Conclusion
Atom notebooks everywhere. ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI all
have different designs, some with smaller screens, higher capacity drives, touch
screen panel etc. No matter what, the fundamental is the same. That is
usability.
In our brief test of the ASUS Eee PC 901, we
noticed that ASUS didn't put into account the feedback about it's keyboard. The
901 seems to be just the same as the Eee PC 900 with a change of it's CPU. ASUS
also improved the system by adding in 802.11n and Bluetooth.
As we have mentioned before in the MSI Wind U100
review, we feel that ASUS should have used a HDD (new Eee PC 1000H uses HDD).
SSD is good, but it is generally for OS and applications. ASUS should consider a
hybrid solution and not insisting a SSD as a replacement for HDD. How often
would you jog and surf or listen to MP3 with your
notebook on your backpack, i think having SSD isn't very practical for such
notebooks.
For multimedia playback, the ASUS Eee PC has no
issues playing some of the demanding clips we threw at it, even 1080p clips using classic mediaplayer. Just be prepared
to see your CPU utilisation goes rocket high that is all. Divx, youtube plays
smoothly too.
One thing I noted is that the system when power up
clocks down the FSB to 100MHz, running the system default at 600MHz. For maximum
performance, you might want to use the utility to clock it upwards to 1.6GHz or
1.68GHz depending on the speed mode.
In conclusion, Eee PC 901 is the first mini notebook that can
last up to 8 hours. Unfortunately to tap the power, you would need a better
keyboard and an external USB 2.5" HDD.
