Asustek announces second-gen Eee PC

Taipei (Taiwan) – Asustek has officially announced the specs of its next generation Eee PC 900 mini-notebook computer. The 900 will feature a larger 8.9-inch wide screen capable of displaying 1024 by 600 pixels and dual solid-state drives capable of storing 12 GB in Windows XP and 20 GB in Linux. Available in either Pearl White or Black, the computer will also feature a new FingerGlide touchpad that can recognize two finger gestures for zooming and scrolling (think iPhone).

The announcement may be a bit of a let down to the hundreds of thousands of first-generation Eee PC owners because the processor is the same Intel 900 MHz Celeron-M. The 900 will have, like the previous generation computer, a 1.3 megapixel webcam and Intel integrated graphics. One gigabyte of DDR-II RAM is now standard with the Eee PC 900.

Both Windows and Linux versions will be sold and the flash drives will be configured differently for each operating system. Windows computers will have a 4GB SSD for the OS and 8GB drive for files while the Linux computer will have 4GB for the OS and a larger 16 GB for files.

The original Eee PC has been a tremendous success and Asus estimates that it sold 400,000 units in 2007. The Asus Eee PC 900 will be available in Asia this week (and we’ll likely be picking one up in the next few days).

Back in December, we purchased the first-generation Eee PC. You can read our review here.