Asus Eee PC 1005HA Seashell review

Asus’s Eee PC 1005HA Seashell looks very similar to the 1008HA Seashell, but is noticeably thicker since it has a larger, user-replaceable battery.

This extra bulk is certainly worth putting up with, though, as the 1005HA lasted nearly nine-and-a-half hours in our battery test – one of the longest times we’ve seen from any netbook or laptop. The curvy case looks just as sleek as the 1008HA, but the lid feels cheap and creaky. Unlike the 1008HA, all the ports are easily accessible and standard-sized.

The 1005HA’s 10.1in screen has a glossy finish, making colours look bright and vivid. Reflections from overhead light sources can be distracting, but the 1005HA’s screen was less reflective than the other glossy displays here. Viewing angles are reasonably wide, but the screen doesn’t tilt back very far, which could make it awkward to use in cramped quarters, such as on a train.

The keyboard is large, with only the up and down cursor keys smaller than usual. Unfortunately, keys were overly springy and didn’t give enough feedback when pressed. The touchpad has an odd but pleasantly ribbed texture. It also recognises multitouch gestures, such as pinching your fingers to zoom in and out of images. It wasn’t very responsive, though, sometimes taking a second or two to recognise our finger movements. The pivoting mouse button is large but felt spongy.

A 1.66GHz Atom N280 processor provides the processing power, along with 1GB of RAM. It wasn’t much faster than the 1.6GHz N270-equipped netbooks in our Windows benchmarks, which is hardly surprising considering it has only an extra 60MHz to play with. It had no trouble playing standard-definition DivX and iPlayer videos, though.

We were impressed by the 1005HA’s bright screen and long battery life, but it’s let down by its poor keyboard and unresponsive touchpad. It’s fine for typing the occasional email, but if you’re working on longer documents, it’s worth paying a little more for Samsung’s N120.