If you have been reading this blog regularly then you will know that I am a big fan of the Asus Eee and that I have invested in an Asus Eee 4G PC  which was supposed to be a first computer for my youngest son. I say supposed because it often gets requisitioned by my wife who seems to prefer it to the other notebooks available in the household.  Early this year Asus launched a updated version of the Eee called the Asus Eee 900 and we have talked about the updated specifications in a previous post. Recently I got the chance to get my hands on one of these and I thought I would share my first impressions.

First of all there appears to be little change in terms of size and general appearance when closed, however as soon as you open up the lid you immediately notice the much bigger screen which fills the entire lid real estate. The screen resolution has increased also to very nice 1,024 x 600 which combined with the larger screen really makes the Eee 900 an even better experience than the original 4G PC.  The touchpad is now bigger and in my opinion nicer and easier to use and the keypad seems a lot more responsive although of course still the same small size which does take a little bit of getting used to.

A lot of the other improvements which don’t have an instant impact are present under the bonnet, such as increased memory, storage and camera  which are obviously important  and will improve overall performance. All in all the new Asus Eee 900 has improved the capability of the Eee brand for a small increase in price.

I still think that price is worth paying although it might be worth looking at the even newer models that Asus have recently released. We will have a look at those in an upcoming post.

A lot of the postings on this blog recently have been a little technical, and this is likely to continue as we complete the series of posts looking at buying components to build your own PC. However it is definitely time for a bit of lighter relief.

The other day my wife showed me a short article in a magazine that she was reading that was all about a WiFi rabbit which goes by the name of a Nabaztag! A WiFi rabbit I kid you not! After investigating further I found that the name Nabaztag is apparently Armenian for rabbit, and that yes this is a WiFi enabled rabbit!  In fact it has been around for a while but this was the first I had heard of it. The Nabaztag is not a WiFi access point but a desktop gadget that uses WiFi to gather information from the Internet and then provide it back to you in various ways.  So you will have to have an already existing WiFi network.

The rabbit complete with revolving ears and mood lighting is able to do an impressive list of things, such as telling you the time, waking you up, reading the news, reading you messages from friends, reading RSS feeds, alerting you about new email, playing internet radio stations and telling you the local weather forecast.  It can be voice activated and is capable of detecting a persons presence in the room through an analysis of ambient noise levels and providing a suitable message, potentially scaring the wits out of any unsuspecting people.

My wife thought it would be a good way to enjoy the internet while ironing! I am not completely convinced interest would get past the initial novelty factor, but it is definitely different and as functionality is growing all the time perhaps the future is bright for this rabbit!

Have you got a Nabaztag? What do you think of it?