Asus Eee PC 1008HA

Full Review

One of the latest in Asus' Eee PC range, the Eee PC 1008HA, is high on style and design. It is also the slimmest Eee PC out there. It looks better than the Eee PC 1000HE, it gives the Asus Eee PC S101H (Asus' premium netbook) a serious run for its money. The Eee PC 1008HA comes in two colors, black and white. Our review model had an all-black finish, overflowing with gloss on all sides: the screen top, bezel, palmrest, even the underside of the chassis.

The whole unit is less than an inch thick with the screen lid closed, and it is a featherweight at 1.1-kg. Another thing we liked on the Eee PC 1008HA is every port on the chassis has a cover flap on it, so that it doesn't attract any dust when not in use. It has a three-cell battery which is neatly tucked away at the back, and there's no battery bulge to speak of. It's a beautifully designed netbook.

The Eee PC 1008HA is based on the improved, power-efficient Intel Atom N280 1.6-GHz processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 160GB (5400rpm) hard drive (with an additional 10GB of online storage), and a 10.1-inch glossy screen. There's a 1.3-megapixel webcam recessed at the centre of the top screen bezel. There are just two USB ports, a mini-USB port, Wi-Fi 802.11n wireless connectivity, Gigabit ethernet, and a headphone jack and microphone port.

Below the chassis, there's a VGA dongle placed conveniently in the likeness of a battery compartment. The VGA dongle connects to the netbook via a mini-USB. The keyboard on the 1008HA bears a close resemblance to the Acer Aspire One 150's, and it is similarly tightly packed and comfortable for typing. There's no key flex to write home about either. The touchpad is spruced up with a perforated pattern of tiny circular indentations, and it helps improve feedback while using it. The touchpad also has an added feature of multi-touch which lets you zoom in to and out of images and long web pages.

Watching high-definition videos at 720p wasn't really smooth on the 1008HA. But it passed every other of its normal netbook functions with flying colors, whether it involved listening to music, browsing the Web with a multitude of browser tabs open, transferring files over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi: it was all good. It didn't surprise us with its performance, frankly, with a WorldBench score of 33—perfectly in line with other netbooks we've reviewed in the past. The three-cell battery lasted a respectable 3 hours on Battery Eater's battery test, at full screen brightness and high performance preset. Easily expect to squeeze out over four and a half hours of battery life on a more conservative battery plan.

Bottom Line

At Rs. 29,620, the Eee PC 1008HA is the costliest Eee PC ever, no doubt. But if you want a sleek, good looking netbook which does everything it should, you should definitely check the 1008HA out.