Digital Home Thoughts: Asus Ups the Ante with Eee PC 900

"When we first saw the diminutive Asus Eee PC back in the fall of 2007, we were duly impressed by its capability to mix small size with a small price, and rightly predicted it would be popular with consumers and influential with other PC makers (although, to be fair, the OLPC XO and Intel Classmate first blazed the same trail in the education space). Just as the original Eee PC started to feel a bit dated, Asus comes out with an updated version, called the Eee PC 900. Although it occupies only a marginally larger footprint than the original, this new model finds room for a 9-inch screen, accomplished by moving the tiny speakers away from the sides of the lid, leaving more room for the display. With a much more reasonable 1,024x600 resolution (the 7-inch screen was a paltry 800x480), the new Eee PC 900 feels more like a laptop and less like a portable Internet appliance."

I like what they have done with the new model, but unfortunately by doing so, they got rid of one of the best features, the price point. I love the original Asus Eee and the only thing I wanted changed was the screen. They could even keep the smaller screen size and just bump up the resolution and I would be happy and would have upgraded in a minute if that could have been done with just adding say $50 to the price. Unfortunately, at $550, I'll just stick with the current model.