ASUS Eee PC 1005HAB appears: 1008HA with removable battery?

Details of a new ASUS Eee PC ostensibly – in terms of specifications, at least – identical to the 1008HA "Shell" have emerged, only offering a user-accessible 6-cell battery.  The ASUS Eee PC 1005HAB is listed at the company's support site, and has already begun to appear for pre-order at some retailers; however there are no photos of the Intel Atom N280 netbook.

What we do know is that the 1005HAB has a 10-inch 1024 x 600 display, 1GB of DDR2 memory (2GB max), 160GB of storage, WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth, and will retail for €349 ($473).  It's said to begin shipping in around 5-6 weeks.

Of course, the impact of having a removable battery – in this case a 6-cell 2,200mAh pack is an increase in thickness.  Where the 1008HA is just 25.7mm thick, the 1005HAB is listed as being 35.5mm thick and weighing 1.4kg compared to the 1.1kg "Seashell".

[via EEE-PC.de]