Until the ASUS Eee PC 4G burst onto the scene, the UMPC (ultra-mobile PC) category was something of a joke—the target of numerous wisecracks from journalists and reviewers (including yours truly). Our derision was due to the UMPC's inability to deliver on its promises: an affordable price and a functional platform. The 2-pound Eee PC 4G changed the way manufacturers approached profit margins and brought the promise of a sub-$500 system back into full swing. The ASUS EeePC 900 is the second iteration of this groundbreaking laptop. The system is available with both a Linux operating system and Windows XP Home at e-tailers like Newegg.com for the same price. Although there weren't any drastic changes, the move to a bigger, 8.9-inch widescreen and the addition of 16GB worth of extended storage are welcome improvements. But is it worth the $550 (street) price tag? I think so.

Despite a bigger screen, the EeePC 900 maintains the same sleek physical measurements (6.6 by 8.7 by 0.8 inches, HWD). Because of the second (16GB) solid state drive (SSD) and a slightly bigger battery, the unit tips the scales at 2.2 pounds, a fifth of a pound heavier than the EeePC 4G. The extra heft is hardly noticeable, and you can carry it to every occasion imaginable—it's a pound lighter than the HP 2133 Mini-Note PC. Laptops in this price range are typically bulky, unattractive, and not worth my time, but both the EeePC 900 and the HP Mini-Note break that mold with their pretty designs.

Although the EeePC 900 is not as light as the 1.5-pound Samsung Q1 Ultra, it comes with something well worth the extra weight—a functional keyboard. Because the dimensions haven't increased, the EeePC 900 retains its 83 percent keyboard. The 92 percent keyboard on the HP Mini-Note is far more comfortable to type on, as the tightly spaced keys have the feel of a full-size keyboard. You can attempt to touch-type on the EeePC 900, but that will take some practice and a lot of patience. Even more annoying, however, are the stiff mouse buttons. They make a loud clicking noise, and you'll have to exert some force to press them.

The original EeePC didn't take advantage of the lid's full width, and the speakers, which were placed beside the screen, made the interior look cheap. That version's 7-inch screen has been replaced by an 8.9-inch one in the EeePC 900—the same size as the one on the HP Mini-Note. Also helping to enhance your multimedia, working, and surfing experience is the increase in resolution from 800-by-480 to 1,024-by-600. As for the speakers, they're underneath the laptop.

The features are just like that of any other laptop. At this weight, the three USB ports are very generous. The EeePC 900 doesn't have a FireWire port because it is not a video-editing laptop. Though I could criticize ASUS for leaving out an optical drive, I won't: It keeps the EeePC smaller and lighter. The Ethernet port, a modem, and built-in Wi-Fi (802.11g) cover all your network connections. The Wi-Fi card picked up my Verizon FiOS wireless access point almost immediately, and I was surfing the Web within seconds.

A VGA port is also available for external monitor hookups. Even more impressive is that ASUS adds a SecureDigital and MMC card reader on the right-hand side of the system and a 1.3-megapixel webcam right above the screen. The feature set, however, is not as impressive as that of the HP Mini-Note, which has numerous hard drive options and an ExpressCard 34 slot that can hold an EV-DO modem.

Storage capacity is much better than in the previous EeePC version. Though it doesn't have high-capacity spinning drives like the HTC Shift and the Fujitsu Lifebook U810, the solid-state drives are more durable and faster. In addition to the standard 4GB SSD, ASUS fills in the available internal mini-PCI express slot with a 16GB SSD drive for a total of 20GB worth of storage. This is a game changer, because now you can put multiple operating systems on this unit, including a dual-boot configuration of Windows XP and Xandros Linux. For those who had to run XP from an SDHC card, the extra storage is a godsend.

In terms of operating systems, you now have a choice of Windows XP Home or Xandros Linux. Both are shipping for the same price. My configuration came with Linux and for the most part, the interface hasn't changed. It's divided into a series of tabs, representing an area full of Web links, another area for OpenOffice 2.0 and a PDF reader, one for games and educational software, and the last for video and music players. As usual, I tested this system with a host of file types to see if a typical Windows user can survive with this version of Linux. Most of my MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files took a while to load in OpenOffice but were fine when they eventually opened. The exception was .docx files (the open XML format used in MS Office 2007), which this version of OpenOffice doesn't recognize.

The EeePC 900 uses Mozilla Firefox for a Web browser, and I had no problems playing back videos from YouTube, running remote access through the LogMeIn site, accessing my Outlook Webmail, and uploading photos to a photo-sharing site (Flickr). It can handle multiple apps at once. It also loads Mozilla's Thunderbird Web client, which doesn't come even close to MS Outlook but does a decent job of collecting e-mail from popular sites like Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail. Xandros Linux supports many—though not all—printer models, including the HP PhotoSmart 7550 and the Epson Stylus C62 photo printer. Xandros recognizes various file formats, including MP3, AAC, and WAV, and it comes with its own media player, which does a good job playing back WMV, H.264 and MPEG video files. However, playing back a DVD movie or an audio CD through an external USB optical drive is still dicey, producing all sorts of artifacts and distortions. The machine and its processor are simply not powerful enough to handle these tasks well.

Aside from a fast external optical drive, you don't need fast parts to run Linux, but now that ASUS offers a Windows XP version, a faster processor would have been nice. Unfortunately, the EeePC 900 runs a 900-MHz Intel Celeron M processor, the same one found on the EeePC 4G. This would have been an excellent opportunity for ASUS to use the new Intel Atom Centrino platform, which consists of the A110 processor and a new chipset (including graphics) and should improve processing speed, but I guess prices for the new platform aren't as cheap as Intel makes them out to be.

As a consolation, the 1GB of RAM is double the amount from the previous version, and the SSD drives help speed up transfer speeds. The HP Mini-Note has a slight edge because it runs 2GB of RAM, although its VIA processor doesn't help it much. Nevertheless, the Linux-based EeePC 900 system booted up in just 21 seconds, as opposed to twice that on a typical Windows operating system. It goes without saying, though, that any form of gaming should be Web-based, as most of the 3D-intensive ones will not be supported by this operating system. I couldn't run any of my performance tests because they lack support for Linux.

The four-cell battery is a little bigger than the one in the EeePC 4G, going from a 39-Wh to a 42-Wh one, although this capacity increase will net you 3 to 4 hours, according to ASUS.

The EeePC 900 is RoHS-compliant but has yet to be certified for Energy Star 4.0 and EPEAT. Running my own tests, using a PS3 International Kill-A-Watt meter, the EeePC 900 fell well within the limits of Energy Star's specifications. The 14 Watts it consumed matches that of the Apple MacBook Air and the Fujitsu LifeBook P8010, but because it doesn't have all the necessary certifications, it doesn't earn PC Magazine's GreenTech Approved seal.

It's really hard to make physical enhancements to a laptop without raising prices, especially when the price is $400 and its name is the EeePC. The ASUS EeePC 900's price is now up to $550, but the wider 8.9-inch screen, the extra 16GB SSD drive, and the 1GB of RAM are worth at least the extra $149. Very few manufacturers can hit this price point, let alone a $400 one. It's still a tremendous bargain no matter how you slice it.

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