Yup they increased the price. Dang.... I was there this evening looking for the Eee PC 901. Was at the first few halls, found the ASUS booth which was represented by Evernew. Seems like they are offering 901 but without any stocks. I don't know if they are reserving it or they do not have stocks yet. But there was a sales person who is especially annoying because he keep pestering me to pre-order from him. Not much freebies too.

Then I walked to the lower halls and saw another ASUS booth but represented by another distributor. They had 901 stocks on hand and is selling them like hotcakes. So I got it from them at RM1749. Slightly expensive but I guess its ok since I do not have the time to scout around KL this few weeks.

Fully support you guys' move. Not a single free gift they offer and not a single discount. My set was just the stock items included in the package. I however upgraded the RAM to 2GB which adds in the cost too. oh well....

I actually thought this fair would be great for people looking for the Atom-based netbooks. Intel was heavily promoting on the newspapers and magazines. I guess the MSI Wind U100 could be better.

Anyway this time, Sony VAIO offers the best deal. Lowered prices and lots of good value Sony branded freebies.

Addon: Oh ya one more thing. I installed the CoreTemp 0.99.1 which fully supports the Atom processor. The reported temperature is around 60~66 Deg C. Kinda high in my opinion, but it doesn't feel hot on the bottom actually. Fan not activated all the time too. Battery lifetime is superb!

This post has been edited by davidmak: Aug 2 2008, 08:40 AM

They are probably banking on the huge demand and also the feature product of the PC Fair this time. Thats why they dare to increase price all round. No deductions, no freebies. No joke. I don't know if they changed the policy today or tomorrow. But when I got my unit I saw 5 people registering their Eee PC at the tables.

Yeah, I almost bought my Eee PC from Evernew too. Went there on the first day and they told me there will be no stock for 901 and have to pre-order. Freebies provided but they can't show me which one. But I can't wait till Wednesday to collect stock and I don't believe they come to PC Fair unprepared and without stocks. Turns out that they lied straight to my face. No wonder the sales guy was so eager to persuade me to pre-order from him.

The 2GB RAM upgrade only costs less than RM100. Anyway it doesn't matter anymore now. Just enjoy the netbook. Its a good one and I really like the battery lifetime. Oooh, you don't need the hibernation feature. We're on SSD now so it makes not much of a difference. Cheer up, my friend.

Nice price you got there. I aagree with you, battery lifetime will eventually win over. I chose 901 mainly because of this reason alone. At first I thought keyboard size is important but when I saw the 901 and typed on it. It isn't any worse as long as you give some time to get used to it.

Yeah all out to capitalize on demand. Those outgoing products they will sell cheap. I actually refuse to believe when they all said no stock and have to pre-order. Sure you cannot tahan or wait. Then they will offer you a nice price for Eee PC 900. They clear all their 900 stocks and when it is depleted, they take out the 901 stocks. First sell it at a premium and then towards the end of the fair, include freebies or lower the price a bit.

When I think of what the guy from Evernew told, I really pissed off with him. People lie straight to your face even though both parties knew it. Lies are everywhere and it make us, consumers look like a joke.

Guys, conventional wisdom holds true here. Don't judge the cover by the book. Don't buy from the booths in the early portion of the fair. Buy at the end of it. Same goes in lowyat or other shopping complex, don't buy straight large shops. They have other shops on the top floor.

Anyway the way they plan and arrange the booths are really sly. They make you go pass each and every store with the cut throat ones in the front and the more reasonable products at the rear. Then they don't allow you exit in between or turn back should you change your mind.

Yeah it all depends what you're trying to do with the netbook. Information consumption only activities are great, not creation or playing games. You'll need more storage. In this case, the 1000H is clearly the more appropriate product to buy.

If you set it to power saving with LCD brightness to the minimum, with or without wireless, I think you can do more than that. At minimum brightness the LCD is still legible unless its facing the sun. With this setting, I was able to squeeze more than 5 hours.

Yeah. But I was hoping ASUS would release different variant of 901 with 30GB Micro-HDD or provide expansion options for 901 users. Although 12GB is sufficient for its intended purpose, a 30GB option would be nice.

Of course, the adventurous can go for the self-modification. Doesn't look too tricky to me. But the price is slightly high for now.

Hi there,

Here's a brief comparison for you.

Eee PC 900 (30GB Micro-HDD Windows XP)
+ more capacity for data storage
+ slightly thinner than 901
- battery capacity not as large as 901
- finishing, quality and hinge reliability not as good as 901
- graphics/video rendering not as good as 901
- more heat dissipation using Celeron M ULV
- no bluetooth

Eee PC 901 (12GB or 4GB+8GB SSD Windows XP)
+ very long battery lifetime (average 4-5 hours)
+ glossy finishing and new hinge design
+ newer i945 chipset and with GMA950 for better video support
+ less heat dissipation
+ fully equipped with bluetooth and also WIFI-N support
- thicker than 900
- not as capacious as 900 for data storage

So it depends what is your requirements. If you want more data storage and still want an Atom processor, I would recommend you to try Eee PC 1000H/MSI Wind. If you want a compact form factor and Atom processor then 901 is a good buy.

If your confusions revolve around the use of micro-HDD, then you should consider the characteristics of HDD on a ultra-compact usage environment like the Eee PC. First 1.8" HDD will have small vibrations, not entirely bump-proof, slightly higher power utilization and slightly higher latency when it comes to data performance. If you want a high capacity data storage, most of these don't matter to you.

SSD on the other hand is made completely of flash memory and do not operate mechanically like the HDD. It is solid state. SSD provides a few advantages like lower power utilization, lower latency, more performance on data and more robust in a mobile environment. However, on the 901's implementation of the SSD is a little slow according to a review article. To a point it has not much difference compared to 1.8" HDD.

I would recommend you to go straight for Eee PC 901. The higher capacity isn't a deal breaker because the processor is still a Celeron M ULV. Lets not matter on the performance between the two which is almost the same. I would prefer the entire platform as a whole. The i945 chipset is much better foundation.

Bro, never be discouraged. Keep up the good work in contributing to this thread. We're here not on a reputation building basis, we're here because we're owners of a very spectacular product!!! Man can't wait to get off work at 5.30PM and hold on to my Eee PC.

By the way, since I am writing... anyone installed Core Temp 0.99.1 on their netbooks? Whats your temperature like? Mine is quite high even though it doesn't feel as hot. The temperatures usually float around 55-65 Deg C on Power Saving mode while in Automatic Performance it will be around 65-70 Deg C. I was wondering if this is a case of software support even though Core Temp alleged to have full support for Intel Atom.

Hi again.. hehehehe

The Eee PC 1000H is a lot more expensive at RM2099 (PC Fair). I am quite sure the price will stabilize few weeks from now. Actually to tell you the truth, I first mistaken the 1000H for 901. Turns out 1000H isn't so small actually. You can consider this model if you want more storage.

Like our forummer suggested, you can buy lots of 8GB SD cards and keep your media collections there. Anyway guys, can we install and run programs off that SD card? If this is possible, then it'll be great.

Tararan: You can do a DIY modification by upgrading the SSD to use a micro-HDD. Guides are on youtube.com. There's no official upgrade options yet for the SSD. At most we can upgrade to 16GB SSD from the upcoming 901 Linux edition. Thats total of only 8GB increase (original 8GB SSD replaced with 16GB SSD) and thats still a DIY modification.

This post has been edited by davidmak: Aug 4 2008, 04:07 PM

Yeah, just shove Evernew aside. I see many people sharing bad experiences with Evernew. Even myself.

As for storage usage, I try to keep the C drive as empty as possible. This is because the C drive is populated by the 4GB SSD that is connected directly to the MCH which they say is faster and it is also a SLC flash. The D drive is populated by the 8GB SSD which is connected via the PCI-E and they say it is slower for some reasons. All my programs are installed on the D drive. I uninstall all the unwanted programs from C. Just leave C drive for windows update and windows related files.

Anyway thank you so much for confirming that installation and execution of programs on SD card works. Gonna buy that 8GB pretty SDHC Class 6 pretty soon.

As for applications, I use the following:

ESET NOD32 Antivirus
Microsoft Office 2003
TuneUp Utilities 2008
jv16 Power Tools 2008
Windows Media 11
Realplayer 11
Divx6.8
Firefox 3.01
Microsoft Live Messenger
etc

NOD32 is recommended because of its light use of resources while still keep overall response fast. I am able to boot up from the moment BIOS screen appears until the task bar is displayed in 20 seconds (approx.) which is very good in my opinion. This is on a standard stock installation of Windows XP SP3.

I don't see it as a problem actually. If you know the market price and you know what to buy and fix your mind on it, you're fine. Warranty and after sales services is between you and ASUS. If you're staying in KL, you're pretty much covered. No need to go through Evernew. Thats what I have been doing with my purchases. I just buy from the shop/dealer offering the best price and the relationship ends there. After that its between me and the manufacturer. Better this way unless I have no means to get in touch with the manufacturer. Thats when I fall back to the dealer or shop.

Lets consider it this way:

I already have a very powerful desktop to do video editing, rendering and image editing as well as for personal entertainment and server. Then I have a reasonably powerful laptop for doing serious work on the move and for my studies and assignment. I also have a good PDA that is reasonably resourceful for keeping my schedule on track while having internet capabilities to retrieve important information when I need it. However, there comes a time where I need something more capable than my PDA's small screen but at the same time do not need the power of my laptop for reasons such as weight and operating lifetime. This is where I believe Eee PC fills up that gap.

Of course an UMPC such as Sony VAIO TZ series is great for this purpose. But these PCs have been historically very expensive. This is where Eee PC comes in. PC hardware have lately become so powerful leaving a large gap for software and applications to catch up. Sometimes we don't need all these computing power and we could use something that is 'just enough' while allowing to reduce the end product size and improve other things.

Oh by the way, I am using the Eee PC as a large navigation display. With bluetooth I am able to pair it with my GPS receiver module and use the display for navigation. Like the other forummer pointed out few pages back.

After all, I think this in good faith. It is a good chance for the young to start computing early. The price is right and parents could pick these up instead of those electronic dictionaries for their kids. This product is also good for those who wants an UMPC for light and non-serious work. It is a good opportunity for those who can't afford a VAIO UMPC which is somewhat over-rated according to many people.

In my experience with the Eee PC 901, it performs admirably. It is not super fast but it is definitely no slouch here. With enough RAM you can run Windows XP without any problem. The stock amount of 1GB is just great. Fear that installing an antivirus application will be too much for the system to handle? Maybe you have not played with one or your expectations isn't aligned to the product's design objectives. But my system is running on a stock Windows XP installation and a full fledged ESET NOD32 without any problems. These are on stock settings and I can still churn out approximately 20 seconds from the moment BIOS screen appears until Windows have finish booting up with the task bar displayed. Shutting down is also around the same time. No complains here! Happy owner.

This afternoon, I did something sooo right with the Eee PC. With the LED backlit display, I felt the color accuracy was on a bluer scale. So my friend did a full calibration with Spyder2 on my Eee PC. The result is SPECTACULAR. Colors are warmer and a lot more accurate. I really like the screen so much now. Previously I thought Eee PC's screen is just bright and without detail, but now its unexplainable. I'm gonna pay for the rest of my laptop and displays.

Ooh they have a newer version than the current version 12 as printed on the bottom casing. Interesting items you have there, wish I had provisions for that this month.

Anyway, I read over here and on the eee pc forum that the our 901 is not compatible with Corsair and a few other RAMs right? My unit was upgraded to a Corsair RAM. So far no problem operating it unless I change processing profile mode or plug in the power cord. The screen would just go corrupt and halt everything.

Do anyone know which brand is safe or trouble free? I have one Kingston 2GB module on one of my laptops and I thought of swapping it to the 901.

This post has been edited by davidmak: Aug 5 2008, 06:55 PM

Yeah maybe there could be a solution (PCIE to ZIF) for you. Better keep it if you really like the Eee PC form factor. Already got a laptop using 2GB Kingston. I can swap with it. Corsairs has been problem free. Heard it is something to do with the laptop hardware. Some quoted the power circuitry cannot support certain RAM modules at 2GB.

Maybe get 1000H? That seems to be a good replacement for the 901 if you've owned and used it before. I think the upgrade will be great. Of course if you don't like the increased size and weight, then 901 is currently the best balance between feature and this alone.