Eee PC 900 Experience

Please note: This is a sharing of Eee PC 900 experience (4 weeks user experience), not a review.

We know Eee PC is hot. How hot is it?

When Eee PC 900 boots up, it is absolute cool and quiet. I turned on WiFi. Adjusted the bright level to 5 out of 10. 15 minutes after I surfed the net, the fan kicked in and I could feel the bottom of Eee PC was very warm. I used eeecontrol to monitor the CPU temperature. It's 58c degree.

Another test I tried. WiFi on. Bright level 5. I played the video for 25 minutes, it's 65c degree. I closed all the programs and waited for 5 mintes. It's back to 54c degree. The Eee PC was just a little warm.

WiFi test

I read some feedback the WiFi not so good in Eee PC. Is that true? I cannot live without the Internet for one day. I turn WiFi on every time I use Eee PC. Therefore I let WiFi run at start. It takes only 5 seconds to connect my router in basement with 80% signal where I'm in bedroom upstairs.

I didn't experience any problem until I want to save energy by turn off the WiFi. If I turn on WiFi again manually, it does not indicate it is connected. However, when I try to surf the net, there is no problem.

After the WiFi connection is established, there are very few chance the connection is dropped.

One Two Three

The new multi-touch touch pad is fun. I can use two fingers to scroll the page continuously until I tap to stop the scrolling. The standard vertical/horizontal side scrolling are replaced by two fingers scrolling. The disadvantage is there is a very little bit delay for multi-touch scrolling. Two fingers zooming in/out woks well with both hands without have to config the setting.
Circular and three fingers scrolling are possible, however, I haven't found out how to use it yet.

Eee PC 900 Photos

Eee PC 900

Eee PC 900
Originally uploaded by xericlo

Here it is Asus Eee PC 900 Linux version brought in Canada.

It has 8.9" screen, ten bright levels. There is no comparison with the quality of regular LCD monitor / TV. It is still very good for what it is designed for Intrenet surfing, watching movies, photos.

It is a Linux version with 20 GB SSD total.4 GB SLC (Single Level Cell) SSD is on board. 12 GB MLC (Multiple Level Cell) is in the PCIe slot. MLC SSD is slower than SLC SSD. The best overall performance of Eee PC is depended on the SLC SSD.

The Eee PC 900 performance does not disappoint anyone. The boot time of Xandros IceWM is exactly 28 seconds. Most applications can be loaded in less than a few seconds. The OpenOffice applications, however, may take up to 20 seconds to load.

The Eee PC 900 model uses the Celeron 900 MHz processor at full speed, which does not lock the the speed to a certain level in 701 models. As long as no 3D intensive applications and games, there is no worry about its performance.

The keyboard is small but it is not too bad to type. The problems I have is the location of right Shift key and sensitivity of keyboard. The location of small Shift key is next to a Up arrow. It is wired. I have to type a little bit hard for the sensitivity of the key pressed. The multi-touch is new to PC and this little Eee PC. It works but it is not smooth at all, compare to Apple iPhone or HTC Tocuch Phone.

(To be continue...)