ASUS Eee PC 900-BK039X Netbook - EEEPC900-BK039X - Durable, shock-proof solid-state design
ASUS Eee PC 900 Netbook Intel Mobile, 1GB, 16GB Solid State Drive (SSD), 8.9" WSVGA, 802.11b/g, Webcam, Windows XP Home (Galaxy Black)

I use this every day while deployed with the military here in the Middle East to stay in touch with my family back in the USA. This is a good basic computer. It isn't the fastest nor the most advanced, but it is perfect for normal internet and applications. I can access the internet without problems. The webcam and microphone look and sound great. The speakers a bit weak, but if you are looking for surround sound, then netbooks aren't right for you. I have loaded Microsoft Office 2007 and it starts up/runs fast. I recommend buying a 16GB+ SDHC card to keep your files on. This will ensure your SSD doesn't get bogged down and run too slow. For the price and portability, its a winner. Oh and if my family isn't online when I am, the webcam allows me to take videos and email them home as well as create a video diary.
 
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i bought it for the solid state drive and OS. I plan on giving this to my daughter as a gift. She is 11 and it will be a good computer for her. The keyboard is too small and the battery strength is poor
 
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Asus has found a great niche market with this computer. It is very small, but the screen resolution quickly has you forgetting the size. The keyboard is small but responsive. My only complaint at first was about the backspace key. It doesn't take you back when viewing webpages, but I learned that alt-right arrow does this. Linux is great, but does have a learning curve. I had never used it, but was able to navigate easily in a few minutes. Later I changed my desktop to advanced mode and learned enough commands to load new software with ease. As a matter of fact, I have only found a couple of programs I can't use in Linux, and the speed difference is profound over Windows. This model looks dinky in specs, but is faster than my laptop with a P4 running 2.4ghz. My 10 year old son liked it so much he bought one with his birthday money and uses it everyday as well. It has it's slow moments, but I can live with it due to the overall performance and quality. I am a stock trader, and usually have five web pages open at once including two with streaming quotes (which hog a lot of bandwidth). While I can't view all at once, they switch quickly, and I've never missed a trade due to speed issues. This is a great auxilliary laptop for people on the go. The small size is easy to adapt to, but it's still nice to have a larger screen to go back to at home. The factory battery has short life, but recharges quickly. I recently took this on a multi-state trip in the Northeast, and it never missed a beat. I was able to find enough hotspots to conduct business and research. Files transfer easily between my Windows PC's (so far without any formatting issues). Wireless is a breeze too. I really like the faster boot and shutdown times since it seems like I can take a nap waiting for Windows to do the same thing. This unit has made me consider switching to Linux on all my PC's (except for my main music workstation which has some programs that won't work in Linux, even under emulation). Everything else works great though. This is a real eye opener! There is a huge online support community too so troubleshooting is easy. Take the time to get used to it, and you won't go anywhere without it. I now believe the Linux hype, but it may not be the best OS for casual users who need a lot of handholding. Power users can do amazing things with minimal effort though, plus I've yet to get a blue screen of death or a program not responding error. After three months of very heavy use I think this is a great tool and will replace it with another when I wear it out.
 
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I really like this small unit. I'd checked one out at the "box store" just so I wouldn't be surprised by anything. It packs nice. Of course more garbage software than you need, but every manufacture thinks that they need to bundle everything. Would recommend this to anyone that needs something to travel with as long as you are not planning on stressing the memory. 1GB is good, but 2 would be better. Screen is small, but you wanted this when you purchased this size. Keyboard is also small so wouldn't recommend speed typing on this. Good buy.
 
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The price and features for this 900 series eeepc are outstanding. Asus builds a quality product that feels and looks expensive. This particular eeepc has the 16gig ssd card, and I found out later on forums that it is a slow card compared to the 12gig and smaller cards. You will notice some slow application loads, but overall when surfing, and typing on a word document its not very noticeable. I would recommend it for its value, but caution if you are looking for a zippy little notebook, I would look elsewhere.
 
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The 16GB SSD is slower than you might expect. I experienced long delay times in normal usage, most times a freeze lasting longer than 10 seconds. Turns out that NTFS is a terrible file format for this SSD because of the file-permissions associated with the write commands. Convert the NTFS sys volume to FAT32, and apparently things get quite a bit faster. I would think a SSD would be much faster than a normal hard drive, that's why I was dissapointed with the performance of the unit as a whole. Battery life was very good though.
 
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