Asus Eee PC Seashell 1015PEM review

Seashell netbook is neat, but has a few niggles

The Asus Eee PC Seashell 1015PEM netbook is a mix of style and cutting-edge technology, let down by the installed Windows 7 Starter operating system and insufficient system memory.

The problems are fixable at extra cost. It’s worth upgrading the memory by an extra 1GB and installing a better version of Windows 7 – Professional or Ultimate would be best.

Die-hard Linux users may wish to install one of the free distributions available, such as Ubuntu's Linux netbook edition, or Red Hat's latest Fedora 14 operating system.

Once done, this is a neat netbook that is more than suitable for mobile users.

Our 1015PEM model was mostly white, with a black gloss bezel framing the 10.1in display. The keys, surround and trackpad were matte white. It also comes in other colours.

The 1015PEM measures 263x180x8-30mm, weighs in at 1.2kg, and runs an Intel Atom N550 dual-core processor running at 1.5GHz.

Our review model had 1GB of DDR2 (666MHz) system memory in a single So-DIMM (small outline dual inline memory module). The system can be expanded up to a maximum of 2GB, and it's easy to pluck out the So-DIMM and replace with a 2GB So-DIMM.

USB 3.0 ports make an appearance on an Asus netbook for the first time, and the difference in performance over the aging USB 2.0 standard is apparent.

With USB 3.0 storage devices we recorded data transfer rates 10 times those of USB 2.0 storage devices.

The hard disk is a Seagate 160GB SATA II ST9160314AS model, partitioned into operating system, data, and recovery partitions. PassMark's performance test software version 7.0 gave a sequential read performance of 58.9MB/s while the sequential write speed test gave 55.9MB/s – pretty decent for a netbook.

There's also an extra 500GB of online storage available free for a year, if you sign up to the Asus WebStorage service.

The clean, bright, 10.1in display is driven by an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150, which shares the 256MB of system memory with the processor. The display has a default resolution of 1024 x 600, but a higher resolution of 1152 x 864 can be set.

The keyboard is decent for a netbook and we didn’t find it sticky, although, as with most netbooks, the key size is small, and people with large fingers might find it frustrating to use.

There is a web camera on the top centre screen bezel that can be driven by Cyberlink's YouCam application.

Ports
The 1015PEM has three USB 3.0 ports, VGA and LAN adapters, an SD card slot, in/out audio jacks, and a lock slot for securing the netbook. Network connections include Bluetooth 3.0, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and an Atheros AR8131 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller.

The only features on the system body besides the keyboard and the trackpad are the system On/Off button, system LEDs, and two small switches to cycle through the processor performance options – super performance, high performance, power-saving – and the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity options, giving the 1015PEM a clean uncluttered feel.

The BIOS options are accessible by pressing F2 on boot up, and the boot device options can be edited after pressing F10.

Battery life
The battery is a six-cell 5.2Ah Li-ion battery giving six hours of power during light use – that is, with most power saving options turned off, the hard disks powered down and the screen dimmed.

The battery gave five hours of power exactly when tested using Battery Eater's laptop battery benchmark on the heavy use setting.

Recharging the system took about three hours 20 minutes, when the system was being used at the same time.

The installed Asus USB Charge+ program can also be used to charge mobile devices that have USB adaptors for power delivery.

One feature we didn't like was the connection to the netbook on the AC power block, which is very small and looks like it could break easily.

Applications
The 1015PEM’s application set is pretty minimal, which keeps the upfront cost down, although there are plenty of free open-source applications to fill the void.

The OpenOffice and LibreOffice productivity suites can be used as substitutes for the Microsoft Office Starter version included, and VLC’s media player and eRightSoft’s Super media file conversion program are both top-notch free media applications.

System Recovery
Pressing F9 during boot-up starts the system recovery, which takes around 47 minutes. One good feature of the Asus version of system recovery is that it does not format the Asus Data Disk partition, so any files located there are preserved.

Conclusion
A neat stylish netbook, let down by the Windows Starter OS, and the standard 1GB of system memory installed on most netbooks. Fast hard disk and USB 3.0 connectivity give this netbook a significant performance boost.