Asus Eee PC 1008HA 'Seashell' netbook

Battery Life

One feature of the Eee PC 1008HA’s design that is sure to divide opinion – most certainly amongst the hardcore netbook community – is the fact that, like the MacBook Air, the Seashell’s battery is non-removable and is embedded inside the body. This means there’s no chance of improving your range by carrying spare batteries, which will be a concern for anyone who regularly travels long distances.

A more telling issue though is that the battery can’t be replaced should it suffer serious performance degradation. This is a problem, even if it doesn’t crop up for another few years – we’ve asked Asus what its battery replacement policy is because, at the moment, it's unclear.

What’s more, a first glance at the battery’s specifications will raise more eyebrows – Asus claims six hours from the 1008HA’s puny three-cell 2,900mAh battery, which frankly sounds rather optimistic. Generally speaking, three cell batteries don’t fare particularly well when they come under scrutiny but we were pleasantly surprised after running a couple of battery life tests.


First of all, we ran a ‘best case scenario’ test with wireless disabled and the screen brightness turned right down. The 1008HA was left to its own devices until the battery drained and the result wasn’t far off Asus’ claimed six hours – it lasted for just under five hours, 40 minutes in ‘high performance’ mode, so there may be a little extra time to eke out of the battery by using the power saving mode. That said, no user is ever likely to see that kind of battery life out of the Seashell though because the netbook isn’t doing a great deal.

Our second test was focused more on the Eee PC 1008HA’s real world battery life in the same ‘high performance’ mode used in the first test. This involves testing the product with screen brightness set to 50 percent and a 3G dongle plugged in while browsing the Internet, word processing and answering emails via a webmail interface. It’s a test we’ve conducted on many other notebooks and netbooks and it’s one that really works the battery pretty hard because browsing the ‘net on 3G is generally more battery-intensive than when using wireless networking.

Again, the result was pretty good – the machine squeezed the last drips of power out of the battery after three hours, 50 minutes of runtime. With wireless networking, you can expect well over four hours from the Eee PC 1008HA.

Conclusions

The Eee PC 1008HA is a breath of fresh air in a market that has lacked a bit of spice recently. While there are a few design flaws, many are forgivable. The 1008HA looks stunning and it’s sure to turn a few heads when you pull it out of your laptop bag on the train. It’s also incredibly satisfying to use – both the keyboard and trackpad are excellent and a cut above most other netbooks we’ve tested. The keyboard is at last on a par with the Samsung NC10’s when it comes to quality.

Some of the flaws, though, aren’t quite as forgivable. While battery life was surprisingly good considering the battery is a puny three cell rated to only 2,900mAh, the fact that it’s non-removable and there’s no clear policy on replacements is a concern – when the battery has decided to give up the ghost after a few years of service, your sleek and stylish 1008HA will be confined to door wedge duties.

Our biggest disappointment though is the glossy finish which seems to cover itself in finger prints even if you just look at it for a split second too long – and that’s without even touching it. OK, we’re being a little pedantic here and it’s not so much of an issue with the white model, but we can’t help but feel that while the glossy finish looks great in photographs, it quickly starts to look cheap and tacky after a few hours of use.

Despite that though, we’re still attracted to the Eee PC 1008HA and it’s definitely worth considering. Unfortunately though, its looks do come at a cost. Our current favourite in this market, Samsung’s brilliant NC10, is available for just over £300 (inc. VAT) and the Eee PC 1008HA is currently selling for closer to £370. That prevents us from giving the 1008HA a solid recommendation, but if you don’t mind paying over the odds for its svelte figure then the Eee PC 1008HA is a tempter.

• Build Quality
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• 9/10

• Features
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• -
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• 8/10

• Ease of Use
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• 9/10

• Performance
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• 8/10

• Value
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• 7/10

• Overall
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• 8/10

Score Guide