Asus EEEPC 1008HA Mac Book Air Available For £350 In The UK

Asus's answer to Apple's Macbook Air is set to debut in the next few weeks in the UK for around £350 as it becomes available for pre-order from a number of e-tailers.

The EEE PC 1008HA Sea Shell costs only £350 from Laptopsdirect for the white Mac-like version and £380 at Amazon.com in its Midnight blue colour scheme. Both Laptopsdirect and Amazon.com do not say explicitly when the item will be dispatched although Amazon says "within 1 to 2 months". Dabs lists the blue model for £368 with an ETA in mid May 2009.

The 1.1Kg netbook is just 1-inch thin and sculpted in the shape of a seashell. Its 10-inch screen displays only 1024 x 600 pixel though. Like the overwhelming number of Netbooks, comes with an Intel Mobile Atom N280 CPU running at 1.66GHz, 1GB RAM and a 160GB hard disk drive. Asus provides with a 10GB online free storage. There's no optical drive but you do get a 1.3-megapixel webcam and a one year global warranty.

As for most netbooks, the Asus EEE PC 1008HA has Bluetooth compatibility, 802.11n WiFi but no built-in 3G and is powered by Microsoft's Windows XP Home. The slim profile means that there's only two USB 2.0 ports, an analogue audio and a VGA port.

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