iTWire Technology Feature - 
TAG | Asus Eee PC 900 set to square off against HP Mini-Note PC |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Tuesday, 13 May 2008 | |
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Page 1 of 3 Fixing one of the biggest issues of the previous Asus Eee PC 701 model, which is the 7-inch screen with a resolution of only 800x480, the Eee PC 900 bumps the screen up to a much more respectable 8.9-inches at a much higher resolution of 1024x600. It’s certainly much friendlier than the Eee PC 701’s 800x480 for web pages, documents and on-screen dialog boxes which, with a 1024x600 resolution screen, will now show the ‘OK’ and ‘Cancel’ buttons on screen without needing to resort to the resolution changes that were necessary with the original Eee PC 701. More memory is the other major improvement to both the Windows XP and Linux versions of the Eee 900, with the Windows version coming with 4GB of internal storage and a separate 8GB storage module for a total of 12GB, while the Linux version has the 4GB of storage memory with a 16GB module for a nice 20GB total. While the additional 8GB of storage for the Linux version seemingly explains the AUD $50 price difference between the Windows version selling for AUD $599, and the Linux version selling for AUD $649, there is reportedly no such price difference overseas. Indeed, the free nature of Linux and the associated applications should have offset the additional cost the extra 8GB of storage on the Linux Eee 900, not to mention the additional cost of a Windows XP license and copy of Microsoft Works (the “productivity” software included as standard on the XP Eee 900). In addition, when it comes to RAM, both models now sport 1GB instead of the original 512MB of memory – another welcome boost for power and performance. The Eee PC 900 also has a ‘multi-touch’ touchpad mousing surface, which is also larger than on the Eee PC 701. While the multi-touch capability is widely reported to not be as smooth as that on the iPhone or the latest MacBooks from Apple, it is the first consumer device to sport ‘multi-touch’ besides Apple’s devices, and hopefully means that the PC world will soon have multi-touch technology widely available – and not just an Apple exclusive. Major kudos to Asus for being “first” – after Apple – to bring this to consumers, clearly it will only get more widespread and much smoother (as per Apple’s implementation) as time goes by. So, what about the Asus Eee PC 900’s keyboard – and its biggest new competitor? Please read onto page 2. |
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