Asus Eee PC Seashell 1005P review

Last summer, when the netbook rush had soared to the point where £300 was considered a low price, Asus’ back-to-basics Eee PC 1005HA came as a breath of fresh air. Great looks were paired with accomplished all-round performance, and it was a comparative steal at the time; the intervening months have only seen it get cheaper. Now Asus has tweaked it a little and incorporated Intel’s latest netbook platform, codenamed Pine Trail, to produce the Eee PC 1005P.

The Atom is still the processor of choice, but for Pine Trail Intel has combined the CPU, graphics chip and memory controller onto a single die. The result is the 1.66GHz Atom N450 and it’s an advance that hasn’t just reduced production costs, it’s also seen the processor's TDP plummet from 11W to just seven.

The obvious knock-on effect of that is improved battery life. With the same 4400mAh battery at its rear as the 1005HA, Pine Trail’s extra efficiency allows the 1005P to last for an impressive 9hrs 31mins of light use – nearly three hours longer than its predecessor.

There's no great improvement in terms of performance, though: a score of just 0.3 in our application benchmarks puts it in the same bracket as the old Intel Atom N270 processor. And while the GMA 3150 graphics might sound vastly superior to the GMA 950 graphics they replace, they’re actually just a netbook version of the already sluggish GMA X3100 chipset. There’s still no DXVA acceleration for HD content and, unlike Nvidia’s Ion chipset, the GMA 3150 still struggles with HD video from YouTube or BBC iPlayer, and even the playback of 720p or 1080p H.264 movies.

So Pine Trail doesn't improve in all areas, but it at least has some impact under the hood. Outside, though, it's initially tough to see what's changed from the old 1005HA. The Eee PC 1005P has the same curvy chassis that belies its bargain-basement price tag, and the solid plastic construction feels reassuringly stout.