The 1008HA looks great, but a pity that Asus don’t offer a SSD version (32GB would be more than enough)…

I will still take the 1000HE. The 1008HA looks to have only 1 Mouse button, so it’s probably a rocker switch. Not a fan using them. Also the 1008HA has one less USB port, and they are inclosed behind covers. This could lead to some USB devices not fitting,

It’s nice looking, but I would take the battery life and the extra USB port over ascetics and weight any day (And I am a Mac user :p)

I’m comparing the two to make a choice…and one big thing beside the battery factor is that the 1008HA doesn’t have a normal VGA port it uses a dongle :( and the form factor isn’t enough for carrying a external dongle every time you want to connect to a external monitor or a projector. I think 1000HE is still the best choice in their price range

the vga dongle is included and it fits into the case of the 1008ha

Already saw that and bring me to start though again on the 1008ha…I just have to make sure if there is a backdoor to upgrade the ram. Anyone knows that detail?

The battery is not removable on the 1008HA and there is no back do for anything. You have to take the laptop apart to get to the harddrive, wifi card, and memory. There is a great italian website that has taken the whole laptop apart. (website is in italian and translated using google)

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fnetbookitalia.it%2Fasus-eee-pc-1008ha-guida-disassemblaggio-e-upgrade.html&sl=it&tl=en&history_state0=

@mrMafoo “It’s nice looking, but I would take the battery life and the extra USB port over ascetics and weight any day (And I am a Mac user :p)”

Then you should definitely get the seashell. Mac users (specifically Macbook Pro users) are paying an extra grand on the aesthetics.

The difficulty in upgrading the RAM was a dealbreaker for me. I would have definitely bought the 1008HA. I spoke to ASUS – basically they said that no one can upgrade the RAM including Asus. How bizarre!

The cost of a 2gb memory stick is so small that they should have just inlcuded 2gb in all the machines as standard (In my opinion).

I bought the 1000he instead, but I wanted the 1008HA. I rationalized that a half pound is not a huge difference and longer battery life was the tradeoff.

I think ASUS erred on the decision to make it essentially impossible to upgrade the RAM. Just include 2gb as standard RAM and increase the price by $15 or so. Big deal.

oops see above, sorry

Thanks for the input from all – based on this discussion, I decided to go with the 1000HE. Actually, I already bought a blue one for my daughter 2 months ago and she loves it. It’s kinda chunky, so I thought that this 2nd one (for my wife) should be the more svelte one – the 1008HA. But the tradeoffs just don’t seem to be worth it.
FWIW, I will be partitioning the drive into two chunks and setting up Deep Freeze on the C: partition as I get kind of tired fighting malware and it’s worked great for my son’s desktop, just restart and it all goes back to the way it was.
@Bob – I’d like to see the 2GB, too, but I think the under $400 price point is psychological necessity for them. What gets me is that if you configure the competitions netbooks to be similar they are much more than the Asus. And the Asus quality over the Acer is a big plus.
@mrMafoo – I agree. I’m a MacBook user, too, but my fam still is more comfortable with XP.

Re the 1000HA – If the cost of 2gb ram stick is about $25 retail, then it couldn’t add more than about $15 or so to the price. It would be hard to imagine that $15 is a pricebuster for anyone – except for a homeless person maybe.

There is no real justifiable argument to not include the 2gb Ram as standard in the 1000ha. Upgrading to 2gb (after market) involves taking the computer apart, disconnecting the keyboard from the motherboard and a few other steps that are not for the faint of heart. Sorry, this was a silly omission on Asus’s part.

Bob – the reasons behind not including 2gigs of ram stem entirely from the restrictions Microsoft put on defining netbooks. basically 1 gig is the limit to be considered anetbook and be able to sell it with XP. its not a silly omission, it is what is necessary in order to beable to sell it with windows xp, which many people want. (i know many also like linux, but more netbooks are selling with xp these days.)

Adam – Then they should have made a 2gig Linux version, which would have cost less because of the lack of a 70 euro Windows XP. I would have “arranged” my own Xp, then.

Exactly – the point is that the RAM capability (2gb) of the 1008HA will not be achieved for most people due to the upgrade difficulty. It seems that a better design could have allowed easier upgrade access to the Memory. Or, as Olaf said, offer a 2 gb Linux version. Then many, many people could “arrange” an XP system quite easily.

I did the RAM Upgrade last weekend … and got it on video too.

Here is a short writeup about the whole experience and videos at the bottom of the page –
http://whomovedmybootloader.blogspot.com/2009/06/1008ha-assassination-not-for-faint.html

Hope this helps.

i’ve 2 questions: which netbook has a better keyboard layout and can you also upgrade the memory on the 1008ha to 2gb like you can on the 1000he? i’m confused on which model to go for..