I have been trying to use the Asus Eee PC 901 for a few months and at times have really enjoyed it.  At other times it was a miserable experience.

• I expected the 901 to be able to keep up with me as I type on it, I’m writing this post on it and the courser tends to hang or be a few key strokes behind my fingers.
• I am  also disappointed that the keyboard is set up the way it is.  The Shift, Back Space, and apostrophe keys are all to small and not in the right place for my average sized hands.
• Video playback has been very atrocious on this machine, I’m not able to watch tv via Hulu or the tv networks websites, I can’t even watch YouTube videos that have fully loaded, the video on here is just useless.
• Along with the theme of bad video, there is no use trying to use the built in camera for video calls.  I tried to make a Skype video call and the CPU was maxed at 100% and froze the computer for over a minute.
• My last complaint before I sing some serious praises for this little netbook is that the screen has gone out on me a few times.  It has just gone black, as if the computer is off, but it is still running.  I can hear the fan and I see the lights showing it’s on and connected to the wifi.  I thought it suddenly went to sleep even though I was currently typing on it so I moved the mouse, hit the space bar to wake it up, I even pressed the power button briefly thinking that would do it.  Nothing worked so I had to power it down by holding the power button for a few seconds.  This is a huge fail to me and hope I just have a faulty model.  I would love another chance with an Asus to review a good working model.

Now to ring its bell

• The screen is pretty good
• Volume is mediocre, enough to listen in a quite room but no way on an airplane
• Battery life is fantastic, I think I got over 6 hours on it while connected to wifi and surfing the net.
• Size is amazing, I really can’t get over how tiny this thing is, but an additional 1/4 inch would have made the keyboard much more usable.
• The weight is perfect.  I have been able to toss the 901 in it’s case in to my daughters diaper bag and go out for the day, I didn’t even notice a difference.
• It has enough built in memory to fit the basic apps I needed to work remotely.

So I am going away for 3 weeks this winter.  I will  be visiting the beautiful country of Israel.  I am trying to line up my technology in advance for this trip and trying to keep it as light and little as possible.  I will have a handful of phones with me including the Nokia N78, N95, and my trusty yet dated E61i, I have a review netbook at the moment.  It is an Asus Eee PC 901 and I am loving it.  I also have a Proporta battery pack, which will keep my Nokias charged everywhere.  As for connectivity at airports and around the city I have a Boingo account that should keep me connected at the 4 airports I will be visiting and I hope lots of other locations around Israel.  I am concerned though that I will run out of juice on the netbook mid flight.  I am planning on making it a video  player for my daughter and I don’t want her upset the battery died mid Elmo episode.  I wish I could get a tip for my Proporta charger to use with the Asus.  I am considering purchasing a converter for use in cars and on the airplane to plug the Asus into.

I now have to start thinking about my connectivity to the grid.  I already have an Orange Big Talk sim card to use for my voice needs.  I am now looking into data so I can stay connected to email, IM, Jaiku, Twitter, and mobile maps and search.  I count heavily on mobile connectivity and being able to search and look up maps whille I’m mobile.  I am hoping that I can add data onto my Orange sim card but don’t have high expectations.  Last year when I was in Israel I had the sim in a Nokia N95 and it was not able to access the data I paid for.  My contingency plan for data is using United Mobile.  I have to check on the data rates but they usually pretty competitive.

Two of my favorite services I use everyday are GrandCentral and Truphone.  I take all my calls via GrandCentral and forward them to Truphone.  I can either answer the calls via Truphone or forward them to my current GSM #.  When I change sims upon landing in Tel Aviv the Truphone app on my phone will ask me if I want to forward my calls to my Orange sim versus my AT&T sim I use in the US.  This means I can have all my calls forwarded to my Orange sim in  Israel and not pay a penny for the service or to receive calls on the Orange sim.  If this is getting confusing to you imagine how I feel, but it works and it works quite well.  I did the same kind of thing when I was in Barcelona earlier this year using a Yoigo sim card.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself I feel so lucky.  I was sent an Asus Eee PC 901 late last week and have been amazed with it from the moment I took it out of the box.  I will go into more detail about the netbook in future posts but for the time being I just want to share my overall feelings and thoughts on it.

It is small.  When I said I wanted a small computer I really got what I asked for.  This 901 barely fits my 2 hands.  I am trying to get used to it but my hands are cold this morning.  There will be a learning curve but I think I’m getting it and it really isn’t difficult.  I have been really been trying to keep this thing light in terms of what  I install on it.  I think I have only installed 6 programs.  First and foremost Firefox, then Skype, SightSpeed then AVG, TweetDeck, and last but by no means least Boingo.   I could even cut that list down if I was really desperate.  It did come loaded with MS software, but I haven’t used or plan to use either.  I am doing all I can to keep this fully cloud based.  I just need to get to the cloud and interface with it.

One of the first things I did after installing Skype was have a video chat with my sister in Argentina.  The quality was what I have come to expect from Skype so we switched right over to SightSpeed and she told me how good the camera is on this netbook.  I was really happy to hear that.  I can also comment on the speaker volume and quality and say that it is adequate.

I want to address a common question I have heard about the 901 already.  What is the battery life  like?  Well I can use the netbook on and off all day, I’d say about 5 hours and be fine.  I don’t know yet how watching videos will affect the battery.  I do know though that the graphics card has a bit of catching up to do.  I was streaming over Hulu.com last night and got a few freezes.  A quick pause and play of the video fixed it but it was definitely noticeable.

I have spent more time on the couch with this in the last few days then I have with my MacBook in the last 6 months.  The Asus Eee PC 901 is extremely portable.

I will give it a huge thumbs up and point out my only disappointment I can find at this point.  I would like to see the right shift key  where it belongs, which is unfortunately right where the up arrow is.  My suggestion is that Asus goes back and splits the down key into up and down.  Then they can make the Shift and question mark keys a tad bit larger.

In conclusion of this first post on the 901 my suggestion is go out and purchase one.  If you are looking for a good solid netbook at a good price I think this one will fit the bill.

If you have any questions fire away.

I was a guest on the T4 Show with Michael Manna on Friday.  He is a fun host for in interesting podcast.  If you want to  listen it’s episode 93 and here’s the url http://t4show.com.  Thanks for having me Michael.

So I’m shopping for a UMPC or Ultra Mobile Personal Computer, it’s a really small and light laptop and I have all kinds of questions.

What are the brands I should be looking at? What do I want out of it? What features must be present? And what are my minimum hardware requirements.

Well my options are vast, there is Asus, Acer, MSI, HP, Dell, Lenovo, Sony, and a whole bunch of other brands I can’t think of right now.

I want a UMPC also known as a NetBook to have a few key components. For starters an Atom processor, 1 gig of ram minimum, bluetooth and a 6 cell battery (I would like it to last at least 4 hours at a minimum). I need this thing to be a work horse for a single task at a time. I will be using it for entertainment for my daughter when we travel, so she can watch movies on a 14 hour flight. I need it for email, surfing the web, IM and video conferencing the rest of the time. I plan to run my email over GMail so that will be in a web browser and then I will be surfing the web in the same app. I have also been hearing good things about Meebo, it’s an IM client that runs in a web browser. So there is most of what I need all based in one single app. I also need to run Skype separately and SightSpeed/Dell Video Chat when I get alerted that someone wants to do a video conference. SightSpeed is great when the bandwidth is at a minimum.

So there you have it, I will probably run 4 apps regularly on the UMPC. Now which one should I get? I can’t just go to the store and play with them, most electronic stores don’t sell them yet and if they do it’s probably only 1 or 2 brands and models. I don’t want to go online and purchase 5 or more netbooks just to return all but 1. So I need to rely on my readers to give me some advice. What do you plan on buying or what do you have already?

Lastly do I want a solid state drive (SSD) or a regular spinning hard drive (HD)? And do I want it to run Linux or XP?

I’m leaning toward the Asus 901 for $429 , the Acer Aspire 1 for $399, Dells high end offering for $494 (specked the way I want it), or the MSI Wind for $506. I just can’t decide.  I would prefer it to run XP.