4. Asus Eee PC 901

Asus already has several netbooks on the market, but the first that we managed to get our hands on was this EeePC 901 XP.

Its big brother, the EeePC 901H, comes with a magnetic hard drive, but the 901 uses flash memory instead--12 GB of it to be precise. Windows XP is installed by default, and this netbook follows the trend set by others and features an Intel Atom processor.

Handling & Connecitivity

The 901 is available in three different color options: white, black and red, and it was this third that we tested. According to the specification, then, the case is supposed to be red, but to our eyes, pink would be a better description. Around the edges and behind the screen, there's a rather pixellated pink and white snowflake pattern to 'decorate' the case, giving Asus' new laptop a rather feminine look.

On the 901, the keyboard takes up most of the space available to it, giving decent-sized keys that are all around 1.5 cm across. Although a few system keys down the right hand edge are a little smaller, but this is far from irritating. If the keys are big on top, they're not very deep, however, and you need to type gently to avoid thumping the ends of your fingers.

The touchpad underneath the keyboard is bigger than average, and is surrounded by a brushed metal trim--a better idea than the chrome found elsewhere which easily picks up grimy fingerprints. Right at the edge of the laptop, the relatively stiff left and right click buttons are flush with the edge of the case.

The sound is fine with little distortion, although we did sound a lot more nasal on some of our recordings than we are used to. We were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the integrated speakers. To really enjoy music and hear bass notes, you'll need to plug in some headphones, but the speakers provided are perfectly good for watching a film.

The webcam is decent, with a sharp image which only sometimes tends to be dominated by red. Its other major fault is a flicker which is most noticeable in low light.

You get three USB ports, an Ethernet port, an incredibly slow built-in memory card reader and a VGA output.  Pleasingly, a Bluetooth chip is on board, which is still something of a rarity amongst netbooks.

Mini jacks for mic and headphones	Memory card reader
RJ45 and first USB	Two more USB and VGA

Processor Power
This is a very fast computer, and it boots up in 35 seconds, which more than 20 seconds faster than other nine inch netbooks on the market. The faster boot times and fast software operation are thanks to the included flash memory on the 901.

Writing to the flash memory, however, is an entirely different story and is incredibly slow: copying a 2.6 GB folder of music and photos from an external hard drive onto the computer over USB took over twenty minutes, but copying the same folder back (reading from, rather than writing to) only took 2 minutes 19 seconds.

Battery Life & Portability
The 901 comes with a very chunky battery, which allows you to watch video for up five hours with the screen's brightness set to 100 cd/m². The charger too, at only 7.2 ounces, is a big success compared with some of the chunky models we've seen elsewhere in this survey.

If you think that you'll be able to get by with just 12 GB of storage by juggling external hard drives and USB keys, than the Eee PC 901 is truly a five star piece of hardware. Light, fast (at reading data at least), and well thought-out, it's full of positives.