo S10 too; neet the way thay memory can be accessed, how this work on the 1005HA? The S10-2 is on my list - but again, gosh! - all that gloss!!!! :-(
As for final decision, I will wait for Windows 7 - and then decide which way to go.
I like that Lenovo S10 too; nice way of access to the memory. The S10-2 is on my list, but again, ALL THAT GLOSS... :-(
yeah.. its really nice.. i am using the same one.. i am getting 9.5 hrs actually.. and the performance is marvelous..