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As we reported earlier this week, Asus has been stung by criticism from British Eee PC 900 owners, who have been supplied with a 4400mAh battery, while laptops shipped in North America came with a higher capacity 5800mAh battery.

Users have complained of battery life as poor as 90 minutes, undermining the portability of the mini laptop.

Now the company says it's taking two measures to help out British buyers.

Firstly, Asus will swap the 4400 battery for the improved 5800 model for £10 (exc VAT), provided

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customers send back their old battery. Postage and packing is included in the price, and Asus says full details of the scheme will be released on 10 June.

Quite why Asus isn't allowing customers to keep the old battery as a backup isn't clear, although the company rather unhelpfully states that customers can simply pay full price for a 5800 battery if they wish.

The company is also releasing a new firmware update for the device from its support website, which it claims will add 30 mins to the existing battery's life. Version 0601 of the BIOS update is available to download here.

Despite the new offers, Asus remains relatively unrepentant on the battery issue. "Asus believes in taking care of its customers and the UK standard Eee PC 900 comes with an impressive two-year warranty, including a one-year warranty on the 4400mAH battery," the company claims in a statement.

"This generous warranty package delivers peace-of-mind to customers and is a highly competitive warranty compared with other 'Eee PC copy-cat' notebooks presently available in the UK market."