The feature that really stands out with the Eee Reader, as it is expected to be called, is that it comes with a hinged spine that separates the two screens, so it opens just like a book. This is currently unlike other e-book readers on the market which are usually in the form of a single flat screen.

Furthermore, you will also be able to browse the web while viewing your e-book and one of the screens can behave like a virtual keypad so the e-book could almost be used like a laptop. Also, while other e-book readers currently offer monochrome screens, the Asus Eee Reader will actually be in full colour. There is a chance it could also include a webcam, speakers and microphone for Skype.

There is no information yet as to what format of e-book the Asus Eee Reader will support.

Asus are planning on adding a new device to their Eee line which would combine all of the above with a new dedicated Eee machine, an Asus Eee e-Book Reader. This new reader, which Asus claim they plan to launch within the Eee series by around the end of 2009, says Asus company president Jerry Shen, will compete with the Sony Reader and Amazon’s Kindle.

What will it feature? What type of screen will have? What extended storage ability will it offer? We’re not sure yet, but when Asus bring out more information on this upcoming release you can be sure to find out about it here.

The SaberTooth-S and SaberTooth-SS solid state drive ranges are aimed to improve storage in certain Asus netbooks and offer storage of up to 64GB and boasting access times of near 155MB a second.

The SaberTooth-S range are at the starting end of the offerings with 16GB and 32GB mini PCIe cards and carrying ratings of sequential read speeds of up to 90MB/s and write speeds of near 55MB/s. They are available at $62.95 for the 16GB and $96.85 for the 32GB.

The higher end range though, the SaberTooth-SS, offer 16GB, 32GB and 64GB Mini PCIe cards and boasting 155MB/s read and near 100MB/s write rates. They are available for $92.85, $124.95 and $219.95 respectively.

They all feature ECC, SATA-II 3Gbps interface, bad bit management and wear leveling. The guarantee for them is that they will definitely work with the Asus Eee PC S101, 900, 900A, 901 releases.

So what is the best way to get attention, get people curious and drive up numbers? A raffle of course! Yes, Asus are now running a raffle and are giving away netbooks and netbook accessories. Winners will be drawn at random from the official Asus fan page and will get a random prize. Prizes include: Eee PC 1005HA Seashell, Eee PC 1008HA Seashell, Eee BOX, 80GB leather bound external harddrive, 80GB leather bound external harddrive, Eee External Optical drive, Eee External Optical drive, Eee Optical Mouse, Eee Optical Mouse, and a Mystery Notebook.

So, sign up, join in, add to twitter and you could be the winner of a great new netbook or accessory prize from Asus!

Today the market shows that over 50 technology manufacturers have their own netbooks and mini-laptops, most within a budget that is affordable and within easy grasp of many enthusiasts.

Now, a collection of 24 popular and handy applications from the open source crowd, most of which were specifically made for the Eee PC, have been grouped together for the first time. Many are designed to run on Linux and all come with functional details and links so you can download them for yourself to use and enjoy.

The 1000HE was released amid fanfare for including several new features one of which was the new and improved chiclet-style keyboard. Asus has now just recently updated the previous 1000HA model to include this new keyboard.

Fortunately, Eee PC fans have found that by purchasing the improved keyboard separately, they are able to utilise it with what seems like complete compatibility and the intended ease of use. Further developments have occurred on the forum where members have put together a step-by-step photo guide for preparing and fitting the new keyboard with great success.

Clove Technology, a UK supplier of Eee PCs and accessories, has begun offering a cheap alternative to the (as yet unseen) ASUS extended battery. These are made by the Chinese firm Cameron Sino, and are available in 4-cell 5200mAh and 6600mAh 6-cell variants.

Given the uncertainty over the ASUS UK 900 Eee PC battery upgrade offer, it seemed a good idea to revisit these batteries, and perform some comparative performance tests against the ASUS batteries that come with the 701 and 900 Eee PC variants.

Appearance.

First off, let’s consider the appearance. All the batteries here are suitable for fitting to white Eee PCs. The CS (Cameron Sino) 5200mAh battery has been sprayed with a pearlescent finish that is very close to, but not quite the same colour as, the standard ASUS Pearl White batteries. The difference is quite difficult to capture with a digital camera.

See what I mean? The CS is on the right, but this shot exaggerates the differences somewhat. In practice, you barely notice the difference; it is slightly darker in shade. The CS 6600 mAh battery is a different matter, though, as it is finished in matte white plastic, unpainted, so it is very similar to the finish of the Eee PC 700 (2G) Surf models. Fitted to the 900, it doesn’t really matter that much; all you are missing out on is a bit of pearlescent sheen.

I’ve tried to take a better shot in daylight of all three here (CS 6600mAh on the top, CS5200 bottom left, ASUS 4400 bottom right).

The CS batteries are, of course, available for the Galaxy Black Eee PCs, but I’m not able to compare their colour against a black Eee PC as I don’t have one to hand.

Update : eeeuser forum member GrahamK posted some excellent images here.

Physical dimensions and fit

The CS 5200mAh battery, as has been commented on elsewhere, is a little bit tight fitting, because it is marginally bigger in size when compared to the equivalent ASUS battery. No such problems with the larger 6600mAh CS battery, though; it seems to fit much more easily into the Eee PC’s battery slot. However, because it is a six cell battery, the manufacturers have had to make a decision as to where to put the extra two cells, and they have elected to extend the battery backwards.

There it is, sticking out by around 1cm. The other option would have been to mount the extra cells underneath the battery pack, thus raising the back of the machine. What the CS battery does, therefore, is not alter the height of the rear of the keyboard, but in return you are unable to open the screen as far as you would have done had you opted for the other design. This next picture demonstrates how far back you can push the screen, before the CS battery gets in the way.

Weight-wise there’s not much difference between the three 4-cell batteries – they all come in around 200g on my (admittedly not too accurate) kitchen scales. Understandably, the 6-Cell battery weighs an extra 75g.

Performance

Before I state how much battery life each of the batteries on test yielded, I’ll explain my testing method.

All testing was performed with a 20Gb Linux 900 upgraded to 2Gb of memory. The test comprised of fully charging the battery under test, then (from within a shell window) launching a shell script (click on the link to see it – I posted it in the UK battery thread last week) that writes a timestamp and some battery information into a file, then repeatedly touches the file with a 10 second delay. The Linux “touch” command simply updates the “last altered” timestamp on the file. Then, with the wi-fi turned on and associated with an access point, a compressed AVI file was run in the foreground using SM Player on repeat. The machine was then left alone to run down its battery (at which point it would shutdown automatically). The next time the machine was booted, the file was examined and the in-file timestamp compared with the file’s last modified timestamp (using the command “ls -l <file>”) to derive a run time duration for the battery. This was done for the ASUS 4400mAh battery (supplied with the UK 900), the ASUS 5200 mAh battery (supplied with the UK 701), the CS 5200mAh battery and the CS 6600MAh battery.

The results, then:-

• ASUS 4400mAh : 1 hr 58 minutes
• ASUS 5200mAh : 2 hrs 34 minutes
• Cameron Sino 5200mAh : 2hrs 17 minutes
• Cameron Sino 6600mAh : 4hrs 37 minutes

For some reason the 6600mAh battery is giving much better performance than might otherwise be expected, considering it only has an extra 1400mAh capacity over its smaller sibling. I re-ran the test, thinking that I’d made an error of some sort, and again it yielded 4hrs 39 minutes. Impressive.

Some other things I’ve observed whilst using the 6600 mAh battery:

• With wi-fi off, and watching uncompressed video stream files from a WD Passport LifeDrive (320Gb) USB powered hard drive, I usually manage 1hr 20 mins before getting the first low power warning with the ASUS 5200 mAh battery. With the CS 6600 mAh battery, I can do this for twice the time and still have 60% battery life.
• The CS 6600mAh battery will take around 3 hours 45 mins to recharge from flat.
• Running the standard test without wifi turned on will give you over 5 hours of usage with the 6600mAh battery.

Here’s something else that is interesting. If you divide the rated power of the battery by the number of minutes of life, you get an approximation of the average number of mAh that the life of the battery is reduced by every minute. For all the batteries under test, apart from the CS 6600mAh model, this figure is around 35mAh. The figure for the 6600mAh battery is 23.8, much lower. This is not because the Eee PC is drawing less power from the battery, it is because the battery has more capacity than is stated on its label. Working backwards from a drain of 35mAh / minute for 4 hrs 37 mins (277 minutes) gives you a theoretical capacity of 9695mAh, which is a real surprise.

Please note that I’m not asserting it really does have this capacity. We observe in the test that it is giving uenexpectedly long life, so I’ve used some simple math to try to quantify what that extra capacity might be.

A note about “jump starting”.

Some reviewers have noted that the Cameron Sino batteries suffer from the so called “Jump Starting” problem. This is where you change to a CS battery, but the machine refuses to boot up until you plug it into the mains adapter. Then, on unplugging, the battery continues as normal.

I’m pleased to say that this has not occurred once with these particular batteries.

Prices.

There are many places to get these batteries from, but most of them are overseas eBay sellers. My recommendation would be to leave them and order from a reputable UK source. Thankfully, Clove are offering them at reasonable prices (£29.38 inc. VAT for the 5200mAh variant, and £41.12 inc. VAT for the 6600mAh) and as they have a reputation for top notch after sales service you can buy with confidence.

Conclusion.

I have to recommend the Clove Technology / Cameron Sino 6600mAh battery on performance alone. Sure, it sticks out a little at the back of the machine and interferes with the screen’s normal opening angle, but it lasted much longer than I had any right to expect, and in normal use the extra bulk isn’t such a big deal. That’s why I put my money where my mouth is, and bought one.

So, with this battery, the Eee PC 900 delivers on its promise of portability. Just imagine how much more mileage you’ll get on a 701…

Final note : My thanks to Clove Technology for supplying the two Cameron Sino batteries for testing.

The article covers batteries, chargers, travel adapters, mounts, and cases.

However, it’s not just a travel charger- it also includes adapters for both car and airplane. As a result, you can pretty much power your Eee PC wherever you are.

You can find out more about it here.

I’ve uploaded my review of the DigiLegend case for the EEE- it is available at http://eeepcworld.wordpress.com/2008/02 … e-for-eee/

Unlike the other cases which I have reviewed, the Digilegend case is a satchel-style, with a shoulder strap (but no shoulder pad). This makes it absolutely ideal for carrying around; with the weight of the EEE, it would be very easy to sling the case of your shoulder and forget about it. As one might expect, the shoulder strap is adjustable, so you can make it as long or as short as you wish (within reason!); it’s worth noting, though, that you cannot remove the strap completely without modifying the case, as it is sewn firmly in place at one end, although you could tuck it into the bag…

At $17.50, I think that it is an excellent piece of kit!