ASUS Eee PC 1008HA Seashell 10.1-Inch Pearl Black Netbook - 6 Hour Battery Life Decide Now

I pre-ordered the item and got it a week ago, and its an excellent piece of machinery. Let me say that every square millimeter (except the keyboard and the lcd screen itself) of this laptop is covered in piano black finish, which might scare some people since piano black is not too scratch resistant, but Asus apparently used some scratch-resistant coating, and it works pretty well.
For those who want to upgrade the hard drive and the ram in this laptop, its not an easy task. I was able to change the single 1GB dimm to a 2GB Corsair one (only one dimm slot, so not actually dual channel memory like every other laptop on the market, but usually most netbooks are like this.). The dimm they provide is 1gb 5300 samsung ram. The 2gb is working excellent with XP. I was going to replace XP with windows 7, but everyone online states that when you boot windows 7, it just turns to a black screen, although there is an easy work-around with a .bat file, just google :-)

How to open the netbook:

In ordered to open the netbook for those who are experienced with working in desktops/laptops and want to upgrade their hdd to ssd or replace the ram, you must first take out the four screws at the bottom of the laptop. Next, on the top edge of the keyboard, you will see 4 pieces holding the keyboard into the laptop. Push down on each metal spring with a flat-tip screw driver, and pull the keyboard out from the top left corner, there are no screws attached to the keyboard. Lift the keyboard when you have the 4 top pins pushed in. The keyboard is glued to the laptop, so dont be afraid to pull hard in order to remove the keyboard when you are sure that the 4 metal pins at the top are not in the way (there is a sticker between the keyboard and the computer where the glue is, and it will most probably get ripped in some way, but its not important. You may have to use a little glue on the keyboard to put it back on when you put it back together, but I found it unecessary). Detach the keyboard from the computer by pushing the black clip on the port of the keyboard connection upwards, this will loosen the wire from the port and then you can pull the keyboard cable out of the port. You can start lifting the keyboard first and push down on each metal spring as you go from left to right as well. Next, you will see 6 black screws, two on the left, one in the middle, and three on the right, that attach the top surface metal frame to the plastic body inside. Remove these 6 screws. Now, underneath the yellow sticker that says "will void warranty if sticker is broken or removed" is another silver screw that must be removed. You must CAREFULLY remove the sticker from the laptop, I used a little rubbing alcohol to remove the sticker from one side of the screw, and reattached it later with some glue. THE STICKER IS EXTREMELY FRAGILE, BE CAREFUL (please see the link I posted *** at the bottom of this review). After you have the all 6 screws removed, remove the blue-tabbed ribbon cable on the left side by just pulling gently on it, and do the same thing with the black cable thats in between the two screws on the right side.

Now here is the tricky part, seperating the two plastic pieces of the laptop. START AT THE SD CARD SLOT: remove the plastic sd card and using a flat tip screwdriver, slowly and gently pry the two plastic panels apart, and make your way first toward the bottom of the laptop until you reach the opposite side of the sd card, then work your way up from the sd card. These tabs that hold the computer are extremely fragile, so be gently. The two panels should eventually snap off if you have worked your way around the laptop, prying it apart with a very finely tipped flat head screwdriver. When you got the two panels apart, most of the hard work is over!

THE DIMM SLOT IS LOCATED BENEATH THE HEATSINK ON THE TOP LEFT PCB. In order to remove this PCB (the heart of the PC, because it contains the ram, the atom chip, the graphics chip, the northbridge, etc) first remove the black cable thats connected to it on the bottom left. Next remove the orange ribbon cable thats attached to on the right side (just pull up on the cable, and push it back down to put it back in later) and lastly, disconnect the black cable thats on the left side of the fan. Now starting from the top left corner of the PCB (where the charge port is), just pull up. The plastic tab piece thats about 5mm to the right of the charge port is not really a tab or anything, it just pushes down on the PCB to hold it in place, so you do not have to touch this. Just pull up slowly on the board, and eventually, it should come off. NOW THERE IS STILL A BLACK CABLE TO THE LEFT OF THE USED-TO-BE ORANGE RIBBON CABLE, I would say to leave this connected because its a pain to reconnect (must be pushed in very hard). THERE IS ALSO STILL THE BATTERY CABLE THATS ATTACHED TO THE BOTTOM UNDERSIDE OF THE PCB. To disconnect, slowly lift the pcb, and disconnect the rainbow colored wire. Now just tilt the PCB vertically so that the black cable is still connected (there is also another, very thin black cable attached to the top of the PCB board, this is the antenna for the Wi-Fi, leave it attached). At this point, you can remove the hard drive that is to the right of this PCB board. Now underneath the black sticker on the bottom side of the PCB is the ram slot, lift up on the black sticker, loosen the metal clips on each side of the dimm, and the ram pops right up. put your new dimm in, push it down, and it snaps into place. NOW REASSEMBLE THE LAPTOP!


The performance on this laptop is much better than I thought it would be. I use the bluetooth in the netbook to connect to my Windows Mobile phone and I am able to connect to the internet through AT&T 3G. I get around 5.5 hrs of battery life, which is pretty good imo. The single silver plastic bar for the touchpad is a rocker, and its EXTREMELY STIFF. This is what I hated most of the laptop, but I'm assuming with time that it will get less stiff, we will have to see.

Overall, I commend Asus for making such a light and thin portable computer with this kind of speed and processing power. By using the method above, it is also possible to replace the battery with an aftermarket one, but I have no idea about those...

** If you have assembled a desktop in the past, I see no reason for you not being able to upgrade the RAM with the above help. Fiddling with the two shell pieces takes some effort if you're interested in not breaking any of the tabs, but once the top shell is separated from the bottom it is much easier than the first part of the dissection. Overall, the process took me 1/2 an hour to take apart and put back together, but your mileage will obviously vary depending on your level of expertise. If you do manage to break a tab while removing the two shells, my friends have used EPOXY in between the two pieces to stick it back together, and you cant notice a difference. For those who venture into upgrading the RAM, good luck!

*** In regard to SPANKY who posted Comment #3 on this review (and to others who would like to know about the "void warranty" sticker): google "eee void sticker" and hit the first link.

Please do your homework before you go and criticize other people's work and giving other's wrong information. Thank you.
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