Asus Eee PC 901 (white, Windows XP)

Pros: small, good specs, fast enough to not seem slow, comes in different colors, nice touch pad with tap touch and easy to use mouse buttons, comes with case and other extras

Cons: screen is terrible, no instructions on how to reset the pointers to D drive, my docs, temp etc. This is a must do so should be included as release notes. Keyboard too small.

Summary: After I first got this set up I really wanted to return it. The screen gives me a headache. It is too grainy. iPhone has a much better screen for viewing small things on. I spent 2 days optimizing the text size of the windows (you can do it in Windows classic mode), upping the DPI, customizing the text in my browser etc. Unfortunately there appears to be a large handful of things to adjust to improve the appearance. Verdana at larger sizes with Bold sometimes applied turned out to be the right combo for me. I also downloaded the utility to up the screen brightness. The readability is now OK.

I wish there was a store to go to where all the netbooks could be compared side by side. Then I could have chosen the best screen out of the bunch.

I bought the Sakara Red. It looks like a product from Matel for Barbie. Kind of fun but probably not a look I would have chosen in-person.

I would have liked to wait for the products to become more available and be in stores but I needed a netbook for travel. If you can wait to see the product your getting and give it a hands on trial in the store I suggest that. I'm probably OK with this keyboard but I don't think most adults would be.

Updated on Dec 5, 2008

I forgot to mention the great battery life and how nice and quite it is without a fan. Both of these are in the pros column.

Updated on Dec 15, 2008

Just wanted to update. I used it for a few days and decided the screen compromise was too much for me. Note, that this will not bother everyone, it depends on if you like matte screens. Both my husband and my friend said they like this screen very much. My friend even bought the Acer Aspire One and liked the ASUS screen better. However, I sold my ASUS and lost some $s in the transaction but am now the owner of an Acer Aspire One. I'll post a review on that after I've spent some time with it.

Updated on Dec 19, 2008

I miss my ASUS. I have been working with the Acer Aspire One for about a week now. It is slow, runs hot and has a fan that makes noise. The ASUS 901 was completely silent, never got too hot in my lap and was super fast. The Acer has a better keyboard and screen. It also has a more pleasing look. But if you are after performance and don't mind a matte screen I would get a SSD ASUS.