The portable laptops from Asus stable keep flying out thick and fast. And here comes the latest — the Asus Eee PC 1005HA. At this rate, it will soon be impossible to tell one Asus model from another. These days, it’s more about a little tinkering here and there and voila! There you have another Asus machine at the shelf store.

So what are the differences, if there are any, in the Asus Eee PC 1005HA? To begin with, it’s a thicker and slightly cheaper version of the Eee PC 1008HA. The new edition costs you $50 less than the 1008HA. It’s slightly rotund near the waist and at 1.4 inch, is not exactly sleek. The VGA port is hitched to the side and there are no flaps covering the ports. There is nothing out of the ordinary with an ethernet hookup, three USB ports, an SD Card reader, and headphone and microphone jacks. So this is not really for the fashion-conscious geeks who fall for the looks.

The inside does not really offer anything extraordinary from the present default configuration of portable laptop machines. But let’s just line up the usual suspects for self satisfaction: an Intel Atom N280 CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, Bluetooth and 802.11n Wi-Fi. The performance is standard and anyway, it was never quite meant to set the hearts racing. The basic office programmes and internet requirements have been adequately addressed.

But the biggest change comes in the form of the six-cell battery a sure bet at guaranting a much longer battery life. If critical reviews are anything to go by, the machine has a back-up of nearly eight hours, almost catching up with Toshiba’s NB205-310 which reportedly has a 10 hour battery span.

The keyboard seems slightly larger than required and at 92% of full size, there was potential for improvement. But undoubtedly the layout is good and the buttons are user-friendly. The touchpad comes with its touch of innovation like the 1008 and has tiny bumps which actually help to have a good grip on the mouse pad unlike the flat metal strips in other machines where the finger often slips.

There is nothing much to write home about the 10.1 inch screen which seems fine given the requirements. Asus actually had a chance here to improve the display quality and cut out the colour pop outs when the screen is tilted at a right angle. The overtly glossy screen is bit harsh on the eyes when the surrounding illumination is high.

Finally, there are goodies in the form of a software suite that breaks down into an Asus download store and there’s also good news in the form of access to a free 10GB of online storage.