This past week at CeBIT, Asus announced their next product in the first gen eeepc laptop series. I was somewhat excited, not so much for the actual screen size, but rather the additional features. Unfortunately, there isn’t really that much more that the eee pc 900 offers. Don’t get me wrong it has larger storage, more ram, larger screen/resolution, higher price, however already being a current eeepc 701 owner, these aren’t selling points for me. For some people, these features may be more important, however not for myself.

Anyways with such decisions, it is often easy to write down points and features to determine whether or not you should buy one. If you’re on the fence right now, hopefully I can help you make a decision.

1. Do I you already own an eeepc?
   Perhaps one of the most important questions. If you already own one, you have already spent money, thus paying for a more expensive, semi upgrade might not be the best choice. For myself, it isn’t worth it.
   Con - Of course, owning one that functions perfectly for all of my needs, this would be a con.
2. Is price or money an issue for you?
   Some of you may say no, some yes. This is different for everybody. However I just want to say to those of you who this doesn’t affect, you still should be responsible with money. Don’t buy something just because you can, buy it if you need, or want a gadget to play with. For myself, already owning an eee pc with $460 CAD after taxes, I’m more reluctant on my next gadget purchase. Asus announced a $399 Euro price point, and speculation at eeeuser forums has this at around $499-599 in North America (USD/CAD) depending on the specs.
   Con - This is supposed to be the low cost UMPC, lets try not to forget that Asus :).
3. Do I REALLY REALLY need a larger native resolution?
   This applies more to existing eeepc users, however newcomers can read on. Most of us current eeepc owners have adjusted to 800×480 pixels, and quite frankly there are tons of ways to customize screen space on the eeeuser.com. So fitting all your things into the smaller resolution isn’t much of a problem with a little playing. It actually changed how I arrange things on my 22″ desktop screen at such a high resolution. I realized I was somewhat wasteful and now like to think I’m more “space efficient”. Also there are WinXP Intel video drivers which can increase the resolution of the eeepc artificially (video chipset handles the resizing, and not software), and it still being actively developed. If your a Linux fan, then 800×480 will have to do for now. For myself, larger screen resolution, would be welcomed, but the fact I already own a 701, and the fact that it can add as little as $100 and as much as $200 to the price, I don’t think it is worth it for myself.
   Pro - larger screen and native resolution is always a bonus.
4. Pawning off the 7 inch model?
   Many of us have friends, or family, or even the tech savvy smarts to use ebay, and so reselling the eeepc you’ve owned for a few months to help supplement the cost of a 9 inch model, then go ahead. If you have that sibling who really likes the size and coolness of the eeepc, or even parents who are computer handicapped, then heck yah, pawning the eee pc to them (for money or free) could be justifiable, especially if you perform an F9 factory reset to Easy Mode Xandros. This OS will most likely be more than they need, and if they do need upgrades or help, you’re probably already well versed in tweaking the system to get the most out of it. For me this is definitely an option, whether or not I plan to utilize it is up for debate.
   Pro - Reducing the cost, or putting a smile on somebody else’s face, always a bonus
5. Storage Space
   You can never have too much storage. Asus has announced that it will be released with 8Gig and 12 Gig models. For all those current owners like myself, you might have already purchased SDHC
   cards of 4Gigs to 8Gigs and have your portable USB key or hard drive with all of your information, so a mediocre increase in SSD space might not seem all that attractive, with cheaper alternatives available. For myself storage is important, but the small improvement isn’t worth it.
   In between - More storage is always good, but the amount it increased from a 701, you could get WAY more for less cost.
6. Operating System
   Even though the eeepc 700 series does have a WinXP model, from what I understand it is still hard to get your hands on one, not to mention it was released a few months after the Linux version. The eeepc 900 series should be launching with both operating systems available, of course the price might be a bit more for the WinXP license but we have yet to see. For myself this factor has no bearing on a purchase because I usually use operating systems powered by flavors of linux, and the default Xandros really boots up fast which is why still use it. Also I could always nLite my XP SP2, however for those tech un-savvy people, who NEED WinXP, and can’t or don’t want to be troubled with using nLite on their XP CD, I would say then perhaps the eeepc 900 XP model is for you (or the 700 series XP). HOWEVER, if your paying around $599 for this WinXP model, then I would simply refer you to dell.com or your local computer distributor, because I’m sure you could get a 15″ laptop for the same cost or less which will have WinXP or Vista, and perform all the same tasks and much more. This is assuming you don’t need a UMPC.
   In between - Flexibility is good, but paying more money for WinXP means that you are a user who needs windows, and makes me think that you would be better off with a same cost, Larger, more storage alternative laptop.
7. Size (footprint)
   Even though it is small, the eeepc 900 is slightly larger than the eeepc 700, so this could be viewed as a negative to some people, but don’t get me wrong it still is ridiculously small.
   In between - Increasing size still isn’t good, but it’s so small one could justify a small increase in size for a larger screen.

Now that is the end of my regular user criteria, however I have a bit more advanced criteria and my thoughts below. So read on if you are a computer savvy person, or are just curious as to my additional points.

• Processor/Platform
  The current eeepc processor is sufficient, but not great by any means. You hardly notice the speed being an issue performing regular tasks, which the eeepc was designed and expected to do. It often surprises me how fast it is. But being a computer person, I notice that it can hang down in situations. Mind you I probably shouldn’t be attempting these processor intensive tasks because that’s not what the eeepc was made for. One that comes to mind is playing high def videos. It can kind of play high def videos. Lets first define high def, because the word it thrown around a lot. Here I’m specifically talking about 720p and 1080p files that are upwards of 2+ gigs for 1 hour of play time. It can play the video’s okay, however in times when action on the screen is medium I can see it slow down a bit with some chop, and high action (lots of fast moving objects) it gets even choppier. Okay, I’m not too disappointed, I didn’t purchase the eee pc for this purpose, but it is always nice to see what it is capable of. Were there to be a new processor or platform, it just might increase the performance (but not necessarily, see SSD section below).

  Justifying a purchase of a new system just for a larger screen and native resolution, a bit more storage, isn’t possible. If they had the new Intel Menlow platform (with Silverthorne process) then we are talking. This new platform was also showed off a bit at CeBIT by Intel, which they have dubbed the Intel Atom (w/Centrino). It is remarkably small and uses such a small amount of power for it’s speed it is truly a big step forward in the UMPC and mobile technology technology field. But with no announcements from Asus as to the official processor, and the quick approaching release date, it is speculated that they will stick with what works (Celeron M) and focus on other areas.
  Huge Con for the cost. *UPDATE* It is said that later revisions of the eeepc 900 will adopt the Intel Atom (Silverthorne). This being the case, then my opinion changes to Pro, as a new processor/chipset platform is a welcomed upgrade.

• Battery
  Another lacking aspect of the original eee pc was battery life. I mean when devices are small and use little power, people assume that they can last longer on battery. I’m sure this could be done with the eeepc as well, but to keep the cost down the eeepc is rated at ~3 hours of moderate use. This is fine and I have no quarrels, but with the release of a newer model, larger screen and same battery, one can’t think that in the best situation you will only ~3 hours, more likely than not it will be a little less with a larger LCD.

  On another note, I’m a little dissappointed with the battery performance. It seems to drain, when not plugged in a little quicker than I’m used to. Maybe I’m just spoiled but the discharge seems to be quicker than I would have thought. None the less, I hope the ‘true’ 2nd generation eeepc will have a redesigned battery.
  Con

• RAM
  For me, justifying an increase in price for a RAM upgrade is ridiculous and not necessary. If it was up to me, I would rather buy laptops with no OS installed, or RAM, and have them knock the price down to what it would have been without them gouging for those features. RAM is one of the easiest upgrades that can be performed to a computer, and almost anybody can do it, with a little guidance for mental comfort. So jacking the price up $100 on a laptop and saying it has 2Gigs of ram, is literally taking money from your pockets. I can upgrade ram myself thank you. Secondly I’ll only upgrade it if needed, because a lot of the tasks the eeepc performs, a memory upgrade isn’t even necessary.
  Con
• SSD Size and performance
  This section is a little bit on speculation, but I’m under the assumption that Asus is going to use the same SSD technology that is on the current 700 series and just throw down 4 or 8 more 1Gig NAND chips. Under this assumption it means that the read and write speeds attained from the SSD will be nearly identical to the benchmarks performed over at notebookreview.com. “For those interested in the speed of the 4GB SSD, hdparm benchmarks the SSD buffered read speed at 21.78 MB/sec. For comparison, a Lenovo ThinkPad T60 with a fast 7200rpm Seagate hard drive has a buffered read speed of 54.62 MB/sec and a Toshiba Tecra A9 with standard 5400rpm hard drive has a buffered read speed of 44.87 MB/sec.” [From NotebookReview.com]. Now for those of you who don’t know, in a computer, your hard drive is one of your primary bottlenecks. Which is often why, increasing RAM in your computer means you get an increase in speed. This means your computer has more space to hold temporary files that it commonly accesses. You could compare the processor accessing RAM to retrieve 1 byte of data, to Walking down your street, or down the block, or heck, maybe walking 500m to a kilometer. Now for the processor to access 1 byte of data from a hard drive, it would probably be the equivalent of walking hundreds of kilometers. In short, RAM is a lot faster. So from the quote above, Spinning HD platters are performing better than these little SSD’s inside the eeepc. If you remember me mentioning high definition video up in the processors point, well the bottleneck of the SSD/USB read speeds could affect your playback of the video (depending on video quality of course), even if the processor and RAM are more than capable of handling the load. I could also get into Graphics processing but that kind of falls under Processor and platform.

  So my speculation that the same SSD and I guess you could say platform/chipset (usb read/write speeds) is being used is also a big CON

• More ports/features
  Now the eeepc has many great features, 3 USB ports is definitely good, because many laptops don’t have enough, heck 3 might not be enough for some people. However my next eeepc, I want to have more options, definitely DVI, or mini-DVI if it is easier to fit. I would like to see perhaps, a Gigabit LAN instead of just 10/100. 802.11n, even though it is a bit more bleeding edge, and most WiFi hotspots don’t even support it, knowing it is there is nice. Another nice improvement would be Bluetooth. Lots of mobile accessories and gadgets can comunicate using bluetooth and it is always handy to have that option. Also building in 3G technologies, HSDPA, WiMax (which is planned), and basically just anything that can make the eeepc more mobile, would be great additions to this unit. Of course we can’t have it all in the small form factor, but just seeing a few of these features trickle in every new model would be nice.
  Con, no True upgrades to all those little features

Well I’m getting tired, so I’ll wrap up. All in all, the eeepc line is great and I would recommend them to anybody as a Secondary computer. A backup desktop with the large storage, printer, gaming, photo editing, cd/dvd recording, big screen alternative is a must in my opinion. The eeepc is just supposed to keep you connected when not at home, or specifically in your computer chair at home. Whether or not the eeepc 700 series or 900 series is for you… well that’s your choice to make. But I hope that I have somewhat informed you into making a reasonable and logical decision about what model to purchase.

Enjoy!