The Eee 900 Series was officially launched in Hong-Kong on April 16, 2008 for 513 USD and in the UK on May 1, 2008 for £329 (approximately €410, $650 including VAT). The system was launched in the US for $549 on May 12, 2008. The Eee 900 series dimensions are a little larger than the 70x models – measuring 225 × 165 × 35 mm (WxDxH) and weighing around 1 kg. The machine has a multi-touch trackpad that allow two-finger scrolling and zooming via a "pinch" gesture and is available in Linux and (in some markets) Windows XP configurations. The Linux version is called the EeePC 900 and comes with a 20 GB SSD 6 Cell eee pc battery, while the Windows XP version is called the EeePC 900 Win and has a 12 GB SSD.
There has been some controversy regarding the battery supplied with the EeePC 900. Versions pre-released to journalists and reviewers were equipped with a 5800 mAh Eee PC battery, but the first retail versions in Hong Kong, UK and Singapore were shipped with a smaller, 4400 mAh (76% of that capacity) Eee pc battery. As a result of the objections to this, Asus provided a battery replacement program in Hong Kong[25] and Singapore,[26] but have yet to do so in the U.K.[27] The US version launched with the 5800 mAh battery.
Product Summary
The good: Bigger screen in same small package; new touch pad gesture controls; long battery life.
The bad: Not as much storage space as the Linux version; same old Celeron CPU as original Eee PC; keyboard just as cramped.
The bottom line: The 9-inch Asus Eee PC 900 adds a bigger screen and a larger capacity solid-state hard drive than its 7-inch precursor, but the new price has passed the point of an impulse purchase.
Specs: Processor: Intel; RAM installed: 1 GB DDR II SDRAM; Weight: 2.2 lbs
When we first saw the diminutive Asus Eee PC back in the fall of 2007, we were duly impressed by its capability to mix small size with a small price, and rightly predicted it would be popular with consumers and influential with other PC makers (although, to be fair, the OLPC XO and Intel Classmate first blazed the same trail in the education space).
At the time, we said the Eee PC could be the perfect secondary or travel laptop as long as expectations were kept modest, and we found its small screen, Celeron processor, and tiny flash-based hard drive adequate for Web surfing and working on office documents. Later the Eee added different colors and Windows XP, but other systems, such as HP's 2133 Mini-Note were already expanding on the original concept with bigger screens, more storage, and sharper designs, while keeping the price fairly reasonable ($599 for a Mini-Note versus $399 for the 7-inch Eee PC).
Just as the original Eee PC started to feel a bit dated, Asus comes out with an updated version, called the Eee PC 900. Although it occupies only a marginally larger footprint than the original, this new model finds room for a 9-inch screen, accomplished by moving the tiny speakers away from the sides of the lid, leaving more room for the display. With a much more reasonable 1,024x600 resolution (the 7-inch screen was a paltry 800x480), the new Eee PC 900 feels more like a laptop and less like a portable Internet appliance.
While the RAM has been bumped from 512MB to 1GB, and the onboard storage from 4GB to 12GB (or 20GB in the Linux version), you're still stuck with the same 900MHz Celeron processor. With new mobile CPUs from Intel and Via on the way, and more powerful mobile processors available in the Lenovo U110 and MacBook Air (both of which admittedly cost nearly $2,000), that's starting to look dangerously dated, especially now that, at $550, the Eee PC has passed the point of an impulse purchase.
Price $549
Processor 900MHz
Intel Celeron M
Memory 1GB, 400MHz DDR2
Hard drive 12GB SSD
Chipset Intel 915GM
Graphics Intel 915GM (integrated)
Operating System Windows XP Home
Dimensions (WDH) 8.9x6.5x0.9 inches
Screen size (diagonal) 8.9 inches
System weight / Weight with AC adapter(Cannot charger for digital camera battery) 2.2 /2.6 pounds
Power 6 cell 4400mAh battery(you can buy a uk replacement laptop battery for your original notebook batteries)
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