Asus Eee PC 1008P Karim Rashid Edition

Full Review

The Asus Eee PC 1008P is a stylish, premium 10-inch netbook with a faux crocodile-skin styled exterior. Not just good looks, the Eee PC 1008P also offers very good battery life and mainstream netbook performance.

Design
People interested in buying a netbook that looks different from the rest are in luck--the Asus Eee PC 1008P is unlike any other netbook you've seen before. The most noteworthy style statement is the reptilian skin-like wrapping on the Eee PC 1008P--called Digi-Wave by Asus. It just looks and feels so cool! It is elegantly contoured, classy, well-crafted and doesn't look out of place one single bit on the Eee PC 1008P--props to industrial designer Karim Rashid. Like the 11.6-inch Eee PC 1101HA, the Eee PC 1008P is designed to resemble a seashell with lid closed down--and to some degree it does so successfully.

The most noteworthy style statement on the Eee PC 1008P is the reptilian skin-like wrapping, called Digi-Wave by Asus. It just looks and feels so cool!

The Eee PC 1008P is very similar to the Eee PC 1008HA in many ways. Like the 1008HA, the Eee PC 1008P is very slim--thinner than other 10-inch netbooks from Acer, HP or MSI--and light at 1.1-kg (with a thin 3-cell battery pack). The Eee PC 1008P has cover flaps on its side edges--similar to Eee PC 1008HA--within which are enclosed the various connectivity ports; not only is this in keeping with the Eee PC 1008P's overall style quotient, but the cover flaps are useful in preventing dust from entering the ports. The Eee PC 1008P's build quality is good, and it feels nice and compact in the hand.

Features
The Asus Eee PC 1008P comes with a 10.1-inch glossy LED-backlit display. It is based on Intel's Pinetrail Atom chip--the Atom N450 1.66-GHz. There's 1GB of RAM, 250GB, and Windows 7 Starter edition operating system, but only two USB ports--a minor disappointment. The Eee PC 1008P doesn't come with Gigabit Ethernet (only 10/100 Mbit LAN), but includes 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. There's a 1.3MP webcam recessed on its top screen bezel which is good enough for video chats. You also get 500GB of extended online storage to store your data on the cloud--but don't get your hopes too high if you don't have a broadband connection.

Apart from a multicard reader and audio ports, the Eee PC 1008P comes with a mini-VGA port. If you flip the Eee PC 1008P upside down, you'll notice a hidden compartment near its spine, inside which sits a mini-VGA to VGA converter--just in case you want to connect the netbook to a projector or external display. Even the battery compartment is pretty sleek and a little displaced from its traditional place near a netbook's spine hinge--you get two interchangeable 3-cell batteries with the Eee PC 1008P. Like the HP Mini 110-1106vu, the Eee PC 1008P comes with a quick-launch, stripped down OS called ExpressGate primarily to browse the Web. It also lets you make Skype calls, browse photos, engage in instant messaging, and play online games without any problems.

Performance
The Eee PC 1008P's screen is nice to read text on and watch online videos. The isolated keyboard sports tightly packed keys which don't flex and provide good feedback--typing on the Eee PC 1008P's keyboard is comfortable. Its gesture-enabled touchpad is nicely textured--this helps a lot while navigating the mouse on the screen, in terms of feedback. The single strip mouse button takes a little time getting used to, though. Audio from the Eee PC 1008P's onboard speakers isn't very great, but plug in a pair of headphones and it's as good as sound from any other netbook.

Synthetic benchmarks pegged the Asus Eee PC 1008P's performance similar to other Pinetrail netbooks we've reviewed. The Asus Eee PC 1008P's WorldBench 6 score of 33 is average. We couldn't play smooth, stutter-free 720p HD videos on the Eee PC 1008P. But we could multitask with up to three programs--browsing the Web, listening to music, and working on spreadsheets. Combined battery life of the Eee PC 1008P's two 3-cell batteries was over 5 hours in our synthetic tests--easily expected over 8 hours of browsing the Web over Wi-Fi on a conservative battery plan.

Bottom Line

The Asus Eee PC 1008P is definitely a premium looking netbook, with regular netbook performance. It also comes with two separate batteries, gesture-enabled touchpad, and pretty good battery life. At Rs. 26,990, the higher price tag is highly justified if you are in for a unique looking netbook.