Asus Eee PC 901 20GB Linux Reviews: Linux 8.9" Screen Laptop computer

+ Great battery life which will last around 6 hours with Wifi and Bluetooth on with screen on full brightness. The size is amazing as is the weight - great for web surfing, emails and reading. A useful keyboard shortcut rotates the screen round so you can hold like a book making it useful for reading long web pages. Great support online from 1000's of other users. Software runs faster than anticipated for such a small machine, I've been editing audio, video and 3D modelling no problem. Screen performance is great outdoors. Handy, small and convenient - best gadget purchase of the year!

- A lot of reviews slate the keyboard for being too small, however I think its really the configuration of the keys which is causes issues as the top 2 lines of keys are in non-standard places for laptops slowing you down when you first start typing. Now I've used for a couple of weeks its become second nature, just takes some getting used to. Might be hard for users to install XP onto without some online help, its fairly easy to install from CD however needs some trimming down on options after a Windows update fills up the disc. Touchpad is good although multitouch option (such as pinching to zoom) is a little sluggish - I recommend buying a bluetooth mouse such as the Microsoft Notebook 5000 which pairs immediatly on startup under XP - I had to do this manually with the Linux OS on every startup which is why I uninstalled; although the Linux system runs a lot faster for things like firefox and fast startups.

+ I also have the MSI Wind/Advent 4211, although the advent if the larger of the 2 I find usin the eeee 901 just as comfortable

- The standard OS needs some fiddling to get the best out of it, simply good asus eee pc forum or wiki and you'll find all you need. Now running in advance desktop mode, getting around 7 hours out of it during the day. You couldn't want for more.

+ runs linux - not windows.

- isn't ubuntu - xandros file manager makes up for that though.

+ everything is great...except....

- came in default language chinese, default linux install on it is atrocious and there isn't yet a linux distro with all the hardware drivers for it, so you end up with a half working machine, my advice is to buy this one then format it for windows XP.

+ Great battery life. Decent performance. Tiny! Great functionality.

- Linux OS wouldn't boot a few times, but I installed Windows XP and not had a problem since.

+ Portable, easy to use, boots quickly.

- Screen is a bit small.

+ Bought the Linux version, easy to use and does all that I want

- Trackpad buttons are naff

+ Neat, simple to use, fast and with all the software the home user will ever need

- speakers are on the base of the machine and so are a little muffled if being used on a desk

+ Its a proper PC for your lap. Better than having to fire up the big PC to look up something quick on the web. I keep mine handy by the sofa and its easy to take to work or watch BBC iPlayer in bed

- Not as fast as I thought it would be. I looks a bit 'Mothercare'. Its not flimsy though.

+ Easy to use Linux Operating System

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- slow secondary drive

+ Battery is great, size and weight fantastic.

- Too many problems with the Linux. Automatic update didn't work, wireless needed fixing which took a lot of time amoungst other. Keyboard is small but that's what you get for the small size. Spacebar has a low responce. Mouse pad and clicking buttons are not very responcive either.

+ Small, fast enough, quiet

- Softwar updating fills the disk to overflow, took a boit of work to unscamble

+ compact,fast and comes with a good range of built in applicatons installed on the Linux operating system.
A soft carry cover is included in the price.
Can use USB sticks or High Capacity SD cards for additional storage.
Good battery life.

- After a few weeks use and downloading recommended updates the 4GB solid state disk containing the operating system becomes full, whilst the second 16GB solid state disk used for personal data storage still has 90%+ space available. After much research in the forums some work arounds have been found to ease the problem. However, the problem is due to the way Asus has organised the partioning of the disk and the update system which retains all of the downloaded files even when the update is complete. Asus needs to resolve this issue.