ASUS New Netbook Eee PC 1008HA Seashell Features

ASUS newest and possibly most attractive netbook is latest the Eee PC 1008HA Seashell — around here as of late, and the slim model\’s gotten plenty of solid reviews in the UK, where it\’s already available.

Nobody can talk about the \’shell without praising its handsome exterior, and with good reason, too: even if you\’re not a fan of a curvy, thinned-out approach, it is most definitely refreshing to see a netbook that doesn\’t just look like every other netbook.

The Seashell boasts pretty standard netbook specs — 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and Intel GMA 950 graphics.

Its processor 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 is slightly better than the N270 crammed into most, and to that end, the 1008HA does, in our experience, boot about 20 seconds faster than the Mini 1000 — 34 and 54 seconds respectively.

It has just two USB ports, a standard headphone jack, and mini VGA port (which seems to have been chosen over VGA for aesthetic reasons only), all hidden behind those tiny flaps.

To accommodate the lack of VGA port, there\’s a mini VGA to VGA adapter included in the box, and a dedicated magnetic slot to house it on the bottom side of the chassis, a unique solution to what could potentially be an annoying situation, though ultimately we\’d still prefer a full VGA port.

Other than that, the Seashell boasts 802.11 B/G/N Wi-Fi, 10/100Mbps Ethernet, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, and a high-density, non-removable, lithium polymer battery that supposedly gets up to 6 hours of life.