It’s time again for informations and news about the new Eee PC 900 subnotebook from Asus, and we’ll start with some great photos that can help compare the Eee PC 900 to the Eee PC 701 and get a clearer picture of the differences in casing, display, ports and components distribution and overall size. This photographs, published on CNet’s Web site, are also collected and shown on a single page by GearZap.
On ZDnet’s site you’ll find, instead, less meaningful pictures but some detailed specs of the Eee PC 900 and a review of the Win XP model, but also useful benchmarks which put the new Asus subnotebook against the previous 701 model, but also Lenovo’s Ideapad U110 and HP’s 2133 Mini-Note. ZDnet publishes a video, too, in which the Eee PC 900 and 701 models are put side by side.
But an even better video of an Eee PC review and comparison with the Eee 701 model is the one you’ll find down here. Don’t miss the Operation Mode setting in the BIOS with options for High Performance and Power Saving. Enjoy!

There’s no doubt many would-be EEE PC users are waiting for the new Asus EEE PC 900 (E3PC 2.0), arriving on May in the US and June in Europe and offering some improvements (8.9 inch display, multi-touch trackpad, larger storage and memory and a 1.3 Mp webcam) but also some more size/weight (100g hevier and 6mm longer than the EEE PC 701) and, of course, a higher price (the new subnotebook should cost 512US$, 399 Euros or 329UK£).
CNET UK publishes a mini-review of the new EEE PC 900 subnotebook, underlining the advantage of the larger display (Asus moved the speakers at the bottom of the keyboard, below the machine, to make room for the new almost-9-inches screen) and the improved trackpad with improved left-right buttons and the mostly hyped multi-touch gestures similar to those already found on the MacBook Air (and of course iPhone and iPod Touch) by Apple.
As I feared, the larger screen translates into more energy hungry video performances, so there’s about half an hour less to take into account when measuring the EEE PC 900 battery life compared to its predecessor. Of course the 1 GB DDR 400 RAM upgrade helps in speeding the overall performance of this new model, which cannot borrow such speed from an improved CPU as Asus decided to keep the original Celeron 900 processor for this first shipping and adopt the Atom one for the next breed of EEE PC 900, probably to speed the arrival of the new model and thus fight its competitors.
About its hardware, maybe you should take a look at how Richard Swinburne dissected the EEE PC 900 showing its hardware in full.
Also welcome is the new internal SSD, which has been expanded to 20GB for the Linux (same Xandros flavour as the EEE PC 701) and 12GB for the Windows XP version of the machine, coupling a second SSD disk (of 12 and 8 GB respectively) attached to a PC Express interface inside the EEE PC. This latter choice is, of course, a strategy to keep the price down being a Windows licence already a plus that adds to the still high price of the SSD units, but Gates’ fans will surely appreciate and of course be happy to know that, (also) thanks to Asus’ choice, Windows XP will add two more years to its existence.
Will the new EEE PC 900 repeat the success of its predecessor? Are the new features still a bargain in the new tag price? Is there any negative side effect in the new specs beyond the shorter battery life? Only more hands on reviews will tell, and of course your comments will help in forecasting or actually confirming some the hopes and fears about the new machine. In the meanwhile, let’s watch one of the first preview videos of the Asus EEE PC 900 in action.

UPDATE: Asus EEE PC Demo blog has published a complete collection of EEE PC 900 (or EEEPC 2.0) videos from various sources

Let’s start with our ‘review of reviews’, choosing one of those less enthusiast one, which has been published by the famous Web site InfoSync. In this concise but complete enough test the EEE PC scored a 56%, which as you know means ’sufficient’ or ‘good enough’ to us all. But what were the pros and the cons in InfoSync review of the Asus EEE PC? Mainly, the most criticized components of Asus’ subnotebook were the keyboard, the trackpad and the display, for their small size, of course. Heck, you’re talking about a SUBnotebook, guys! Did you notice the first three letters? S-U-B means ‘under’, so such a device should me meant to be S-M-A-L-L, don’t you think? I’ve already have more than a chance to talk about Dialogue FlyBook’s keyboard, and its clumsy mini-joypad input system used instead of a trackpad, and I was talking about a very, very expensive product, there. If you need a large keyboard, then buy a full fledged one, together with a mouse, and plug them in the EEE PC’s USB ports, damn it! You have a choice of foldable, rollable and maybe even inflatable keyboard, out there, and about mice there’s even more choice, not mentioning the wireless options. So, what’s the point? Oh, yes, the display! Like others, out there, you’ve mentioned the two uselessly large speakers on both sides of the screen as a cause of the latter’s smaller size. Why don’t you just see the REAL thing? Asus decided to put a 7 inch display on this machine, for a start, to lower production costs, but they also looked far beyond and saw the opportunity for less cheap models, so a larger frame was the natural consequence, and putting something like a couple of speakers in the remaining estate was more than justified and wise as a choice. Also, having a black frame around a display, especially an LCD one, visibly enhances its brightness factor, don’t you think? As Apple’s engineers who designed the latest iMac breed, for example.
Also, InfoSync reviewer(s?) describe the EEE PC ‘not suitabe for them‘ and as ‘probably a better choice for young students and hackers than for business travelers looking for something between a smartphone and a 15-inch laptop‘. Er, is there anybody else between YOU, young students, hackers and business travelers? Let me think… oh yes, everybody else, and they’re a damn lot of people! OK, maybe they don’t usually wander around InfoSync offices, but probably you, hackers and businessmen are just enough to fill those corridors and cubicles. And, just about, the something between a smartphone and a 15-inch laptop part of the sentence: try writing your articles or browse your site’s pages on a smartphone, then try carrying your powerful and ‘comfortable’ 15 inch laptops under your arm like a book, then let’s have a coffee and talk about your satisfying experiences of mobile computing, uh?
OK, I know, I just seem a little bit (just a little, yes?) on the Asus side, but let me remind you that the one writing, here on this site, has been testing and reviewing PDAs, smartphones, Tablet PCs, laptops and many other mobile devices since the Apple Newton era. And let me also remind them the meaning of reviewing a product: as journalist, we try to focus on our readers, not on ourselves, and to address their needs and not ours.
If (as you wrote in the final verdict near the unfair score table) the best thing about the EEE PC is its price, why don’t you just ask yourself how did Asus manage to keep the cost low? Ever heard about ‘compromise’? If you put your nose outside your hitech-filled-offices and ask people, you’ll be surprised about their willingness to give up some hardware stuff in a product they’re going to purchase if that helps avoiding a ransack of their back account. If you really want to evaluate Asus’ EEE PC subnotebook, try comparing its hardware and software with that of another product in the same tag price, or make some true and detailed comparisons with smaller and larger devices, for example.
So, let me end this ‘review of a review’ giving a 56% back to InfoSync editor(s?), as their test was an ‘almost good enough’ one, after all. Try it again, InfoSync.