In the past month and change,
ASUS has found time to issue not one, but
two new Seashell netbooks. Originally shown to the adoring public
at CeBIT in Germany, this fresh take on the Eee PC was a welcome change to the drab netbooks we were accustomed to falling asleep on. We managed to have a look at both the ultraslim
1008HA as well as the more business-oriented
1005HA, but now we're eager to hear your opinions on the matter. What would you do differently with the Eee PC Seashell line? Would you beef up the battery? Add a few ports? Swap in a different display or processor? We know Microsoft's
Windows XP limitations are holding PC makers back, but who says your imagination has to abide by those same guidelines? Detail your dreams in comments below.
posted Jul 17th 2009 11:13PM
Change the name to something more trustworthy.
HP, DELL, SONY, IBM, etc.
What? ASUS is a fantastic company. I would take them over anything you mentioned.
You're crazy. Or poorly informed.
Without a massive marketing campaign and a multi billion dollar, worldwide corporate presense, ASUS sounds just like ACER, sounds cheap.
Ah but Acer is number 2 now.
more trust worthy asus is a very reputable brand
Punctuation sometimes makes it easier to read things. Maybe that's just me.
ASUS is a great brand. They are my preferred brand of motherboards. They make very solid products.
The ASUS brand name is just fine. The 1008HA needs a matte screen, SSD (instead of HDD), and integrated broadband. After purchase, the RAM can be upgraded to 2GB and Windows 7 installed. Netbook nirvana...
ASUS is a well-known and respected brand in Europe.
ASUS is probably the main reason for the trend toward netbooks since the company was at the forefront of the netbook movement offering quality products at reasonable prices.
Stan Kossen, originally from California and an ASUS owner.
OH yeah, Asus totally unreliable, but how bout those brands that they THEIR COMPUTER FOR? they're just GREAT
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/04/asus_macbook_contract/
http://www.digitimes.com/systems/a20070418PD219.html
"After becoming an OEM notebook contract maker for Sony and Apple Computer, Asustek Computer is expected to land notebook orders from IBM, the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported today.Asustek and IBM are expected to soon finalize an initial order for up to several hundred thousand units a year, with deliveries starting in the second half, the report said.Sources at Asustek declined to comment on the report but are confident that the company will be able to ship about three million notebooks in 2004, according to the paper.Source: DigiTimes"
Asus stinks, but those sony and apple and IBM sure do make quality stuff :P
These "How would you change..." posts are simply stupid.
You're either not every intelligent or very missed-informed or both...
None of the companies you mentioned above makes all of their laptops. Chances are sony and apple, the brands you consider "trust worthy," are produced by Asus. If I am not mistaken, macbooks (gen5 and onwards) are both designed and made by Asus.
Asus makes the best computer and the best motherboard. Without the engineers down in Asus, we would not even get a working 486 computer. There is a reason why Intel sends their designs to Asus couple months before releasing to the rest of the manufactures.
If all you want is mass marketing, get an apple...which, by the way, might be produced by Asus.
I want my company spend money on developing their products, not on mass marketing so I can masturbate to the brand name. but i guess you are different.
To be honest, with Windows 7 so close, I don't see much reason to bother with a Windows XP netbook... but I'm sure Asus will introduce 7 as soon as they're allowed to.
I wouldn't mind a 9-inch Seashell- yes, okay, it's only one inch...
As someone who owns a Seashell, I would have to say that the size is almost perfect. The keyboard is comfortable to type on, the screen is also excellent in terms of resolution.
One more inch would make a large difference, at least to me, in terms of portability.
BUT IF I HAD TO CHANGE ONE THING:
The sleep light on the back is extremely bright, and blue, and it flashes. Feel free to call mac fanboyism but I prefer my sleep lights to pulsate, not to flash erratically and cause seizures. Also, charger is sort of hard to get out of the computer. And the charger has a light in it, which again is very bright and disturbs my dark basement lair.
It's a great machine, but there are a few kinks that could be worked on.
I agree on the Blue light - I have a 1008HA and use it at night - but I have to turn it off otherwise my whole bedroom flashes blue all night - ok so I could cover it up, but then I would forget where I put it :)
Give it a real graphics chip!
My usual distaste for the Intel GMA line aside, the GMA500 is particularily linux un-friendly.
I won't even consider a buy until that is changed.
Agreed i'm sick of intel graphics
Yeah. Make sure all the hardware has open source drivers, and make them available with Linux on.
agreed. the Sims 3 won't play on my 1008HA because the game doesn't recognize the gpu.
and how has nobody mentioned make the RAM on the 1008HA user upgradeable
I definitely think it needs its own graphics chip, not to mention an HDMI. I feel like HDMI will be everything soon enough.
change that annoying eee logo
PLEASE get rid of that dumb eee thing. use the company logo or something. Feel like i'm on a kids laptop with that dumb thing.
Die.
HP and Dell are really trustworthy, trust it to be crap and tech support that knows nothing.
Bought a brand new HP DV7 in which the wifi will not work and HP is mystified. Got fed up returned it and bought a 1008HA. It is better all the way around.
The only thing I don't care for is the glossy screen.
I saw one for the first time the other day and it personally blew away the other netbooks. Acer looks like the apple of netbooks. At least aesthetically
*asus
The 1008/1005 reminds me so much of macbook air, however, Asus's other netbooks remind me nothing of them.. and generally speaking, they are cheaper then any item that apple would sell (apart from their ipods, those are only slightly cheaper than netbooks)
Also, it would seem that asus is contracted to make most of the macbooks/mac laptops and many other brands.
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/04/asus_macbook_contract/
http://www.emsnow.com/newsarchives/archivedetails.cfm?ID=4221
http://www.digitimes.com/systems/a20070418PD219.html
And the 1005 is much fatter than the 1008, as evidenced here:
http://www.newgadgets.de/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/eee-pc-1005ha-vs-eee-pc-1008ha-1.jpg
Is it worth it to have 5 hours more of battery?
Yes, yes it is worth the 5 hours... in fact, make it fatter and give us 20 hours. More hours = more sales as evident by virtually every bar set for netbooks. In this case, size evidently doesn't matter.
Make the 6-cell battery standard, have a matte screen option, and add windows 7 when it's available.
Nailed it. Totally agree.
Agree completely! Matte screen is of the highest priority.
Yup. Add a matte finish as well. I'm sick of all the body's using shiny fingerprint magnet plastic.
The 1005HA-V has a matte screen, though it lacks bluetooth, has a .3 megapixel camera (instead of the 1.3) and doesn't come with a fancy slip case/bag-thing.
I have the 1005HA-P (which is the best of the bunch but has the glossy screen). I believe it's the model used in the engadget review.
the black is finger print crazy
Agreed. It also sucks that a regular cloth doesn't work on the darn thing. It's also my first laptop/netbook so I'm stumped at what to use for cleaning it.
spray a bit of windex on a paper towel and wipe it down.
NVIDIA ION! Good god, the switch needs to happen already.
To all netbooks too, not just Asus Eee Seashell's!
Oh, come on! The only thing the 1005HA lacks is a decent resolution!!!!!! Give it 1280x720 or anything along those lines and it's an effing perfect $350 machine!
Get rid of that terrible glossy screen. I was in search of a netbook just a couple weeks ago, and I ended up getting the 1000HE because as a student, I simply couldn't bother with a glossy screen.
- Better processor and graphics chipset (preferably ION or even snapdragon or tegra would be fine too)
- Higher resolution screen. 1024x600 is BS.
- 6 cell or even 9 cell batteries, if possible. Final objective is longer duration between recharges.
- LOWER COST. Whole point of netbooks is to be cheaper than standard notebooks. If they cost the same as full fledged notebooks at $500, it's not worth it. Keep it under $300.
Some more
- Drop the antiquated VGA port already. HDMI or even mini-display port should be fine.
- Thinner bezel around the screen.
- Faster boot time. Linux is great for this purpose.
- More options for preloaded linux distros. Mobilin and Chrome OS sound very promising for 2010, but for now, at offer mobile Ubuntu as an option against Windows 7.
Why MiniDisplayPort? I am pretty sure regular DisplayPort works just fine (unless, of course, you're Apple).
Great Idea! They'll just upgrade the most expensive components in the machine, and then charge less for it.
Why didn't they think of that?
I'm not sure if it's true but I've heard that Microsoft put pressure on ASUS to focus on a higher price point, where the higher cost of the OS is less evident.
Two words: POINTING STICK.
Seriously. I can understand why people can debate touchpads vs pointing sticks on large laptops, but on a small laptop, having a touchpad rather than a pointing stick throws away precious space while the touchpad ends up being two small to use very well.
+1
What'll you do with that extra space? Elongate the keyboard? Or just cut it off? I sure don't want a squished widescreen on something that small.
Actually IRC Asus is has plans for a release with a rotateble display and touchscreen, there's a video of it floating around the web somewhere.