A Small Wonder
Asus Eee PC 901 Netbook reviews
By H. H. Chau (Bologna, Italy)
I was in NYC this summer with my girlfriend and a small portable notebook to occasionally surf the web, check my emails and quickly review & edit my photos is really a must have.
I bought a 901 because the MSI Wind was too big, the Aspire One lacked of autonomy and expandibility and so on.
The EEEPC 901 is a bit bulkier than his brother 900 and noticeably heavier, but the 6 cell battery boost your digital life with at least 5 hour of autonomy (60% brightness and wifi on). I’ve chosen the linux flavour to enjoy the 20gb of SSD (fast 4gb SSD dedicated to the OS and a slower 16gb slave), I usually work with linux so it’s not a big deal, however I really can’t honestly recommend to anyone: it’s stable, easy and it simply works out of the box, but if something goes wrong, it’ll be a real pain to find the problem and fix it if you are not an above average user.
Pros:
This EEEPC is rock solid and have a good glossy finger magnet finish on the top (white is much better than black), the Atom processor is just a tad slow compared to the Celeron 900, but in conjunction with the 6cell battery its autonomy is really awesome.
Cons:
The keyboard is small and crowded and flex a lot in the center.
The multitouch touchpad is a mess: there are no drivers under linux to make it work and, under windows, it feels sometimes clumsy, with the cursor jumping around. A fix from Asus or Elantech is really wellcomed.
The baby runs very hot under average load.
Conclusion:
I’m very happy with the 901, which is far from gaining a perfect score, but indeed it’s the best selection among the current generation of netbooks.
It is expensive and overhyped, but with its recent price cut, you’ll not regret buying it.
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