More Asus Eee PC News

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The Asus Eee PC 701, the budget-priced notebook that seems to be generating a lot of buzz in our forums and on other websites, is in the news again. Our First Look Review of the Eee PC was one of the most popular articles on our site for the month of July and it's no surprise that consumers are very interested in this machine after Asus originally announced the price would be between $200 and $250.

After about a month of silence from Asus, DigiTimes is reporting that Asus will begin shipping the Eee PC in September in four different configurations priced at $199, $239, $349, and $369 depending on configuration.

Is this a Wii or an Eee?

What seems unusual is that Digitimes is reporting Asus will ship only 20,000 units during September to the US, Europe, China and Taiwan ... and that most of those units will be the $349 configuration. Although Asus is reportedly planning to increase production of the Eee PC to between 3 million to 5 million units in 2008 the initial shipment of 20,000 units worldwide suggests many consumers looking for an Eee PC won't be able to buy one this year. Of course, in much the same way that Nintendo Wii consoles could be purchased on eBay for twice the price you will probably be able to locate an Eee PC ... if you're willing to pay a premium.

We're still very interested in the Eee PC ... we just hope we can get our hands on one this year at a price close to the $250 price tag Asus quoted in July.

 

 

Well this is disappointing, but I can't say I'm surprised given the knowledge basically all PC manufacturers are struggling to get the parts they need at the moment. Asus also has a track record of getting excited really early about their products, and then delivering them much later than promised. They initially said it'd be available by end of August in U.S. retail stores, I'd say realistically maybe next March you'll be able to get your hands on this thing and just very limited availability before then.

 

Also read somwhere that the $200 version won't be sold in america at all.

 

$350's starting to bring the price up towards super-budget laptops, but this is still significantly smaller than anything in that price range. Any word on what configuration the $350 version is?

The 20K units should be for September only. X-bit Labs is reporting that they're hoping to ship 500K units to the end of the year.

 

What is the screen resolution? Does it support external (via USB) DVD-RW drives? Does it support Windows XP/Vista? Given the limited info we've been given regarding the product, I'm presuming nobody knows?

 

Screen resolution is 1024x600 I believe. It has USB ports, so I don't see why it wouldn't support external optical drives, as long as the distro does. And ASUS has said it will support Windows, but comes pre-installed with their cut-down Linux distro.

 

When can we pre-order??

 

I wonder if you will be able to dual boot it with 2000.

I know absolutly nothing about linux, except that it comes in a number of flavers. Have never even seen a pc with linux running on it.
But if I could install my old 2000 in addition I would be very interested.
Would love to know what the configs are going to be.

I think xp might put too much of a strain on the resources, but 2000 should be no sweat.

 

Nope, XP will run butter smooth on this, running it won't be a problem.

What I'd like to now is this, I heard in the beginning it had a 900mhz Dothan Pentium M processor but am hearing some reports it'll have a Celeron M processor instead. Which will it have?

 

The latest rumors from eeeuser.com hasn't been very encouraging.

From what I understand, it is a 900 mhz Celeron M. The $369 model has only 4gb of flash memory and a 6 cell battery.

 

Such sad news. I was looking forward to getting one of these things for note taking and for my freelance writing times when I can't stand sitting at my desktop. I figured that the 10 inch model would run 349 bucks, not the basic model that we have been shown in previews.

Just goes to show that things that are too good to be true, are most likely not true at all.

 

800x480 screen, and the general consensus is that the processor is a ULV Celeron M 353.

 

hope to be the first one touch it in Beijing

 

Shame the final specs and price aren't as good as was first heard, thanks a lot Asus.

 

It's really just a name after all. The CPU should be something like the A100 or A110, which is based on Dothan, but with 512KB L2 cache and a 400MHz FSB.

 

You mean it doesn't have any RAM? Or seperate HDD space thereof?

 

It has PC4200 512 mb RAM and then flash memory varying from 2, 4, 8gb for storage.

Anyhow, let's just wait to see how these things work out.

 

At 200$ it was a good buy for mobility , but for 350$+ you can start looking at "older" 12" notebooks which weigh 1-2 pound more but and have a decent size screen , CPU and HD for only a few 100's , or even like some said a brand new budget notebook .

And lets not forget Asus doesn't have any super duper high tech here , its all depends on a very light linux OS . So it would be interesting to take an old 10" P3 sub notebook and have it run the same OS .

Portege 3500 , P3 , 12" and you get a fully featured tablet ,
HP Compaq TC1000 also a tablet ,
Fujitsu B series P3 are small light and come with touch screens as well ,
Those are just a few examples that can be found under 400$ for those who don't want to wait .

 

Totally agree. I was raeding comments from other sites and the people who were so excited about this at first were upset at the 300-350 price point. For 200 I would have bought one for me and my girlfriend for Christmas. 300-350 no thanks.

 

Was trying to find these laptops but apparently they are all well over $400 new (at least $999). Where are you getting the sub-$400 prices for these models from?

 

One thing is that the EEE might be designed with the Asian market in mind. In most places in Asia, it's completely impossible to get "budget" or "older" notebooks. Everything is top of the line and just released. There are no in-betweens or "clearance" products.