ASUS prepping "high-end" Eee PC S-series for September

Remember the ASUS Eee PC roadmap we peeped a few days back? Right, the one that lists the new Ultimate S-series and Pro Fashion Eee PCs amongst the 23 models. Turns out both categories are planned for a 2008 launch with specs like dual-core Atom processors, 120GBs of hard disk, and 32GB SSDs. This according to ASUS president, Jerry Shen. The first Eee PC with a 32GB SSD (wink wink Buffalo) will launch in late September and feature a 10-inch, 16:9 aspect LED backlit display and battery life of about 4-5 hours. As members of the Exquisite and Extremely slim and light S-series, these Eee(ee) PCs will cost between $700 to $900 with the "high-end market" in mind. Funny, we didn't know there was a high-end to the race to the bottom.

[Mike @ Jul 31st 2008 2:14AM]

Suit 1: This Eee Pc thing is going well.
Suit 2: Quite.
Suit 1: How do we capitalize on this?
Suit 2: Well, we could reduce the price slightly and increase volumes.
Suit 1: How old fashioned ... I'm going to have to say no. Better idea: Let's introduce thousands of barely differentiated models of the same thing.
Suit 2: That's why you're the boss.

[Will @ Jul 31st 2008 2:21AM]

That was, um, rock solid. And heart-touching.

[thebobness @ Jul 31st 2008 2:20AM]

Suit 1: its call using your NOGGIN
Suit 2: DAMN! no wonder i didnt make the cut!

[Mike @ Jul 31st 2008 2:47AM]

I know what you're thinking: "Which Eee PC suits me?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is an ASUS, the most rock solid PC in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Am I a traveler, or a travel explorer? Well, what are ya, punk?

[j_g_puff @ Jul 31st 2008 4:32AM]

Will, Mike, thank you. You've both made my day.

[BluesK1d @ Jul 31st 2008 10:06AM]

@Will

Good grief they need to change their slogan. I love Asus but man that is cheesy.

[OneLove @ Jul 31st 2008 12:28PM]

so the Asus suits are British?

[OneLove @ Jul 31st 2008 12:33PM]

They've hired monkeys to throw poo at a computer parts chart to create new eee models.

[Muhammed @ Jul 31st 2008 2:18AM]

Waiting forward for these Eee PC-S series
hopefully I would find one on Eee Bay.

[Muhammed @ Jul 31st 2008 2:23AM]

I meant looking forward!

[Ninjakamster (PS360 FTW!) @ Jul 31st 2008 2:38AM]

I'm very interested in the 10" version with 16:9 aspect ratio. Granted, I already have a Vaio TZ but I wish to see how this turns out especially with its price tag.

[KEROLiUKAS @ Jul 31st 2008 2:42AM]

Eee fails. Seriously. Exhausted the brand quickly.

[LondonConsultant @ Jul 31st 2008 5:11AM]

Asus shouldn't have released any other Eee netbooks after the iconic Eee 700. It annoys me when companies release new models with different specs. And all these additional choices just confuse me. I wish we still had typewriters, although some of those newer models with daisywheels took some getting used to. Doesn't anyone else feel that everything is moving too fast nowadays...

[ShadowKain @ Jul 31st 2008 3:49PM]

I agree, since when did this get out of hand. Now it will be increasingly difficult to distinguish their "netbooks" from "notebooks" with a price so high in contrast to their older models. Where does one draw the line for a netbook or notebook? ASUS needs to rethink or many ppl may shy away from their future odd offerings ... ( see Eee TV, and jsut about anything else they make)...

hmmm.... :P

[anabouboula @ Jul 31st 2008 2:45AM]

MSI Wind FTW!

[Peter R. @ Jul 31st 2008 2:51AM]

Alright this is starting to get disgusting. 23 models .... why ..23 ah ...... do we really need 23 different models of the eee pc, people in the market for a netbook, don't differ that much in terms of their needs, at least not enough to justify 23 different models of choice. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but when this all started, weren't netbooks supposed to be a cheap solution to a laptop(in sub $600 range)? It was supposed to be you get a netbook that fits your basic laptop needs without having to break the bank on full lappie. Now Asus wants to sell "high-end netbooks" for the price of a full laptop. If going to cost $700 - $900 anyway way's the benefit in buying these soon to come eee pcs over a regular laptop.

[John @ Jul 31st 2008 3:08AM]

I think their goal was to be small, mobile and affordable.

Before Asus the alternative 9 inch and 10 inch laptops (Sony) where and still are 2x - 3x more expensive.

[David @ Jul 31st 2008 7:55AM]

John +1

keep it in perspective ppl

[ywsing @ Jul 31st 2008 3:03AM]

I'd rather wish they fix the remaining Eee-bugs and maintain QC level first.

Battery drained when power off
Sucking unresponsive keyboards
Pointless BIOS updates
Ancient linux packages
Buggy touchpad & wifi drivers
Crappy software upgrade dialog
Really open up the sources

Only if those 23 models would fix them!

[John @ Jul 31st 2008 3:05AM]

Paying 550 euro ($850) for a high-end 10 inch laptop is still really cheap! The alternative is a sony or toshiba for over 1.000 euros ($1550).
The only thing it needs is 3G and you can surf 7.2Mbit where ever, whenever you want.

I just hope there is an option not to have the 120GB HDD but to have an addidional 16GB of SDD.

[matt @ Jul 31st 2008 3:14AM]

Yes, that is still stunning value. In the UK an equivalent from another brand would be in the range of £1000-2000.

[jeff.zim @ Jul 31st 2008 3:19AM]

Let's keep in mind that the MSI Wind ultimately failed to top the Eee 1000H for value. I don't see much logic behind the hate-on-Asus bandwagon.

Look, it's like this: Asus built up hype last year first by rumors that its Eee would compete with the OLPC. It failed to meet its original price projections (typical of all such projects) but wowed reviewers for releasing a revolutionary product--an affordable, functional, innovative, easy-to-use miniature non-Windows laptop.

Since then, Asus developed the Eee brand along the "something for everyone" philosophy. It apparently has such remarkable flexibility that it is able to create products to suit the barriage of demanding, and often conflicting feature requests of its vocal following. And it has been only condemned at every step of the way.

The biggest challengers to Asus dominance of the netbook markets have wound up being as big of blowhards when it comes to price as Asus itself was in 2007. The "race to the bottom" was all hot air. Perhaps Dell can undercut the value with a cheaper, comparable system--they have a knack for that.

But until then, why hate on Asus? Well, aside from their moving further and further away from offering Linux options...

They really *aren't* price gouging, at least not any more than their competitors.

[John @ Jul 31st 2008 3:57AM]

Please keep in mind that productioncost have risen with 20% and the Dollar lost 35% of its value, and transportation cost went up by 25% since Asus first talked about a $200 laptop.

So in all fairness. It is not strange that the final pricetag of the 7inch was not $200 but $300.

[TareX @ Jul 31st 2008 4:03AM]

Guys, a 901-sized Eee with high-end hardware (graphics, RAM, processor) would absolutely sell.

[David @ Jul 31st 2008 8:01AM]

..your crotch to satan?

please tell me you are not a modder, every sperm is sacred!

[bartoron @ Jul 31st 2008 8:33AM]

David, your comment is win. XD

Anyways, putting in a high-end graphics card would reduce the battery life to about 30 minutes and give you 3rd degree burns. Your sperm deserve better than that.

[TareX @ Jul 31st 2008 8:36AM]

:D:D:D

no I'm not a mini-laptop modder... but how easy is it to find high-end hardware that fits in a Eee?

[collegekid13 @ Jul 31st 2008 4:37AM]

can i get an eee pc named after meee?

[collegekid13 @ Jul 31st 2008 4:38AM]

can i get an eee pc named after meee

[collegekid13 @ Jul 31st 2008 4:39AM]

sorry

[ipporek @ Jul 31st 2008 5:31AM]

Hope the 10-inch's the S101 and the S91 will be a 9/8.9-inch. Still prefer a netbook that size.

[Charbax @ Jul 31st 2008 5:52AM]

This has been the goal of Intel since the beginning of this Eee BS. They sell a bunch of Eee with little to no profit margins, perhaps they even loose money.

Only reason Intel does this is to stop AMD, OLPC, ARM based Laptops from really seriously bring cheap laptops.

Cheap laptops have no profit margins to make for any of HP, Dell, Sony, Fujitsu, Asus, Acer, Everex, MSI, Gigabyte or any of the other used-to-be Intel bloatware partners.

[Esse @ Jul 31st 2008 5:54AM]

This is seriously eerie - I was thinking yesterday that Asus should launch two high-end models, slimmer, LED-screen, etc, called 91 and 101.

So basically I am a psychic then. :-)

Or they are releasing so many models that I could have guessed at anything and been right.

Still kind of cool.

[David @ Jul 31st 2008 8:04AM]

you mean Eeerie

sorry

[David @ Jul 31st 2008 8:07AM]

Asus has some margin, companies undercutting it probably have very little/ none . Intel is raking it i think though, last time i heard the atom cost like £7 and they were selling it for several x more than that.

but yeah you may be right that they only made the atom because they felt the competition was trying there

[thedesolate1 @ Jul 31st 2008 8:53AM]

Easy To Work
Easy To Use
Easy To Play
Hard To Choose!?

[Andrew Jones @ Jul 31st 2008 10:14AM]

You have got to be kidding me. The idea behind the Eee PC was brilliant. Stick a cheap processor, some flash memory into a tough little plastic chassis, run a free OS on it and bung it out of the door around £200. Sheer genius.

Asus have SO diluted the brand and the idea behind the name that people are now yawning whenever they hear Asus announce something.

Do something different Asus like you did with the Eee. Bring us a £500 with a £1000 spec and people would notice.

[Orinjz @ Jul 31st 2008 11:13AM]

The way I see it there's wrong and right things about the way that Asus have gone about the low cost laptop game:

RIGHT:
Despite the ever increasing price, the Eee PC is still cheaper than a full size laptop, and defintitely cheaper than the pricey sub-laptops that came before it. It is however, not as powerful as the more expensive ones.

WRONG:
That oh-so-contentious accusation of brand dilution. Some on here defend Asus for offering what people want in a variety of flavours, others think they're confusing the average Joe with too many model numbers. I'm inclined to side with the latter, especially given the upcoming premium range which would completely wreck the idea of the Eee brand being synonymous with low cost computing.

What Asus really need to do is put as much effort into marketing these premium end Eee PCs under a different moniker so as not to blur the lines between the low and the high end, given the already confusing choices available to the consumer.

[Skazer @ Jul 31st 2008 7:04PM]

Oh jeez, I don't even know how having many options turned out to be an issue on Engadget. The "average joe" is not on Engadget. Are Engadget users stupid enough to get confused by various model names? Like many others have mentioned, there are MANY products that have dozens of models under the same brand and with vastly different prices/features - anything by Dell, anything by Sony, etc.

And let's be honest here: most people buying these netbooks are at least somewhat tech-savvy. For those who aren't, the big box stores usually only have 1-3 models of Eee to choose.

Either way, having many options shouldn't be a reason for people browsing a TECH blog to whine. I'm glad that there are more and more people who see this and are mocking the people that whine about brand dilution look like fools.

[upgeog @ Jul 31st 2008 11:59AM]

Lol! I doubt EEE goes out there and makes a press release for every "configuration". As it stands there are three main models; the 700, 900, and 1000. The rest are just modifications to the base models.

I doubt ASUS is proclaiming their new configurations as the next best thing! It is Engadget's stupid writers who wet their pantyliners over nothing.

If Engadget has a blog post for every Dell configuration.....

[lenepyhe @ Jul 31st 2008 1:57PM]

I wonder what would have happened if they had not placed that "Confidential" statement at the bottom right corner of the slide.