eee pc

Brighthand: Asus Eee PC 900


Earlier this week, Brighthand’s Ed Hardy published a story on Asus’ announcement of the new Eee PC 900.

There are a few things that I find appealing about this device. First is the 9-inch (OK, the 8.9-inch ) display. And like the ill-fated Palm Foleo, the Eee PC 900 will run that display at a 1024×600 screen resolution. The current model Eee PCs have a 7-inch display and run at a lower screen resolution.

Another nice improvement is in the memory category. According to the Brighthand article, the Eee PC 900 will be configurable with up to 1GB of memory and up to 12GB of storage space. The article makes no mention of what type of storage the 12GB will be, however my guess is it will be flash memory, rather than a micro hard drive which have larger storage capacities.

The bad news, according to the article, is that there was no mention as to when customers in the United States might be able to get their hands on the larger unit or how much it will cost for the privilege of owning one.

As I mentioned recently on FoleoFanatics and 1SRC, without a new Foleo on horizon, I may have to break down and get a solution from another vendor. The Eee PC is attractive because of the low cost of the existing solutions. However, the HP Compaq 2133 has the name recognition behind it that could take the unit mainstream. From a design standpoint, I like the look of the Compaq better than the Eee PC, but I’m willing to admit that photos on the Internet are no substitute for actually playing with the device to see how it feels.

I’ll have to keep an eye on the future developments in the sub-notebook segment an vote with my dollars later this year as to which device will get to play second fiddle to my Treo.

[Via Brighthand.com]

5 Comments

  • Anonymous

    I think, if you were planning on a Foleo, that you’ll definitely want a quality keyboard in a replacement device. The HP wins on that one by far, and also in the design department.I hope they offer a small Eee-like flash drive version on the cheap end, harddisk for the middle class, and and a big SSD for the high-end version.I also hope the rumours of Vista are not true. What a piece of junk for a mobile OS that is.

  • Alan Grassia, Staff Writer

    I’m definitely on the fence about what to get. I know that I want something more than just my Treo. The Foleo would have been perfect for me (see previous posts on that subject.)In the absence of the Foleo, I’m likely to just use my Latitude D630. If I’m traveling for personal reasons, I’m likely to just use my MacBook.I can’t use the HP or the Asus at work because of corporate policy against non-company devices on the network. (The Foleo would have flown under the radar since it would have been a fancy companion to my Treo. Yes, that would have been a loophole.)If both the Eee PC 900 and the Compaq 2133 were the same price, I probably would go with the HP device. It looks nicer.Alan G

  • BaDZeD

    The problem with both devices is that there are no hands on reports for either HP2133 or eee 900. The drive will be SSD for sure (if anyone wants a traditional hard drive in their underpowered UMPC, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ_66F42JNE).Here are the benchmarks: http://cloudbookumpc.com/full-everex-cloudbook-ce1200v-review-by-notebookreview-benchmarks-includedI am still sulking that no viable UMPC out there provides instant on (poor Foleo). If Asus were to start including SplashTop (an almost instant-on “mini-OS” that provides access to the most used tasks)in future releases of the EEE that would be most welcome

  • BaDZeD

    Alan, some more news in this sector:(source http://eeesite.net/2008/03/asus-ceo-jerry-shen-talks-eee-pc-900.html)“Laptop Magazine scored an hour-long interview with Asus CEO Jerry Shen, and while most of the details they got out of him were already unveiled at CeBIT this week, they did manage to squeeze a few interesting nuggets out of him: * The US pricing for the Eee PC 900 will be around $499 at launch, with plans to drop the price within a few months * While initial reports have suggested that the Windows XP model will sport a 8GB of flash memory and the Linux version will have 12GB, Shen says the Linux model might have as much as 20GB of storage * Asus is looking into offering a hard drive option, but any units the company releases between now and June will have SSD only * Asus is not abandoning its custom Xandros operating system * Units with built-in WiMax and HSDPA could be released in Q3 2008 * Future models could use Intel’s Diamondville processor * More color options are coming in a few months”

  • Alan Grassia, Staff Writer

    Very interesting. I’m not sure how much weight I’ll put into hands on reviews or not. I guess I won’t really start paying attention until I’m ready to put my money where my mouth is.I think for now, I’ll just start roaming the halls of my office building with my Dell Latitude; but man, but these sub-notebooks really sound cool.Alan G