EEE 900A mini review (cross post)
I ended up buying 2 900A netbooks at a local best buy that had them clearance at $199.99 each, which was an awesome deal so I could not pass it up.
The 900A is a very interesting model, it is basically a cross between a 900 and a 901. The specs are as follows:
Linux OS
Atom N270 1.6 ghz
4400mAh battery (but its not the same as the 900 battery)
Intel GMA 950 graphics
1GB of ram
4GB SSD (removable and upgradable, no on board flash)
3 USB 2.0 ports
wireless G
No camera or BT
The build quality of the 900a is good, glossy plastic on the lid and mat plastic other places. The glossy plastic does not seems very scratch prone. Build tolerances are good and the keyboard feels better than the 700 series and on par with the 900 series. Touch pad is ok but has some response issues everyone and a while. Like the 900 series the multi touch works well for scrolling.
The default Linux operating system exhibits issues when writes are being done to the flash that music drops out when being played from USB or internal flash. I have noticed this with all EEE pc models that only have the slower flash memory as the primary drive. One model I installed easy peasy (ubuntu eee) and have yet to try if it still has this issue. I have been able to duplicate this on a 900 16gb model and the 900 4gb target model. Audio issues are gone windows windows xp.
The flash drive is very slow with write performance, bringing the system down to it knees with any writes (eg: logs, swap, etc...). I opted to put XP on one of the systems and disabled the swap file, fire fox cache, and system restore to get acceptable speeds. Given the flash is on a pci express card I am opting to upgrade this at a later time with results I will post.
Most application that run from memory are very zippy, even more so than the celeron based eee's. For the most part it works great, some apps kill it, like 720p video.
Battery life is very good given it is the smaller available battery, using the cpu throttling setting at power save I get about 3.5 hours. Heat output is also very low compared to celeron based models with the fan almost never engaging in most of my uses.
LCD brightness without tweaks is good, contrast ratio is decent, light leakage is average. Light leakage is noticeable at all brightness levels on dark scenes and is consistent on all 900 series i have tested. Color performance is average but not bad, the screen does have a bit of a screen door affect though. No dead pixels out of the box on either units (asus has decent quality control i guess ^^)
Pros:
-EEE PC size, not much bigger than a 700 series
-good battery life even with smaller batteries
-low heat
-Atom Processor
-Can be had for 200 USD
-Flash for shock resistance
-Good build quality for the price
-Upgradable ram and flash (not on board)
Cons:
-Slow flash, you need to change your os settings around this
-Slow flash causes strange audio issues in Linux
-Non standard battery (not the same as used in the 900 or 901)
-LCD has issues, but not a deal breaker