The good news: Two models of Asus Eee, the 1101HA and 1005HA, are eligible for free upgrades to Windows 7. The bad news: Your 1101HA needs to be preloaded with Vista Home Premium and your 1005HA needs to be preloaded with Windows XP Pro or Vista Business. More »
There’s no question, the Eee changed everything. But can Asus offer products that are on par with Apple design? According to Asustek vice chairman Jonathan Tsang, that’s the aspiration. More »
Ten million iterations of the Eee PC later, there are signs Asus might be returning the thoroughly molested brand its simpler, cheaper notebook roots. EeePCNews.de has shots of what they think is the new $US300 Eee PC 701SDX. This seven-inch Eee isn’t a whole lot different from past models, it’s just got a slightly updated chassis and dumps the integrated webcam to cut costs. Which we can live without on a $US300 netbook—we’re happy just see an actually cheap notebook again. [Laptop Mag]
Asustek executive Samson Hu has confirmed his company’s plans to release a touchscreen Eee PC variant for sale by Q1 of 2009. It’s not known whether the devices will look like the touch panel Eee mods that have been floating around or take the shape of a tablet, but we’ll see in January when the first models are shown at CES. That’s not all though — further announcements indicated that the Eee line is changing is some more subtle ways.
In a stunning move, the folks at Asus appear to be adding a fairly significant feature to one of their netbooks–built-in 3.75G HSUPA connectivity to the Atom-powered 8.9″ Eee PC 901–without spinning off another 5 different model designations. The 3.75G chip will be in all 901s that ship from October onward.
I’m confused by the Asus strategy here – after naming everything small and cheap they can possibly come up with as “Eee”, from ultraportables to monitors and desktops, they then go and produce another Netbook, but drop the Eee branding. It’s confusing, that’s for sure, but what isn’t confusing is that we’ve been tipped off from a very reliable source that the N10E (a version of the N10 we saw the other day) will be launching in Australia by the end of the month for an RRP of $1,099.
It’s much more expensive than the other Eee PCs, so that’s probably the biggest factor in the naming scheme, but considering its 10.2-inch screen, Atom processor, 802.11n wireless, 120GB HDD, 1GB DDR2 RAM, and XP Home OS, it’s not too expensive.
What do you guys reckon? Is this an Eee killer or Eee fodder? More »
In case Asus’ US$100 price drop in July just wasn’t enough to make up your mind on whether to spring for a new Eee PC 1000H, the mini-marvel’s gotten even cheaper now. Amazon is selling an 80GB, XP-equipped 1000H for just US$450. Mwave also has several in stock for either US$450 (while supplies last) or, if you’re willing to go for an open box product, an almost criminal US$359. [Amazon and mwave via Liliputing]
While Asus has gone a little Netbook-nuts, their recently leaked N10 is actually a promising revision on the genre dominated by clones. The 1.6Ghz Atom, 10.2″ screen and 2GB of RAM—that’s all pretty standard stuff. But three things other than its draft n Wi-Fi and face/thumb recognition have us interested in the N10. First, it’s got HDMI-out. And with its small footprint, one can easily imagine hooking this little laptop up to their TV. Second, it’s loaded with high quality Altec Lansing speakers. Third, Asus netbooks are finally dealing with that whole lack of graphics card issue.
When the Asus Eee came out, the market was simple. There was only one tiny, cheap laptop so you knew which one was for you. That was less than a year ago, but things move quickly in the tech world. Now it’s tough to keep up with the major brands offering mini-notebooks, let alone every no-name knockoff (where you may still find the better deals and innovation ). Luckily, Liliputing has created a comprehensive list of these machines so it’s easy to compare stats and prices. And there were a few that even we hadn’t heard about.
