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Asus EeePC 900A Review – Cheap in Price, Not in Quality!

AsusTeK, a computer company dating back to early 1990, has recently launched a line of products known as the Eee Series. The Eee Series, a product family designed under cheap, lightweight, low power consumption, and slim-form-factor ideologies, initially consisted of what are known as subnotebooks. As of 2009, the Eee series’ most popular products consist of relatively cheap but still highly-functional netbooks, which are marketed under the logo of EeePC (this website focuses on the 900A model). According to Asus, the Eee logo refers to the fact that the devices are “Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play”.

The Asus EeePC 900A is the current cheapest of the line of netbooks under the Eee logo. At the time of this writing, the EeePC 900A carries a $170 dollar price tag on eBay or Amazon (that includes shipping). The cheap price tag, however, does not serve as an indicator of this little machine’s quality—the product lives up to the Asus reputation. Further, the EeePC 900A, for most people’s purposes, is as functional as any full-sized laptop, but without the hassle of lugging around a monolithic machine. Although it may not be as powerful as every laptop on the market, it certainly serves its purpose well (keep in mind something like a PDA—any PDA has laughable specs compared to a full-sized computer, but it still serves as a useful device in its own right).

Let’s face it—today’s electronics world is more about marketing and consumer tendencies than it is actual technological improvement. After all, not many of us truly need 6 GB of RAM on a laptop, considering what its typical function is—writing papers on the go, checking e-mail, tending to business arrangements, organizing things, et cetera. One of my friends stated a while ago that “unused RAM is wasted RAM”—and the fact of the matter is that most of us won’t ever push even a 2 GB limit on a laptop. But the 6 GB RAM feature of many contemporary laptops has come to be a primary marketing tool, despite its arbitrary nature. It’s similar to megapixels on a digital camera—more is not necessarily better, but more certainly raises the price tag to a disproportionate extreme. That said, the Asus EeePC 900A does not market itself on raw, juggernaut-like power; it aims to be lightweight, cheap, and “green”, but still fully-functional.

All of that said, the EeePC 900A as a base model consists of a 2 LB (yes, two pounds!) computer with a 9” viewable LCD screen, on which the computer displays at 1024×600 resolution. The LCD has a matte finish, resistant to irritating sunlight reflection. The 900A’s keyboard is approximately 62% the size of a normal one—admittedly, this does take some adjusting to, but it is perfectly usable. For anyone who has ever “texted” on a cell-phone, this is a cakewalk—in fact, it’s not even that much of a jump from a typical keyboard. This Eee product also includes with it a 4-cell battery, down from the 6-cell that the Eee model 901 has. The computer actually has a very low-power-consumption processor, however, so what this contributes to is roughly 3 solid hours of battery life under moderate use, or 4 under sparing use (from my personal experience). The EeePC 900A also has a strong following, and you can buy aftermarket batteries for it from eBay that last up to 12 hours. The base model, before any upgrades, has a 1.6 GHz Atom low-power-consumption processor, and 1 GB of RAM (upgradable to 2 GB).

The EeePC 900A runs Xandros Linux by default, a fully-functional operating system that allows the user to do most of the important things he or she would do in windows; you can write papers, check your e-mail, surf the web, and more. The 900A also supports installation and use of Windows XP, even in the lowest-end, non-upgraded configuration (the guide for this is located here).

What does all of this mean for the consumer? The Asus EeePC 900A is for me, hands down, the most portable device that retains the functionality of a computer. Smaller than all of my college books, the Eee model 900A allows me to jot down notes, listen to music, surf the internet, check my e-mail, chat with friends, create powerpoints, read PDF books, and on and on. For the $170 price tag (that is the cost after shipping and everything else is applied—bottom line, it is $170), this device is the single most useful purchase for the money that I could have made as a college student and as a writer. I can even play games on it in my spare time; the integrated Intel graphics can play last-generation 3D games such as Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and Quake III.

The bottom line is that the Asus EeePC 900A is a worthwhile purchase for anyone looking to get an entry-level netbook. If you want something to browse the internet, write papers on, check e-mail, or simply keep in touch with others on the go, but don’t want to break the bank, the Asus EeePC 900A is a cheap, high-quality, and wonderful addition to anyone’s collection.

1 Comment

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  By brent, 23 December, 2009 @ 5:08 pm

  The site is under construction, but feel free to post some suggestions.

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