Pinoy Tech Guy

Written on Thursday, 17th of Apr 2008 – 5:55 am | by sylv3rblade | 231 views

It’s cute, it’s cuddly and it’s on a lot of people’s waitlist/wishlist but what can we really expect from the EEE 900? So far, all we’ve confirmed is the larger screen at 8.9″ and 1024 x 768 native resolution and little else. For comparison’s sake, the chassis that houses the Eee PC 900 is pretty much identical to the 701. What makes the difference is beneath the lid. T

AsusTek improved the 900’s screen is not limited by the 800 pixel resolution of the original unit, that had users scrolling sideways for a lot of web pages. The new 8.9″ screen now supports 1,024 pixel wide resolution, which is how most web pages are meant to be displayed so no more side scrolling. As before, it’s not as bright or vivid as most of the expensive laptops but it does the job.

The new model also sports a larger (more usable) keyboard and the Touchpad has multi-touch support. Interesting huh? The good old .3 MegaPixel Camera was also bumped to 1.3 for a clearer picture when video conferencing on Skype or any other VoIP service. The EEE 701’s 512 MB RAM was also bumped up to 1 GB.

Storage space has also increased from the 4GB capacity of the SSD and the EEE 900 comes in 2 configurations, a 12GB of storage that comes preloaded with Windows XP and the other with 20GB Asus’ Xandros. There’s no difference in price between these two versions but you do have to wonder the logic of cramming an OS that consumes larger space on a smaller drive than the lighter one.

Despite the cramp confines of the chassis, Asus has managed to squeeze quite a lot of interestinf features.

• A D-SUB port to hook up the Eee PC 900 up to an external monitor.
• Two USB 2.0 ports on the right, One one the left
• An SD card slot.
• Headphones and Mic sockets
• 10/100 Ethernet port
• 802.11b/g wireless

So what’s under the hood? Sad to say it’s not Intel’s new ATOM processor but the original model’s 900MHz Intel Celeron processor residing in a 915GM based motherboard. No real upgrade but it’s more than capable of the job at hand. There are rumors that an ATOM version of the EEE 900 will hit the market a few months after the initial release but Asus has yet to confirm.

You’ll have to note that the EEE 900’s battery life is shorter than the EEE 701’s due to the larger screen. The new machines goes around at barely two hours although Asus says 2.5-hours battery life. Some discrepancies but shorter all the same. It’s lasts almost as long as my old Asus A6R laptop.

The Verdict?

Overall, the 900 is a great upgrade from the 701, spec-wise and comfort-wise. People with big hands like me hate typing in cramped keyboards so improved size of the keys and typing space is a welcome change.

Note that the price is definitely higher than the previous model, but I believe the EEE 900 will still be quite a bang for the buck. It’s small, light and still affordable. Asus really did good with the EEE line and I’m hoping that the Desktop version does better than the gPC.

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