Asus may have been first on the pint sized PC block, but has its latest Eee PC 901 got what it takes to fend off rival wannabes?
It’s time for Asus to knuckle down and take on a stats-based battle with the MSI Wind and Acer Aspire One to see who’s the biggest little laptop in town.
Size and Weight
In this game less is most definitively more, but there’s no point having a machine so small it’s unusable. The Wind has the biggest footprint, but then it does offer an inch of extra screen size – packing a 10 incher to the others’ 8.9in displays. The Eee PC just edges it on volume making it the smallest in the running, although it does weigh slightly more than the Aspire One due to its bigger battery.
Winner: Acer Aspire One
Speed
There’s no clear contender in speed stakes, since all machines are level pegging in the processor department, packing the same 1.6GHz Intel Atom chip. With all comers also sporting 1GB of RAM there’s not much to separate them besides go faster stripes.
Winner: Draw
Storage
Where you keep your digital bits is clearly a contentious issue, with all manufactures taking a different approach. Asus has opted for only solid state drives – 12GB if you chose XP or a larger 20GB model if you pick Linux. MSI has taken the opposite approach, only offering an 80GB spinning disk whereas Acer has tried to keep everyone happy with both 8GB SDD and 120GB hard drives available. Solid state makes for a more robust traveller, giving Asus the edge.
Winner: Eee PC 901
Software
All machines are available loaded with either Windows XP Home or Linux. Each manufacturer has opted for a different Linux distribution – Asus uses Xandros, MSI comes with Suse and Acer arrives loaded with Linpus. Despite the different flavours on offer, the functionality of each is largely similar making it a tie unless you’re strongly drawn to particular version of Linux.
Winner: Draw
Connectivity
Looking at the paper specs you’d be hard pushed to tell these machines apart – all pack three USB ports, VGA hookup, SD card slot and Ethernet. It’s in the wireless specs that differences start to become apparent. The Eee PC edges out the others with faster 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth as standard making another win for Asus.
Winner: Eee PC 901
Battery Life
The MSI Wind posts the most feeble scores, promising a mere 2.5 hours from the standard 3-cell battery and 5.5 hours from the optional 6-cell unit. The Aspire One improves a little – 3 hours with the 3-cell, 7 hours from the optional 6-cell, but it’s another win for the Eee PC, with its standard 6-cell battery offering a maximum 8 hours of al fresco computing.
Winner: Eee PC 901
Hackability
There’s a little bit of underground support for unofficial mods to the Acer Aspire One – such as replacing the internal Flash drive. The Wind also has its own band of followers, some who’ve even managed to get it to run Mac OS X, but hands down there’s most support for tinkering in the Eee PC camp, with hackers adding touchscreens, built in 3G modems and extra hard drives, racking up another gong for Asus.
Winner: Eee PC 901
Price
Asus has maintained the same price for the Eee PC 901 whether you choose XP or Linux, instead adding more storage to the latter. As a result, The Wind comes in either side depending on whether you want the more expensive Microsoft OS or cheaper open source alternative. However, the Aspire One undercuts them all – even on its XP machine, earning it the crown in the price stakes.
Winner: Acer Aspire One
