When Asus released its Eee PC, praise was almost universal. People loved the device’s size, low price, and the fact it came with Linux appealed to many geeks. Consequently, the device sold rather well, and was a hit for Asus. However, the device had two major shortcomings: its small screen (7″ 800×480), and its relatively short battery life. Asus took the critcism to heart, and came up with the Asus Eee PC 900, which has a 9″ 1024×600 screen. So, what’s the verdict?El Reg rules favourably about the device in its review, stating in the conclusion that:
The Eee PC 900 is all about ease of use and portability, so it’s churlish to grumble about specifications. The little laptop ticks all the right boxes when it comes to features and performance. It’s probably not going to replace your 15in workhouse notebook, but it might well become a favoured second laptop to take with you on your travels.There’s the extra storage space, of course, but the real benefit here is the bigger screen. It’s both easier to read than the 701’s and, because of the higher resolution, able to show more. The 900 isn’t the revolution the 701 was – or, thanks to the higher price, as compelling. But with this model Asus got the form-factor down pat.
CNet is slightly less enthusiastic, but overall still recommends the device:
The Eee PC 900 is a likeable update to the Eee PC 701. We’re disappointed its keyboard is still so difficult to use, but the addition of a larger, high-resolution screen, multi-touch mouse trackpad and better storage gives it the edge over just about all of its rivals. It falls slightly short of a wholehearted recommendation due to the mooted touchscreen version and the huge likelihood that Asus will begin using newer Intel Atom CPUs, but for those who can’t wait, it’s a fantastic purchase.
TrustedReviews is also full of praise:
Asus has done a brilliant job of updating an already great product. The engineers have clearly listened to all the comments regarding the original Eee PC and attempted to put them right. The 1,024 wide screen makes the Eee PC 900 a joy to use, especially if you spend a lot of your time in a browser window. The extra memory and storage are also very welcome additions, and help make this version of the Eee PC a real alternative to a fully featured notebook.Yes the price is higher than the previous model, but I personally believe that the Eee PC 900 still represents staggering value for money. Ultimately, if you want a notebook that’s small, light and still very affordable, the Eee PC 900 should be top of your list.
BitTech.net adds a lot more nuances to the mix than the other reviews, by stating that the 900 model, while nice, doesn’t really add all that much to the 701.
The Eee PC 900 is an exciting little laptop on the surface but, when you break it down to the basics, it isn’t all that dissimilar to the original Eee PC – and that throws the whole thing into a state of confusion. What has the Eee PC 900 got going for it? Well, there’s more memory, more storage capacity and a larger screen. That’s it really and, while the trackpad is nice, it doesn’t anything fundamentally important to the Eee PC. Still, if you haven’t got an Eee and you’re in the market then this is definitely the cream of the crop right now and if you’re looking for a new ‘netbook’ then we can’t recommend the Eee PC 900 enough.
I think we can safely say that the new Asus Eee PC 900 has been released to raving reviews. I think this also stems from the fact that there really doesn’t appear to be much in the form of competition for the Eee. Personally, I see the Eee PC as the MacBook Air ‘for the people’, and ever since it initial release, I felt strangely drawn towards the little device.
Carrying a 15″ PowerBook around gets old at some point, you see.
And the verdict is… I am buying it!
I already have the 4G Surf model, upgraded to 1G RAM, running Arch Linux (SSD) and FreeBSD 7.0 (!) (SDHC). Larger screen, faster processor, a lot more disk space. If only battery capacity was larger. Can’t have it all I guess…
It looks nice, but then again so do a lot of the others. I’m going to wait until the Atom base stuff starts to come out before I get one of the little cheap laptops.
Yes, it does, but I may tell you what I miss:
1. The device has a glidepad. It would be great to have an option to buy it with a trackpoint instead. Furthermore, I miss the middle mouse button which is sooo important if you want to run your UNIX / Linux GUI stuff in an adequate manner.
http://www.cnet.co.uk/i/c/rv/e/laptops/asus/eee_pc-901/story_2.jpg
2. Is a german keyboard layout available, too? Can the “Windows” keys be removed? 🙂
http://www.trustedreviews.com/images/article/inline/7344-IMG3341s.j…
It really seems to be a nice device, worth contributing to my development hardware, especially when visiting customers – a cool portable computer to demonstrate things, for diagnostics and for inputting source code that comes to your mind when you’re not at home.
If I see it correctly, the device would be approx. 500 Euro in Germany (I didn’t check its availability in fact) – still too much money for me. But I may continue dreaming.
Shouldn’t pressing in the middle of both buttons (e.i. pressing both at the same time) do the middle button trick?
Sure, the version they’ll sell in Germany will have German keyboard layout, why wouldn’t it?
The announced price was 400 Euro. We’ll see once it’s available if demand doesn’t push the price up.
Yes and no. Pressing buttons 1 + 2 does a middle mouse click, which usually outputs the edit buffer at the current cursor position. Pressing the physical middle mouse button enables the mouse wheel function – you move the mouse in Y direction and you get a much smoother mouse wheel. Having both functionalities on buttons 1 + 2 at the same time isn’t very attractive. Just imagine a double middle mouse button click.
I’m a programmer. We usually estimate values bigger than neccessary, so we won’t run into trouble later. Regarding prices, they seem to be much cheaper than we feared. 🙂
I’d really like to get such a little helper, but still, 400 Euro is much money here in Germany. And I don’t get much money at my current job so it’s still “too expensive” – at least for me.
I’m also really waiting for such device with a Trackpoint…yes, touchpad vs. trackpoint comes down to personal preference, but:
a) even when ones preference is a touchpad, it’s harder to use the smaller it gets…which brings us to point
b) it’s perfectly suited for such size-constrained machines
Here’s hoping Lenovo will do something about it…
For the forseeable future, you’d probably be best off to pick up a refurb. x31 or x40.
Most of the big laptop makers are stubbornly refusing to sell any laptops below a certain price point (and, by extension, profit margin). It seems to be the Apple business model, where products aren’t discontinued when they become technically-obsolete – instead, products are discontinued once the profit margin falls to a certain level.
It seems to be largely a holding-action, to try to prevent laptop computers from becoming as “commoditized” as desktop PCs. I suspect it’s going to be ultimately futile – there’s obviously demand for low-cost laptops. And with companies like Asus stepping up to fill that demand, that’s going to eventually/hopefully to force Dell, Acer, HP, Lenovo, et al.
It was starting to feel as the big-name laptop makers were engaging in round-about/accidental price fixing – by way of an unwillingness to compete on price when it comes to laptops (out of fear of jeopardizing the price premium that laptops typically command).
IMO, that’s the best thing about the Eee PC: its existence will (hopefully) shake off some of the stagnation that has become the status-quo with laptops.
I’m not sure…when it comes to “spirit” of your massage, I feel that I wholehearthly agree. BUT in practise I can easily get Acer machine that’s actually cheaper than Eee…and HP/Lenovo laptops priced around the same.
Perhaps what you were saying becomes more true with a little twist: other manufacturers want ultraportables to remain a luxury item, while they DO flood market with cheap ordinary laptops.
And yeah, I could go at some point with a Thinkpad X…the thing is, while ordinary 15″ laptops are too big for my taste, Eee-style ones are too small. 12-13″ is a sweet spot for me (with 14″ borderline ok, but I’ll still have to pay ~200€ premium now that I’m in a market for new R61)
IBM Japan had a cult hit in the 90’s with the palmtop-sized PC110 with DOS/V, Micro PM GUI, and WebBoy browser. Hobbyists have installed all sorts of OS’es on it from Windows 3.1 and OS/2 to NT 4.0 and Linux and even PC/Geos. If Lenovo does a successor it just might have a bigger hit this time around.
Seriously, ever since I’ve been using a Thinkpad (bit worn-out X40), I cannot imagine anyone would want to put up with a laptop without a trackpoint-style pointing device.
But that may also be because the Thinkpads have something else going for it, i.e. the best three “mouse” buttons ever designed on laptops. No to mention the keyboard that doesn’t flex like most other crap laptop keyboards do.
If they’d put that on the Eee, that would be smart.
I know, it takes most people at least five minutes to get used to a trackpoint, that’s too much for most of use.
In the Hague there’s a store that’s going to sell it for 400 (the Linux version, Dutch warranty).
I’m thinking of getting my brother one, or the MSI wind, depending on which one of them is the first to be available with a *really* efficient chip. IMHO the goal that any tiny laptop makes should have is 24 hour battery life plus the ability to charge the battery manually if necessary (at the gym, for instance).
I mean, say you’re on a train to the south of France and you want to work for hours, then most laptops are still a joke when it comes to battery life.
It can be done, and it will be done, eventually.
Forget the trackpoint. What I want is a touchscreen (with stylus input). Like the Psion netBook. Now that was a pleasure to use!
I hate touchscreens.
But I respect you.
If you don’t mind gaps in your keyboard ;o)
Being a current eee user I like the new version. The problems I have with the current one are mostly monitor size and keyboard layout. I find I make more typos than a regular sized keyboard and the screen is too narrow to use with gmail and calendar. I would have to try out the 900’s keyboard to see if it was better. The eee is a good choice for a portable browsing, word processing machine. I bought a 4 Gig SD card and play mp3s on the machine while typing up reports. If you are looking for something that duplicates a full size laptop you will probably be disappointed. It really shines being so small and mobile.
Nothing that really stands out in a crowded field of notebooks in its price range.
Unless you count the form factor, which places it in an entirely different category than the “crowded field of notebooks” in that price range. If you want that form factor, it’s a must have. If not, then it’s not a candidate. But there are only 2 or 3 devices in it’s field.
Of course, this story was really just used as a vehicle for Tomcat to get in his usual comment about how “nondistinctive” the device in question is. Nondistinctive being Tomcat’s code word for “It comes with Linux”. Of course, he also thinks that it is silly to try to draw artificial distinctions between the eeepc and cell phones, since they are really one and the same thing. So draw your own conclusions regarding credibility. 😉
http://www.osnews.com/permalink?298605
Edited 2008-04-27 13:09 UTC
Yeah, the “this screen is way too damned small and low resolution for the amount that I paid” category. No thanks. My money is better spent on a more powerful notebook for a roughly equivalent price.
Yes, nothing is quite as predictable as Tomcat posting negative comments in an EeePC thread.
Nice to see some things don’t change, even if you come back to a web site after a few weeks’ absence. 🙂
That’s what I’m waiting for myself…
I’ll appreciate the bigger screen, no doubt–and I’m sure the extra space will come in handy on the Linux version; but it’s the Intel Atom processor that I’ve been waiting for to make my purchase and I’ve been following the ASUS Eee almost a year now. Not quite since the announcement but maybe a month or two after it is when I started to get some serious lust for the Eee…
The brain dead (non-mobile) processor was what kept me away. I’ve already been through that once with my Dell Inspiron 5100 and the last thing I wanted was to go through it again with a ultramobile. As it is the battery life on this Dell is so poor I spend most of my time on it tethered to a power cord.
Once the ASUS Eee is finally on the Intel Atom then I think we’ll all start really seeing this device show its potential.
–bornagainpenguin
I upgraded the memory on mine to one gig of RAM. On Linux I don’t notice any lag using applications like Open Office, Thunar or Audacious. The flash RAM drive no doubt contributes to a zippy feel of applications launching. You would be surprised how much gusto the little CPU puts out. CPU clock speed alone is not the only variable to look at. The architecture of the eee lends itself to quickly launching programs and quick task switching. If you tried one out you would probably agree with me.
The main advantage of Intel Atom is low power consumption, not the performance boost and that’s what bornagainpenguin was referring to. Right now Eee suffers a lot from short battery life, especially after the bump to 900MHz on its Celeron-M and bigger screen.
I’ve read somewhere that Asus cheated by sending reviewers the high capacity batteries to the reviewers while regular ones had much worse capabitilies.
buff said…
Check out miscz’s post below yours. I don’t doubt the processor on the Eee is powerful; that’s the point–I want a processor that uses less power. In this case, less is more.
miscz said…
You know…I wouldn’t be surprised if that turned out to be precisely what happened, and it’d fit the evidence quite well! I never understood how there could be such differences in reported battery use between what the ‘official‘ reviewers had to say and what ther Eeeuser forums were reporting….
–bornagainpenguin
And now a patch[1] was submitted (and applied) to the Linux kernel that will allow faster I/O. You’ll need to upgrade to 2.6.26 once it’s out, though…
[1]http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/4/20/283
“The brain dead (non-mobile) processor was what kept me away. I’ve already been through that once with my Dell Inspiron 5100”
You can hardly compare the Celeron-m in the eee to the Pentium 4s in the 5100.. we’re talking TDP of 5 watts compared to TDP of 60 to 80 watts. Those Dell 5100s were ovens!
ohbrilliance said…
I hear you, I hear you…but we’re still talking about a device saddled with a processor that won’t allow it to be the best it can be. Considering how many of those old P4 crippled laptops are still in working condition due to the strain of overheating and lack of meaningful power management… Can you blame me for being doubly cautious now, not to make the same mistake twice?
ohbrilliance said…
What do you mean were? I’m typing this on my Inspiron 5100 right now, running Hardy Heron 8.04–the display shows my heat as being 138F~ with just Firefox and Synaptic open. If I try to open anything else I’m looking at 160F~…
Still what other (non-Apple) laptop do you know of that can run Windows, Linux and OSX86 as well as this one?
–bornagainpenguin
On my Macbook 1st gen, the temperature of CPU Core 1 and 2 are hovering around 21.0ºC/69.8ºF. Enclosure bottomside is at 20.0ºC/68.0ºF. I’m sure that’s how any Core 2 Duo laptop is going to perform.
The Pentium 4 was a horrible chip for mobile use. 138ºF is hot enough to roast your nuts if you use it as a laptop for any prolonged period of time.
evangs said…
Sure, I’m glad they licked the heat issues, but what is the battery life\performance like?
I want an ASUS Eee with an Intel Atom (or even a Via or a Loongson) processor to be able to get the best battery life\performance out of it. A true mobile device.
evangs said…
LMAO You don’t have to tell me! …and those were a set of my favorite pants too… (j/k!) But yeah the Inspiron 5100 was more of a portable desktop than an actual laptop. I’m glad they’re finally making them safe for use in people’s actual laps again.
–bornagainpenguin
I get 4 hours if I’m browsing the web and editing text with the occasional compile. It’s still much better than what the Eee PC does at the moment, which is why I’m not clamoring for one.
If they sorted out the battery life to last 5+ hours, I might start to be more interested.
evangs said…
Exactly. And this is the single factor holding me back right now from buying an ASUS Eee. Once they get the Atom worked into it, then maybe I’ll geek.
evangs said…
That’s what I’m hoping the Atom will do. I’m also hoping for even better performance in that area with the WiFi turned off, and looking forward to seeing what the Linux community will be able to do in terms of performance. Someone above mentioned there’s already been some patches submitted to the Linux kernel which should fine tune hard disk performance, and I’m looking forward to more of the same.
–bornagainpenguin
You can get a Via ULV one (of sorts) now…
http://www.everex.com/products/cloudbook/cloudbook.htm
http://www.everex.com/products/cloudbook_max/cloudbook_max.htm
I’ve actually got the basic 1200 Cloudbook at home, trying a multitude of Linux and BSD distros on it to see what works best over gOS, and aside from it getting a little toasty on the underside its a good mini-notebook with reasonable battery life.
there is also the hp mininote 2133. i can’t really decide between the eee 900, the mininote, or waiting until the summer to get an atom based system.
echo.ranger said…
What’s the battery life \ performance on that? I’ve kept an eye on it off and on (even have a link to the site Ant–the same guy who set up the Eeeuser.com forums–created for it somewhere) but the hinge has always made me a bit leary of it, because of how flimsy the whole device looks with it.
There’s also the gOS factor, which really I’m not a fan of–how does a vanilla Ubuntu install run on it?
–bornagainpenguin
Does anyone know, when the atom based eee pc will be released?
midlle of the summer…
if you see some benchmark of the atom, it’s not very powerfull … new via cpu is faster…
http://laptopcom.blogspot.com/2008/04/first-benchmark-atom-cpu-vs-v…
I was expecting this result: the Atom CPU has an in order design whereas the Isaiah has an out-of-order design, so at a given frequency, the Isaiah is faster but I must admit that I’m surprised at the size of the difference..
But for a laptop the performance itself isn’t enough for comparison, performance/power usage benchmarks would be more interesting.
habitually, via have good power saving cpu
that why many company use it in their embedded system
Well, that’s rather discouraging, then. Hopefully it’ll still allow ASUS to make a laptop with equal performance but smaller power drain. The ability to take it anywhere (hell, it’s not much larger than my calculator) is somewhat hampered by the constant need for more power.
I’m really starting to want one, especially for (and I know this was essentially a lucky break on ASUS’s part) the fact that it’s got a much larger screen but the device itself is the same size.
We need an aluminum 10″ MacBook Atom…
Edited 2008-04-26 09:46 UTC
i love all of these little devices – and will buy absolutely not a single one of them until the screen sizes are a minimum of 1024 x 768, irrespective of size (i would tolerate even a 7in screen at that resolution). 1200 x 800 is ok. 1200 x 900 even with the OLPC innovative screen @ only 8in is ok.
the reason is simple: screen real estate.
i purchased for $USD 2,500 a Fujitsu P1510D lifebook – absolutely fantastic machine. screen size: 1024 x 600. absolutely hopeless.
firefox toolbars at the top take up literally 2/5ths of the screen space, and the status bar at the bottom takes up another 32 pixels. result: nearly half the useable screen space is taken up, making it impossible to view web pages and do any work.
many applications such as KDE are *designed* for minimum 768 pixel-height screens, with reductions in font-sizes to 6 *still* being inadequate, and the popup dialog box “buttons” being off the edge at the bottom of the screen.
no – virtual screening doesn’t cut it: the simplest accidental mouse movement results in irritation and much “scrolling” simply does your head in as you try to flick between pages of information.
so – users beware: if you like your information fast and flexible, tolerate the tiny pixels on a 7in 1024×768 or 8in 1200×800 screen, but don’t for god’s sake get a 1024×600 or 800×480 device.
your problems seems to be the software you’re using and not the hardware.
Press F11 to view full-screen, it definitely helps.
P.S. What’s the deal with the difference in storage b/w OSes here? Any (tangible) reason for this??
12GB (4GB built-in + 8GB flash) SSD (Microsoft Windows OS Version)
20GB (4GB built-in +16GB flash) SSD (Linux OS Version)
I guess to hide the Windows “tax.” Otherwise they would have to charge more for the version with Windows.
I doubt it, it’s already been said that the Windows for this machine is only $40, and I can’t imagine anybody wanting to downgrade their storage just to not pay a little more. Maybe the Linux version includes all the sources??
How much is 8GB of SSD worth? About $40 perhaps?
Makes perfect sense.
Why should a Linux user have to pay an extra $40 just because there are some customers who might want Windows on the same hardware?
The reason is the price: Asus sell those two laptops at the same price but for the Linux laptop instead of paying the price of a Windows license, you get a 16GB flash instead of a 8GB flash..
It is perhaps also relevant to point out that with the Linux version, you also get a full suite of applications, but with the Windows version you just get a bare OS.
lkcl said…
Personally I don’t think it’ll be that bad, especially after some tweaking…
This thread on Ueeuser.com forums for instance:
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=19258
I like the second screenshot better than the first, but they both show what can be done.
The Eeeuser.com wiki is also helpful:
http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:shrinkfirefox
The example picture in the wiki really shows off what can be done IMHO, and is nice and understated instead of buttons galore like the first one in forum thread listed above.
Of course, the Eee isn’t for everyone, its form factor is a result of compromises, for most of its fans those compromises work out to be worthwhile in exchange for having such a portable computer.
If you really need the higher resolutions and simply cannot live with the choices the Eee makes for you, then it might not be the best device for you.
As far as I and many others are concerned though, it’s just this side of being perfect…
Rugxulo said…
Personally I think it’s for two reasons…
1) To punish Microsoft for forcing them to bundle the Eee with a version of Windows, when they were perfectly content with letting their users do all the heavy lifting themselves…
2) To help offset the hidden costs of doing tech support now that Windows is added to the mix and as a system builder ASUS has more responsibilities towards its users that can’t be pushed off towards user forums like the Eeeuser.com ones.
–bornagainpenguin
You could always use “autohide” of the taskbar.
However, if pixels is what you really need, then in this category of machine you may want to wait for Acer’s 12.1 inch Slim Gemstone Aspire, due to be released soon apparently. That device may well have a better size & resolution screen.
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20080407PD204.html
http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/04/07/new.acer.aspire.specs…
“Carrying a 15″ PowerBook around gets old at some point, you see.”
About the time Apple switched to Intel?
Sorry, had to bite. Am using a Powermac G5 myself so this comment is very tongue in cheek.
“Personally, I see the Eee PC as the MacBook Air ‘for the people’, and ever since it initial release, I felt strangely drawn towards the little device.”
No, the Macbook Air is for people who are concerned about how they appear to other people. Bling, basically. The ASUS Eee PC is for people who actually _need_ an ultra-portable PC.
A rubbish comparison and another reason why OSNews is a worse site for your presence.
just got my EeePC 900 version (I also own the previous 701, 7″version)…
using a 9″ display is a big difference (actually the device become usable)
this is one lovable small gadget…