Atom-based Eee PC in June? Sure.

Everyone loves the Eee PC, especially now that Asus has increased the display from 7- to 8.9-inches, bumped the webcam to 1.3 megapixels, and widened the track-pad while adding in some nifty multi-touch capabilities. Unfortunately, we're still looking at a rated 1.5-hours of battery life since the new 900 uses the same power hungry CPU found in the original Eee PC. So where's Atom and its promise of "significant power savings?" Well, according to Techradar, they've been in touch with Taiwan-based ASUS' UK reps who believe that the Atom-based Eee PC will debut at Computex in early June and then launch globally shortly thereafter. Makes sense as June is the confirmed time frame for the Atom CPU launch. If true -- and we believe it is as it syncs up precisely with DigiTimes' sources -- then the only remaining mystery is whether the June model will also feature an 8.9-inch touchscreen (and possibly GPS) as promised by Asus. Let's hope so.

[Thanks, Robert James P.]

[Thi mam(kris120890) @ Apr 18th 2008 7:23AM]

I gave engadget this exact shown information last week. but do they listen to me noooo

came from the exact same source techradar

[Mark @ Apr 18th 2008 10:51AM]

UP AND ATOM!

[Patrick @ Apr 18th 2008 11:52AM]

UP AND AT-THEM!

[Sachin @ Apr 18th 2008 4:44PM]

he he..."power hungy" (sic)

yea, i realize everyone makes typos, but that's a really funny one.

[JAmerican @ Apr 21st 2008 6:32AM]

ATOM ANT!!

[Ian @ Apr 18th 2008 7:31AM]

Exactly what I've been looking for. As a lightweight machine for doing nothing more than browsing at wifi spots, this would seem to have the Mac Air beat.

[0megapart!cle @ Apr 18th 2008 11:09AM]

You could close your eyes, and spin around a couple times, in the notebook section of Best Buy, and you would almost certainly end up pointing to a computer that had the Macbook Air beat.

[sinjinn @ Apr 18th 2008 7:33AM]

why buy the 4gb when the 8gb is comin in a few months.. why buy the 7 inch when the 9 inch is coming in a few months , wait why buy the nine inch when the atom is coming in a few months , wait , why buy the atom when the touch screen is comi....

life is what happens while you are making other plans.

[David Clark @ Apr 18th 2008 7:37AM]

Mr. Lennon, is that you?

Yes, I agree. I've been putting off buying an Eee for a while since these rumors have been circulating (what, a week after the first Eee release?)

And last night, I was convinced that the best route was the HP mini. :-/ If I can ever get my hands on one.

[aardvark sandwich @ Apr 18th 2008 8:00AM]

Exactamundo.

I just went ahead and bought an HP 2133. Lack of atom be damned. I need the thing NOW. Not 'next quarter'.

[Matt @ Apr 18th 2008 7:42AM]

Power hungy CPU, eh?
Sounds like a computer made for porn!

[Sam Zebian @ Apr 18th 2008 7:44AM]

Now I really want to get this or the HP mini, I want this because it's small, cheap and customizable. I want the HP because it looks better (The HP design looks nicer I think) and it is almost the same machine when you look at specs. If only one of these got an Atom sooner, I don't want to wait until June....

[aardvark sandwich @ Apr 18th 2008 8:02AM]

The HP is a much better machine.

[fatfishy @ Apr 18th 2008 2:42PM]

I don;t want a touchscreen on my eeePC. Is it worth the extra battery life to have a slower processor. if it is getting the 1.6ghz atom, according to this benchmark http://www.computerbase.de/news/hardware/prozessoren/intel/2008/maerz/erster_benchmark_intels_silverthorne/

its slower than the 900mhz celeronM on superPI

[JAmerican @ Apr 18th 2008 7:45AM]

Atom is also half the performance of a Celeron so I don't know if the Atom is really an improvement over the Celeron persay. Usually, the power is lessened with the same performance and its not a proportional change as it seems with the Atom. Because if you lessen the processing power by half, the battery life should double anyway.

[ridestp @ Apr 18th 2008 9:30AM]

New benchmarks beg to differ.
http://www.vr-zone.com/articles/Intel_Atom_Power_Consumption_Preliminary_Tests/5721.html

Super Pi
1.6GHz Diamondville | 1m 15s
900MHz Celeron M | 1m 28s
1.6GHz Silverthorne | 1m 48s (http://www.computerbase.de/news/hardware/prozessoren/intel/2008/maerz/erster_benchmark_intels_silverthorne/)

Sure the clocks are higher, but the 1.6GHz Atom will be the norm.

[Rollins @ Apr 18th 2008 9:48AM]

@ridestp

The link you showed only had the Silverthorne version, which was outrun by a Celeron that's running 700mhz slower. I'm not seeing the Diamondville benchmark in there.

[ridestp @ Apr 18th 2008 10:38AM]

The top link is for the Diamondville proc.

[Jeebus @ Apr 18th 2008 12:57PM]

"Because if you lessen the processing power by half, the battery life should double anyway"

Yeah, because the LCD doesn't consume anything. Oh wait, it does, in fact it's the biggest consumer of battery, which means that going Atom won't help improve much on battery life.

[decapitor @ Apr 18th 2008 8:02AM]

GPS and touchscreen for 500 makes teh 500 price point much mroe appealing. otherwise I'll wait for competition to drive the prices of these things down. ECS, MSI, Dell?, HP, Asus, and who knows who else. Also I've never bought anything with GPS in it for windows or linux is there always software that comes with a device like that for maps and directions? Anybody know the best software for this type of thing?

[giuliop @ Apr 18th 2008 8:02AM]

The hell with the touch screen, I NEED A ******* POINTING STICK!

[Baz @ Apr 18th 2008 11:37AM]

Well, that's 1.

[giuliop @ Apr 18th 2008 11:56AM]

As opposed to 0 wanting the touch screen?

[phanbouy @ Apr 18th 2008 3:35PM]

WHAT IF HE'S GOT A POINTED STICK?

[Cybergypsy @ Apr 18th 2008 8:10AM]

keeping my air....................

[Patrick @ Apr 18th 2008 8:14AM]

You better, you paid at least $1800 for it...

[Superevil @ Apr 18th 2008 2:36PM]

I don't think that's by choice.

[m-p{3} @ Apr 18th 2008 8:20AM]

I would say that for now the HP 2133 looks prettier than the Asus Eee, but that's just me. Also, the available configurations from 499$ to 749$ are pretty interesting. The one at 549$ is pretty well balanced between price and specs.

[chefgon_ign @ Apr 18th 2008 8:37AM]

I don't like the direction this is going. Wasn't the Eee supposed to be the $200 laptop? Now that they're famous, they should be chasing their original price promise. Instead, they keep adding all these crazy features. Sure, it makes it a nicer machine, but the price keeps steadily going up. When you're paying more for an Eee than you are for a low-end 15" Dell, its novelties become a lot less appealing.

My attraction to the Eee is that it's a nearly full featured laptop that is portable and easily affordable. My budget can't handle $600+ for a mini-laptop to compliment my regular laptop. I'm going to stop waiting for all these new models and order a 4G this weekend. It's the best Price to Feature compromise they've put out so far and I don't see them besting that any time soon.

[FRZ @ Apr 18th 2008 8:56AM]

I am just waiting for a really nice MID, maybe 5" or so that doesn't cost over 1k. Otherwise I am just getting the N810, hopefully the Wimax version comes out soon before I throw my live savings out there.

[jrodliebs @ Apr 18th 2008 8:42AM]

Would a touchscreen, GPS, 9 inch, Atom Processed Eee still be $500?? That's a hell of a deal, but I'm a bit skeptical.

[Charles R Hamilton @ Apr 18th 2008 8:55AM]

Touchscreen FTW. I'm not buying unless I get one. The Osbourne effect will become the EEE Pc effect. Not quite as catchy though.

[Cal @ Apr 18th 2008 9:18AM]

** Bad Pun Alert **

Could call it the EEEffect

[Nate @ Apr 18th 2008 8:59AM]

1.5 hours of rated battery life?

Exaggerate much?

[ridestp @ Apr 18th 2008 9:32AM]

Read the article for yourself, it is obvious that Engadget didn't.










(*hint* Engadget is wrong)

[Baz @ Apr 18th 2008 9:13AM]

$399 for a feature-filled Linux sub-notebook hit a 'sweet spot' that made the EeePC an easily-justifiable purchase for me - and certainly did the same for many.

Since its initial release, ASUS has added a larger SSD (if you can find one), announced a larger screen (ditto) and said the processor is changing - each one of these cranking up the price from the 'sweet spot' that was the initial selling point of the product. Oh, and yeah, they've taken to installing an obsolete (and virus-prone) OS, too.

While some of these features are welcome, the price increases mean that products like the HP are suddenly in competition with ASUS (where they once enjoyed 100% market share) and the specs look a little weedy for the price.

Until ASUS can offer a 8G 900 at $399, it looks like the good times are over for them.

Pity.

[doublej @ Apr 18th 2008 9:16AM]

spot on mate, classic feature creep.

[Oinquer @ Apr 18th 2008 9:14AM]

are you steve jobs? dont need more arguments right?

[doublej @ Apr 18th 2008 9:14AM]

I'm no rocket scientist my friends, but in making the screen bigger, brighter, aren't you adding to power drain ?

The best a frugal CPU will do is offset this. But then you have GPS .......

[Vincent @ Apr 18th 2008 5:11PM]

I second that, Id buy one right away if it has swivel hinges

[kris @ Apr 18th 2008 9:23AM]

Dear ASUS all you need to do is;

extend battery life (just a little)
GPS
Touch screen with swivel hinge

for 500$ it would sell like the Wii.

[FRZ @ Apr 18th 2008 9:45AM]

Can you imagine that? Seriously, if all that was actually included, I'd buy one now. I so need a tablet or MID. One or the other without looking forward to living in a shelter for the months thereafter.

[FRZ @ Apr 18th 2008 9:50AM]

Can you imagine that? Seriously, if all that was actually included, I'd buy one now. I so need a tablet or MID. One or the other without looking forward to living in a shelter for the months thereafter.

[Wisam @ Apr 18th 2008 2:33PM]

Asus, if you are adding a touch screen, you make sure the screen flip around or swivel so we can better use that feature.

[Br0 @ Apr 18th 2008 10:05AM]

This is what I was WAITING FOR. DON'T BACK OUT ON ME ASUS.
DON'T DO IT.

[Itsamoto @ Apr 18th 2008 10:05AM]

Does anybody know what sort of battery times are expected to be gained using Atom vs current configuration?

Half the power requirement of a CPU does not necessarily equate to doubled battery time.

[Alex @ Apr 18th 2008 10:27AM]

Can someone give me advice. I have a desktop for gaming, a T60 laptop for everything else. I hate taking it anywhere b/c it is my primary computer and the thought of losing it or breaking it is too upsetting.

I want another laptop for travel, programming in Python and SAS (needs windows XP) and for internet access. Would it make more sense to buy a HP2133, an Eee, or just a plain old 12" or 13" laptop?

Thanks

[Superevil @ Apr 18th 2008 2:39PM]

Check out the ECS G10IL that's supposed to be coming out this month. That's what I'm waiting for.

[Alex Terry @ Apr 18th 2008 10:37AM]

Anyone using the new EEE to read comics>?

If it is good for that I'm really tempted

[Ian @ Apr 18th 2008 11:32AM]

So with the ATom battery life improves 1 1/2 hours despite the increased screen size.
So as I was getting 3-3 1/2 hours from my 701 that's a new range of 4 1/2 -5 hours for the 900. Not too shabby.

I suspect the basic 900 will cost around $499 and a souped up GPS etc. etc to go for $599 (my complete guesses). This woiuld allow for Asus to slightly drop the price of the existing 701 to meet the increased low end competition.