Review: Asus Eee 900

WEEE PC: The Asus Eee 900 is less than half the weight of a standard notebook PC.

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Personal computers come and go with little fanfare these days, but an exception has been the diminutive Asus Eee PC, which for a computer weighing less than a kilo is causing some big ripples in the industry.

The second-generation Asus Eee PC 900, which comes in Linux and Windows XP versions, is arriving in New Zealand stores, priced at $749.

The main appeal of the machines is that they are less than half the weight of the lightest standard notebook and much more robust, because they use flash memory instead of a hard disk drive to store files.

This turns the most fragile component normally used in computers into the most robust, and has made the Eee PC a hit with satchel- carrying geeks and families with young children.

Asus sold about a million of its first-generation model 700 Eee PCs in the five months after its launch in October. To put that in perspective, it is a little less than 1 per cent of the total number of all PCs sold during that period and about 2 per cent of notebook computer sales.

Those sales, and the buzz that has surrounded the Eee PC, have been sufficient to convince initially sceptical mainstream PC manufacturers there is a market for this kind of machine, and they are scrambling to emulate it.

That in turn has persuaded Microsoft to give Windows XP a partial reprieve. It said in April that it would continue to sell XP for use with this new category of low-cost sub-notebook computers till at least June 2010. The Linux version of the Asus Eee PC 900, tested here, is probably the better option for customers who only want to use the machines for what they are best at – surfing the web, e-mail and word processing.

It comes loaded with OpenOffice – the perfectly adequate open-source equivalent of Microsoft's Office suite – a Firefox web browser, KDE anti- virus software, and a dozen or so games and educational programmes best suited for seven to 12 year-olds.

The size and price of the Eee PC have been achieved by making some sacrifices.

There is no optical drive and surfing the web on Wellington's Cafenet WiFi network, the battery ran down in about two hours.

Most limitations can be overcome by plugging any required add-ons into the three USB ports and the SD card slot, that allows for extra storage. There are no compromises with the excellent anti-glare screen and most adults should cope fine with the child-sized but decent keyboard.

On Wednesday, Asus announced the imminent arrival of another three Eee PCs, the models 901, 1000 and 1000(h). The extra battery life, granted in part by the use of Intel's latest 1.6GHz Atom processor, may prove to be the main selling point of the 901. In the US at least, the new machines will also come with 20 gigabytes of online storage.

But the 901 probably won't arrive in New Zealand for a couple of months and when it does, it will probably be priced close to $1000.

Computer stores have discounted the original model 700 Eee PC to $495 to try to shift remaining stock, but it looks as if Asus will sell the 900 and 901 side by side for a while. Given the higher price, the 901 may not automatically be the better option.

The model 1000 will have a 10-inch screen and come in two versions – the 1000 with 40Gb of solid state storage and the 1000(h) with a shock- resistent 80Gb conventional hard drive.

The price and features will arguably move the 1000 out of the category of a low-cost computer for children, that Mum and Dad will want to borrow now and again – one market niche the model 900 occupies very well.

ASUS EEE PC 900
Processor: 900MHz Intel Celeron
Power-up time: 26 seconds (Linux version)
Memory: 1Gb Storage: 20Gb flash memory (Linux version) or 12Gb (Windows XP). No optical drive Connectivity: 802.11b/g for wireless networking. No dial-up modem
Screen: 8.9 inch, 1240x600 resolution
Ports: 3xUSB, LAN cable, SD card, microphone, headphone, external monitor
Battery: 4400mHa
Input devices: touchpad which supports two-finger scrolling and zooming, built-in 1.3 megapixel webcam.