Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Asus Eee PC 901 video review


My review of the Eee PC 901 and 901 vs 900

Click to see the video






Compare Eee PC 900, 901 and 900A


Details, News and Links for Asus Eee PC 900

Details, News and Links for Asus Eee PC 901

Details, News and Links for Asus Eee PC 900A






Related News:

28 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice review. Where do u preorder the 900A? is it available to preorder to the public.

I agree, i have the 901.. it feels a bit bulky, flimsy, i wouldnt mind the 900 form, but i think i will wait for a dual core atom before i upgrade again.

also, i have this 80gb 1.8 drive that will have to be retrofitted in any new eee pc i get.. i cant stand those mlc ssd.

Travis said...

Great review JKK.
What software are you using to monitor the battery?

Thanks.

England said...

First off, great review mate. Very informative. Secondly, is there any confirmation from Asus that this 900A actually has the same hardware as the 901? Bluetooth is no big deal for me, and even if it was, I can pick up a bluetooth mini USB adapter for less than 30 dollars.

Anonymous said...

First, thanks for a great review, not many out there doing these QL reviews (as video-reviews really need to be ~30min to fit the content in)
900A:
what about the 900A only using the SSDcard and no soldered on (fast) chips(no separated SSD on motherboard and on card), wouldn't this be quite the downside? (as in trying to keep an OS on the quite considerably slow SSD chips)
Those reports might be flawed?
Looks:
Other then that, from experience not enjoying the 901 facelift isn't uncommon, most numbercrunchers and techheads I come across fancies the 900 over the 901.(running around working on a university I keep bumping into EEE's)
After all the IBM's look has been the same for "quite" a while.

For me the 900 is a classical "It's just a computer"-old look,
While ASUS atleast tries to do something about that on the 901. I wouldn't say the 900 is ugly only that it hardly conveys anything. That does tend to be a tad boring.
IF Asus is going to compete with the Norms/Hipster crowd that more then a tad seems interested in Netbooks they need to do something like the 901 started.
Far to many seemingly want to go for the Wind / HP for looks.
(the Best machines dont always sells most, and yes I get very positive responses from MAC owners on my 901)

Anonymous said...

great job jkk! I was wondering if there is a big difference between the weight of the 2 devices without batteries i mean they are basically the same so the big difference in weight must be from the batteries can you check that pls much aprishiated

Anonymous said...

Hey JKK... you said in your review that the 901 is the best netbook. Comparing with 900 or 7xx series... i totally agree that 901 is the best, but.... what about the Acer brand? Are they similar or as good as 901?
I noted that you are really a fan of Eee. Do you have any comment comparing the 901 and A110? They have the same processor, SSD of A110 is abit slower and what else?
Thanks dude. N
ice job with the reviews and mod you made.

Anonymous said...

@Alois:
I compared both the EEE900 and the A110. They differ very much in size (Acer is way larger and heavier). But if it comes to the keyboard, the Acer offers much larger keys which are better to use. But you have to decide if you need that.

The A110 comes with a second SD-card slot to use as permanent additional hard-disk storage (and another multi-card-slot on the right side). Battery ran for about 2,5-3h on my first tests with wifi on an about 1/2 of the brightness.

In addition the Acer has a glossy display...

Anonymous said...

nice review!

question: a review in a german site stated that the display was too dark to use outside on the 901, what were your experiences with that?

Anonymous said...

i use the eee outside in the shade or cloudy or using a sunshade specially for the eee and it works perfectly, maybe not ideal for watching videos but i work with it ie internet, pdfs, word, tex etc... and i dont have any complaints, think its bright enough

JKK said...

I use this sw for battery:

http://www.batteryinfo.de.vu/

Like i said, the info about the 900A is not confirmed..

About Acer: I first liked it very much, but

- SSD speed
- mouse pad
- size/ weight with 6 cell
- sd card not going all the way in

I'm picky i know.. Aver looks really nice but 901 wins ( for me ) in all hw areas.


About 901 outside, I use eeectl.exe to boost the brightness. Without it, it's not so good on sunlight

Anonymous said...

Nice, informative review JJK!

Have you tested if the toutchpad performs with all features in Linux version?(like with the updated XP driver from Elantech)

Thanks

JKK said...

Linux version doesn't offer all those features:

901 Linux review

Anonymous said...

Hey JKK,

thanks for the test.
Don't you think that eeectl.exe is a bit risky?
Even Asus says its not good for the converter?

JKK said...

yep, it's always risky to use any 3rd party stuff..

.. i have been using it on 700/900 and 901 from day one.. with no problems.

.. 9 months on 700.. mostly at 100%

Anonymous said...

A bit off topic, but... What solution do you use to get åäö JKK? And do you know of a place to buy an åäö eee pc keyboard separately? I´m thinking of ordering a 901, but it looks like they´re not available with scandinavian characters yet.

Anonymous said...

Ahh the touchpad, I asked about this on the eeeuser forums. A quick little note, I use to own the white 901 and I discovered the touchpad is different from the black one. I played with both the white and black, for some reason the blackone has the textured surface so that when you use it with your fingers it doesnt get stuck.

Strange I know.

Vali B said...

HI JKK can you answer me please what kind of pc monitoring are you using for the underclock and overclock the atom processor?
And i am a little in doubt ... it is a dual core the atom processor? if not why do i get 2 graphics in task manger performance. Best regards from romania

JKK said...

åäö on my 900 are stickers.. yep 901 is not available with skands..

I'm using CPU-Z for cpu stuff. It's not dual core but it has hyperthreading, so it looks like 2 cpus to operating system

Anonymous said...

Is it possible to make the 901 xp a dual boot and have Linux on it also? I would like linus for the fast boot time when I am only using the internet, er programs.and xp for other programs.

Anonymous said...

"Other then that, from experience not enjoying the 901 facelift isn't uncommon, most numbercrunchers and techheads I come across fancies the 900 over the 901"

haha yeah I just bought a 900 myself. Couldn't stand any of the optical changes to the 901. Enough so that they overruled the longer battery life for me without a second thought.

And my last laptop was in fact a Thinkpad. You're probably on to something.

Anonymous said...

Touchpad from my Taiwan 901 has the same strange texture but the 901 i bought from UK has the same smooth touchpad feeling like the 900 :)
But still i can´t decide to sell the "old" one ;)

Anonymous said...

I recieved my EEE pc 901 this noon. It's not very good compared to the EEEPC 900 I think.

Pro's:
- Long battery life
- The overclocking with one button
Con's:
- Windows XP doesn't feel as fast as Xandros on the EEE 900
- Less storage (just 6GB free at the slow SSD and 1,5GB free at the 4GB SSD)
- Fan runs more than on my EEE 701
- Expensive (€ 80 more than the 900 Linux which made the price € 399).
- Design
- Size is to big

Anonymous said...

Great review very informative

You stated in the rev that the keyboard where the same, did you meen just as good or realy the same as a former commenter mentioned the 900 is with skandinavian caracters æøå but would it be possible to simply take a keyboard from a 900 and mount it on a 901 ??

N

JKK said...

100% same so you could use 900 keyb on 901..

Anonymous said...

JKK you mentioned something about speed problems with the 16Gb SSD on the Linux version. How bad are we talking?

Anonymous said...

In the 901, is there room for the 8mm thick 1.8 inch Toshiba harddrive or only the 5mm thick one. -Thanks.

Katzenstreu said...

Hello JKK!

I've a really big problem with my 901.
I deleted all partitions and I set a password to BIOS. I Know the right password, but if I enter i after pressing [F2] the Netbook starts as usual.
But I want to go in BIOS. Is there any jumper on the Mainbord?

Greetings,
Tim

England said...

Jkk, JUST got my 901 a week ago (loving it, but not liking the Xandros OS that comes with it, a bit buggy, but I wanted the 20G of storage). Now, the plastic covering the ram has a sticker over one of the screws labeled "EEE PC", I removed it, did I just void my warranty? Also, when I take off the plastic covering the ram, I find it is covered by a black material, along with the bluetooth, the SSD and Wireless card are not covered? Suggestions? Thanks.

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