Taipei (Taiwan) – TG Daily got its hands on Asus’ latest entry-level notebook, the Intel Atom-based EeePC 901. We were left with mixed feelings after seeing and playing with the device for a while. The processing and graphics capability is entry-level without any doubt, while the Eee PC 901’s price has arrived deep in mainstream territory.

The Eee PC has made quite some waves and some believe that it even resembles what the OLPC XO should have been, at least in terms of its market appeal and success. In Taipei we came across the Intel Atom-based Eee PC 901, which ran on an Atom Z520 processor, clocked at 1.33 GHz and rated at a maximum power consumption of 2 Watts (average power: 220 mWatts).

{mosimage}

The unit also included Intel’s 130 nm integrated graphics chipset called SCH (“System Controller Hub”), which, however, left us unimpressed. The device we saw delivered choppy video playback on its 8.9” screen and convinced us that video is something you would not want to run on this device. But then, the Eee PC is really intended a cheap notebook. The power consumption during video playback, by the way, was 10 watts and we saw the power consumption max out at around 12 watts.

But wait: Cheap? We heard that the Windows XP version of the device with 20 GB of memory (4+16 GB) will sell for $649, while the Linux versions will come in at $549 or $599. By today’s standard, that is not really cheap anymore, especially, if you can purchase a generally much more capable notebook for the same price at your local electronics store.

The Eee PC 901 is scheduled to launch on Monday.

At least for now, we are not impressed.