Asus Eee PC 900 review

The Eee PC 701 caused a storm when it launched last year, and understandably so. It was the first truly affordable ultra-portable laptop, but it had its flaws.

Asus has addressed most of these with the brand new Eee PC 900. Notably, the larger 8.9in screen has a more usable resolution of 1,024x600. This means that the bottom of dialog boxes doesn't fall off the bottom of the display. It's well suited to use with Windows XP Home edition, which is pre-installed on this model.

The new screen doesn't affect the Eee PC's dimensions; the speakers that flanked the original 7in screen have simply been relocated to the base. We were pleased with the new screen's brightness and contrast - and the fact that it isn't reflective - but it's very grainy.

Another problem with the Eee PC 701 was the limited amount of storage. The 900 fixes this by bolstering the on-board 4GB of storage with an 8GB solid-state disk in the mini-card slot, bringing the total to 12GB. However, you can still opt for a version with the Xandros Linux operating system which comes with a 16GB solid-state disk for the same price. There's still an SDHC card slot for adding extra storage.

The 701's touchpad was a little on the small side, and the 900 has a larger version. Similar to Apple's MacBooks, the pad recognises two-finger gestures so you can zoom in and out on documents. Those with chubby fingers will still find the keyboard's keys too small for comfort, though; it's not particularly conducive to touch-typing even for smaller digits.

One area that hasn't been upgraded is the processor. The 900MHz Celeron M is slow by today's standards, but with 1GB of RAM, it's enough to make office applications run quickly, but loading times are a little sluggish.

Battery life is also still an issue. The four-cell battery lasted a meagre three hours 20 minutes in our light-use test, less than we'd expect from an ultra-portable. Buying a spare battery puts the price up to the level of fully fledged Windows laptops. There's also still no optical drive.

For anyone wanting a tiny laptop on a budget, the Eee PC 900 is a good choice. It's undoubtedly better than the 701, but the extra cost is only just worth paying.

Author: Jim Martin