Key sizeThe EEE pc is one of the most successful of an emerging niche in the notebook landscape: "netbooks". These low-power, low-cost and exceedingly small laptops are rapidly becoming popular, with manufacturers like Asus, MSI, Acer and even Apple putting out competative products. One of the heavy hitters in the market, despite the somewhat idiotic abbreviation ("Easy to use, Easy to play, Easy to work"), is the Asus EEE pc series. Starting out with very low-powered 7" netbooks for very low prices, Asus has been moving upwards with their new offerings. The EEE 900 sports a 9" screen, 1 GHz Celeron processor, 1 GB of RAM and 12 GB of SSD drive space. The 901 will be released in the near future, with 1.6 GHz, and vastly improved battery life.

• Design: Very no-frills. Power button could have been styled better, looks too cheap now.
• Sturdiness: Pretty good, probably due to its small size. The screen can flex some (5 mm or so) when twisted, but if the laptop is closed the rigidity improves.
• Software: The EEE 900 is delivered with either Windows XP or a special version of Xandros Linux. Ordering a Windows version costs the same, but you get less SSD space to offset the Windows license costs. Linux it is then... The default Xandros desktop is a very simple interface that will let you launch apps with minimal fuss. Power users will want to switch to the "Advanced Interface" PDQ. This gives you a pretty full fledged KDE desktop. When I tested the upgrade manager (apt / synaptic) the repositories were very flaky. I recommend power-users install EEExubuntu ASAP. This gives you a nice Ubuntu environment, but you will have to google and tweak to get sound, wifi and hotkeys to work! This process took me a few hours, but remember this was just a few days after launch. The instructions should be updated now.
• Battery life: Abysmal. The EEE 900 was delivered with a 4400 mAh battery. That means 90 minutes of battery life in performance mode. Disabling sound, wifi, downclocking and setting screen brightness way down may net you 5 hours of very light use.
• Ease of use: The keyboard is tiny, takes some getting used to. The close proximity of the touchpad to the spacebar means you have no place to put your wrists or thumbs. The touchpad itself is not too bad, but frequent users will want to use an external mouse, maybe even an external keyboard and monitor...

Yesh Yesh Yow, EEEXubuntu
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Verdict? Should've waited for the MSI Wind U100 or the EEE 901. No matter though: the thing only cost E400, and is usable enough for reading in bed, in the sun etc. The linux angle makes it a really cool thing to have too :)