The Eee PC 1008HA is the first member of the burgeoning "Seashell" line, a family that already includes this machine and the to-be-released 1005HA. The 1008HA was originally unveiled in March at the CeBIT conference in Germany, but the ultra-slim laptop has just now started filtering out to the US market.

Hardware wise, there's both a lot and a little that differentiates this from the pack of other netbooks out there. As for design, it's easy to see that few alternatives can measure up, outside of maybe MSI's X-Slim X340. The 1008HE is slimmer and more beautiful in almost every way than the competition. Internally, however, you'll notice most of the same specifications you see on practically every other netbook to emerge within the past six months. Thus, we don't really anticipate its performance being "off the charts."