ASUS Eee PC 1005HA

ASUS Eee PC 1005HA

Published November 03, 2009 at 11:49:13 PM, by Daniel Shain

The ASUS Eee PC 1005HA is ASUS’ update to their popular Eee PC 1000HA, and continues the tradition of excellent netbooks. The 10.1-inch unit weighs in at only 2.8lbs, and at its thinnest point is well under an inch thick. The keyboard was solid, the trackpad multitouch, and the overall design glossy and stylish. Most important of all though, the battery life was impressive, even when compared against other netbooks. The internals are what you’d expect, with an Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz, 160GB HDD, and 1GB RAM. Are there enough features to justify picking it over netbooks with similar performance? Read on to find out.

Case Look and Feel

The 1005HA features ASUS’ “seashell” design, which includes a fairly sharp taper from the wider back of the netbook to the thinner front. The entire machine is covered front and back in a bright gloss, with only the matte keys of the keyboard spared the shiny expense. It does look nice, but is exceptionally prone to fingerprints. The lid is all black except for a silver “Eee” emblazoned in the center and towards the top. The front of the display features the glossy screen surrounded by a somewhat thick black frame, the top of which houses the integrated webcam. The display is secured to the rest of the unit with two thick hinges, which extend along with the display below the keyboard to save space.



The glossless keyboard begins about an inch in from the top edge, and sits flush with the sides of the case. The top of the touchpad is flush to the keyboard and the touchpad buttons are flush to the bottom of the case, a clear space saving gesture. The overall look is very smooth and all the status lights are subtle. The feel is solid as a whole, although the back of the netbook is a little heavier as a result of the taper.

Size & Weight

The Eee PC 1005HA is not the smallest or thinnest netbook on the market, but fares well on both counts. The weight of 2.8lbs felt very light and easy to carry. I actually carried the 1005HA in its protective sleeve inside the power cord pocket (instead of the power cord) of my standard 15” laptop case earlier today, and barely noticed the difference, even from a strictly visual perspective. With dimensions of 10.3 x 7 x 1.4 inches, but measuring only .89” at its thinnest point, there is little bulkiness to worry about.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard on the 1005HA is 92% of full sized, with a slightly “older fashioned” keyboard with keys spaced close together. Personally, while I like the way chiclets look and often how they type as well, I enjoyed the larger keys immensely while typing. I am always leery of a learning curve on some netbook keyboards (not to mention some full laptop keyboards), where the first few days are spent making numerous typos, but I was able to start typing normally on the 1005HA within the first day. ASUS does a great job of keeping important keys such as shift, tab and backspace relatively close to full size. The up and down arrow keys are a little shrunken and house pg up/pg dn functions, but the left and right keys and home/end functions are generously sized, which made me happy since I use those keys quite frequently while typing. There is some flex in the keyboard, especially on the left side, and it’s a little noisy, but overall it is quite usable, and after typing this entire review on it I have no major complaints.



The touchpad is dimpled to differentiate it from the glossy wristrest. Use was comfortable, and there was no sticking feeling after extended use. There is a single button beneath it which pivots right or left, and the button was responsive and quiet.

Display Quality

The resolution of 1024x600 is standard for netbooks nowadays, but unimpressive, as many netbooks are starting to come with a higher 1366x768 resolution. That said, the LED backlit display was sufficiently bright and had good horizontal viewing angles, although the vertical angles were not as good. The glossy display works well indoors where the full brightness can almost completely mask the glare in a well lit room – outdoors, the task is much harder, so be prepared for reflections.

Connectivity

The connectivity options on the EeePC 1005HA are fairly standard for the category, with the brightest spots being a full sized VGA port (which some other EeePCs lack), and 802.11n WiFi/Bluetooth. There are 3 USB ports and a card reader, but nothing else of significant note like HDMI. Unsurprisingly, there is no optical drive either. Since the back of the keyboard is thicker but the rear of the base is blocked by the hinged display, most of the ports are crowded towards the back of the unit.



The left side features an exhaust, followed by a single USB port, VGA, and the small power jack.







The right side features a card reader in the front (the only thing that will fit), audio in/out, 2 more USB ports and Ethernet.







The tapered front features no ports, although it is home to the stereo speakers and most of the status lights. The back , as mentioned above, is completely obstructed by the display, and there are no ports.

Upgrading

One nice thing that the 1005HA has is removable parts, which make basic upgrades a cinch. The battery is removable, enabling one to downgrade to a lighter batter or possibly upgrade to a higher powered 3rd party battery. There is also an easily removed panel for RAM upgrades if you want to surpass the standard 1GB. Aside from that, netbook hardware is pretty much netbook hardware.

Features

The Eee PC 1005HA has a number of features that serve to make life a little easier for the user. Some of these are standard functions built into the keyboard, such as brightness up and down, volume up and down or mute, Wifi on/off and suspend. A more interesting feature built into the keyboard is ASUS’ “Super Hybrid Engine,” which allows one to quickly overclock/underclock the computer for the sake of battery life or performance. There is also a dedicated button for disabling the trackpad.



ASUS has also built some interesting software into the 1005HA. Most notable is the “Eee Docking software,” which is a somewhat customizable dock built into the top of the screen (though location is adjustable). It has 4 sections, the Eee Arena , Eee Sharing, Eee Xperience and Eee Tools. Each of these has quick links to a number of applications, including Data sync for syncing with another computer, Eee Storage to access your free 10GB online storage, music/media applications, and parental controls. All these and a few other programs are easily accessible from the start menu as well.

Performance

If there is one thing that netbook owners need to realize, it’s that they are not as powerful as fully fledged laptops, sporting low profile CPUs and integrated graphics. As such, we expected this netbook to stack up about as well as other netbooks, which is to say it would be competent at performing basic tasks, but wouldn’t impress us at all in any category except battery life. As you’ll see below, we weren’t surprised, except perhaps in that battery life impressed us even more than we thought it would. For a detailed explanation of our testing methods, see here: (http://www.laptoplogic.com/about/test/)

Windows Vista Experience Score

We were unable to test this score for obvious reasons – this computer runs Windows XP.



PCMark Vantage

HP Pavilion HDX16 3320

Sony VAIO FW270j 3235

Samsung R610 3152

Dell Studio 1537 2845

ASUS Eee PC 1005HA 1585

The ASUS Eee PC drags well behind the competition here – but it’s not really a fair fight, as the 1005HA is the only netbook in the bunch. In some ways, this score is almost impressive, considering some of those notebooks have more than twice the firepower the 1005HA does.



Battery Performance – General Use (min)

ASUS Eee PC 1005HA 370

Dell Studio 1537 357

Sony VAIO FW270j 181

Samsung R610 157

HP Pavilion HDX16 156

Now the tables have turned, as the 1005HA, the only netbook in the bunch, far outpaces the competition. The only thing close is the Dell Studio 1537, which uses a 9-cell battery to achieve that score.

Battery Eater

The above test was in the course of regular use, in which WiFi was on and the computer was in average use. Battery Eater is a program with 2 more standardized tests, a “classic” test which renders a 3D image continuously for the duration of battery life, and a “reader” test which does the same but only displaying text. These numbers can effectively be used to determine a “minimum” and “maximum” lifespan for a battery.



Classic Result: 415 minutes

Real-Life Usage

In use, the 1005HA ran relatively cool, though this was in large part the result of a none too quiet fan. Still, on the whole, the netbook was everything one could expect. It is small and light enough to bring anywhere, and boasts an exceptional battery life so that you can leave the power cord at home, especially given the removable battery (though it should be noted the power cord is pleasantly small, so it wouldn’t be too bad to take it if needed to). The design is sleek and the keyboard is very usable. It is a netbook, so high end performance tasks being out of the question was no surprise, and it ran day to day text editing and web browsing without problems. It’s important to note that I am a tab junkie, and even with (gulp) 13 tabs open in FireFox 3.5, including one playing music, there is little to no slowdown (though I don’t recommend leaving that many tabs open for long).

Conclusion

In a netbook, the hardware specs aren’t going to dazzle you, and the 1005HA’s Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz CPU, 1GB RAM and 160GB HDD are just about par for the course. What you want from a netbook is portability, and as far as size and weight the 2.8lb Eee PC 1005HA gives you that as well as most other netbooks do. As far as battery life, the 1005HA delivers an impressively lifespan, lasting over 6 hours in active use. Thanks to the removable battery, purchasing a single extra battery can guarantee all day use to even the most extreme power users. The keyboard and trackpad leave little to complain about, and a set of nice software features makes general use that much easier. As a netbook, it won’t do for real gamers or people who want to watch HD video, and anyone reading this who thinks it will be as good as a regular laptop at either of those tasks is in store for disappointment. But for anyone looking to do text editing and web browsing on a highly portable computer with excellent battery life, the 1005HA would be a great choice. And at the new $299 price point, you won’t find many computers offering higher value. If you’re in the market for a new netbook, we recommend the ASUS Eee PC 1005HA.

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Technical Specifications

• Processor: Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz
• Mamory: 1GB DDR2 SODIMM
• Harddrive: 160GB HDD
• OS: Windows XP
• Weight: 2.8lbs
• Screen: 10.1 inches
• Screen resolution: 1024x600
• Battery Life: 415