Now we all know now that the Asus Eee PC 900 is definitely not the first Atom platform we all thought it would be, but the fully-clocked Dothan puppy parked inside would make delicious news to many. Aside from the multi-touch trackpad ASUS calls "FingerGlide," the ASUS Eee PC 900 will also carry at least 12 GB of storage, a webcam, and an 8.9-inch diagonally wide LCD screen.

Not bad for a little 900 MHz monster weighing under 1 kilogram, wouldn't you agree? ASUS promised that it still maintains its mobility and relative light weight for a laptop that now pushes high resolution screens of up to 1024 x 600 pixels. Its added volume also allowed Asus to incorporate a high-quality 1.3 megapixel CMOS webcam - but at a sacrifice of one available USB port.

The Eee PC 900 will come with a stock memory capacity of 1 GB DDR2 RAM linked to Intel's Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) graphics engine. For the Windows XP Lite-preloaded versions, there's an additional 8 GB Flash solid state drive to accompany the built in 4 GB SSD storage. The Linux version, for its cheaper OS overhead, gets a whopping 16 GB from the external SSD.

Other features include the stock-fare wireless capabilities, SD/MMC support, HD audio with standard-fare earphone and mic jacks, the ever nifty VGA-out, and a standard, non-giga-capable Ethernet port. It will come in black or new black (that's pearl white to those who're blessed with cleaner outdoor air), and the 22.5 x 17 x 3.38 cm large puppy will consume just about 36 watts when powered from an outlet.

Of course, all these added luxuries, plus the full-throttled Celeron M processor, would drain the Eee PC's battery relatively quick, and that wouldn't fit well for some who'd trade a little performance for longer operation.

Some won't have much of an issue there, as the price point of US$ 500 to US$ 650 still leaves room to purchase an extra battery for double the operation time.

Right now, what we've heard is that the ASUS Eee PC 900 has already launched in the UK and Hong Kong, but our own sources confirm that it launched even earlier in South East Asia for US$ 800 from retail. France will be next on April 17, while Taiwan and Singapore's launches are due later this month. U.S. launch dates haven't been confirmed, though. Updates on that as we get them.