Asus Eee PC 900 Hits U.S. May 12 For $549

 

 

 

I have heard that Asus’s bigger, badder Eee PC would be getting an early launch next month in Asia but it looks like the US won’t have to wait very long either. Crave’s Asus sources are telling them it’ll launch stateside on May 12 for $549. That’s definitely a bit more than the long-rumored $500 pricepoint. Is it worth it?

You’re getting a pretty significant spec and comfort upgrade for the money—but breaking the $500 mark pushes it past super cheap, and very possibly out of the category that the original Eee helped to create. So, $550. You guys still interested, or too much?

Asus Shows Off New Lineup Of Eee PC Add-Ons

 

You can’t blame these guys for trying to milk the Eee PC, and Asus is doing just that with its new smorgasboard of Eee PC accessories. Most interesting is the Ai Guru U1 VoIP phone. It plugs in with USB, and in addition to letting you make calls to all your broke-ass friends, you can also use it to browse and listen to music stored on the Eee PC. Next up is the Eee AP, which acts as a 802.11g wireless access point and little else — think AirPort Express minus the sexy. The USB “3.5G HSDPA Card” is just as straightforward, with GSM900 / 1800 / 1900 and WCDMA2100 / 1900 / 850, and download speeds up to 3.6Mbps. The slim DVD-RW drive and the totally generic headsets aren’t spicing things up either, which you can probably tell is par for the course here.

Via: Engadget

Asustek Eee PC Shipments Beat Expectations

 

A little-known Taiwanese firm that makes motherboards for brand-name PCs has put its own moniker on one of the lightest, sleekest, cheapest laptops ever to connect to cyberspace.

The ASUS Eee PC family recently expanded even further with the addition of the $299 2G Surf model. Newegg now currently lists ASUS Eee PC 2G which is available in Galaxy Black, Blush Pink, Sky Blue and Lush Green.

The Eee PC 2G Surf, as its name implies, only comes with a 2GB solid-state drive (SSD). The device also comes with 512MB of DDR2 memory and the 4G Surf’s smaller 4-cell 4400 mAh battery (2.8 hours) and a 7 inch screen.

Ever since, the little-known giant – Asus is arguably the world’s largest maker of motherboards and a leading laptop vendor – has been scrambling to keep pace with the viral interest in this no-frills, hardworking box.

Indeed, pioneering buyers have already created forums like Eeeuser.com to trade tips about how to coax more bang from this bargain-basement box.

The Eee PC joins a small but growing cohort of ultralight, ultracheap computers including, most notably, the One Laptop per Child project sponsored by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

That project focuses on providing children in the developing world with a cheap learning tool. Asus, with its North American headquarters in Fremont, also has gone after the education market, but here in the developed world.

So… the world just got bigger, or so it seems? With ASUS and Intel’s demonstration of their low cost ultra mobile platform, the “Eee” (Easy to learn, work, play; Excellent Internet experience; and Excellent mobile computing experience), becoming connected globally just became easier for people in parts of the world who previously couldn’t afford items such as PCs and notebooks.

Intel is calling this its “World Ahead” market initiative, with the intent of giving everybody around the world the chance to own their own PC.

Mine is on the way, so stay tuned for my experience review…

Source: Asus, SF Chronicle