ASUS Eee PC 901 falls to a cool $500

For reasons unknown, netbook manufacturers (on the whole, at least) have been asking ridiculous sums of money for their wares, but now that the novelty of the sector is wearing off, we're seeing those figures start to head south. Following in Acer's footsteps, ASUS has evidently lowered the entry price for its Fine Ebony / Pearl White Eee PC 901 to $499.99. Yep, that's the one with an 8.9-inch display, 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 12GB SSD and a 6-cell battery. So, is that low enough for you, or are you waiting for the Buy 1 Get 1 offer that may never come?

[Thanks, Nathanael]

[Jamma @ Sep 8th 2008 6:19PM]

UK price drop please, then i'll finally get one

[Almadi @ Sep 8th 2008 6:52PM]

As George would say:
"dream on Florance!!"

[LondonConsultant @ Sep 8th 2008 7:21PM]

Or the same price but a better second SSD, eg a fast 16GB instead of a slow 8GB...

[nzo @ Sep 8th 2008 6:19PM]

Buy one get one free? Tell me more of this...

[Techie @ Sep 8th 2008 6:57PM]

Sure, just ask Michelle Jackson in Neverland.

[Darryl @ Sep 8th 2008 6:21PM]

IMHO the keyboard's a little too small, but since Dell pissed me off today, I might consider it. Seriously, the bait and switch $99 "deal", the free shipping that turned into $25 shipping, and the horrendously slow dell chat thing was a turn off. I was ready to give them my money!

[Steve Jobs @ Sep 8th 2008 6:22PM]

Still $150 too expensive.

[Ruben @ Sep 8th 2008 6:26PM]

Acer still wins in comparison, to be honest. Not knocking the Eee because its pretty decent and started this trend, but Acer still wins, in nearly every category.

[broli @ Sep 8th 2008 6:35PM]

Correction, 300$ too expensive.

[BOGRASH @ Sep 8th 2008 7:43PM]

acer aint win shit. asus build is light years ahead of that acer crud

[Ruben @ Sep 8th 2008 7:50PM]

In terms of build quality/price, they are equal. In terms of features/price, the Acer wins.

Sure, the more expensive Eee's have better build quality, but they are more expensive, and Acer still takes the win for having more features at a really low price.

I really like the Eee, but im looking at it objectively, and its clear the Acer is the better netbook. At least it retains one of the key selling points of a netbook, and that is low price. Asus has lost in that aspect.

I own neither, but am looking to chuck my iBook into the trash/give to family member so i can justify getting something like this. And the price of the Acer makes it a "why not" purchase. Not so with the Asus. I have to actually think about which one to get, since they are only decent in the 550-700 dollar range. All the others are pretty weak, especially the drive space.

[ntlam @ Sep 8th 2008 8:04PM]

I'll rather get its nephew... the "EEE phone"... P552w..

[Matthew C @ Sep 8th 2008 8:54PM]

i would not purchase one for over $100, which means the price would have to drop to about $180, for me to find that kind of deal, and it won't, so I wont be buying one... sorry asus.

[avester @ Sep 9th 2008 1:39AM]

Acer still has 12gb SSD (It's 20gb linux / 12gb windows with EEE) and a 3-cell battery.

[BOGRASH @ Sep 9th 2008 12:11PM]

are you insane? the aspire is gaudy tacky CRAP! that touchpad EWWWWW! limited, weak, unreliable GARBAGE!!!!!!!

[Ruben @ Sep 8th 2008 6:24PM]

You jerk-off.

The MBA costs 1800 to start. This is a full 360% less money. And it has more ports and much better battery life.

Your comment was by far the stupidest ive ever read.

[Hellaphunt @ Sep 8th 2008 6:24PM]

Cute...

[zomg0t @ Sep 8th 2008 6:25PM]

hehe... that's cute...

[Hellaphunt @ Sep 8th 2008 6:26PM]

Your username betrays you.

[zomg0t @ Sep 8th 2008 6:27PM]

I'm assuming this is supposed to be a reply to Intellectual and Open-Minded as I was going to write THE SAME THING! and after both of us finding his comment to be cute... whaaaaaat...?

[Hellaphunt @ Sep 8th 2008 6:28PM]

Directed towards Inte... and Close-Minded.

F*cking Engadget's comment system is so busted.

[Nate @ Sep 8th 2008 6:28PM]

Still too expensive. These things need to get down to, at least, three hundred before they'll be getting any more of my money.

I can't imagine spending more than that on a machine that I would consider a third option.

[cenovis @ Sep 9th 2008 4:21AM]

Ah yes, Endgadget Users: Cheaper than the Chinese! Or is it just Australians in general?

[KilgoreTrout @ Sep 9th 2008 12:02PM]

You obviously have never managed to put your hands on a MSI wind (or even better a Medion mini Akoya) because these could have been my very same words before I tried one of my collegues' machine.
Now , after a furious betting on e bay, (even if I could just have bought the MSI wind at the mall), I own a white mini Akoya, and you can buy my 12" Vaio on e bay for a very decent price.

[Hellaphunt @ Sep 8th 2008 6:30PM]

Haha. Funny. Spooky. It's all I had to say. I'm tried at being upset with these types. I see no evidence in his open-mindedness in his comment.

[Hellaphunt @ Sep 8th 2008 6:31PM]

Previous comment meant for zomg0t.

WTF?! Fix this non-cooperative shit, Engadget!!! It's ridiculous!

[ProjectDecember @ Sep 8th 2008 7:09PM]

Yes, read his comment history. Every comment has something to do with either Apple or how much MS sucks. Close-minded POS

[Zelatio @ Sep 8th 2008 6:31PM]

You both said cute less than a minute from each other, both of which I still have to figure out why it was cute....strange...

[Eli @ Sep 8th 2008 6:32PM]

Don't feed the trolls.

[Fanfoot @ Sep 8th 2008 6:33PM]

Honestly, I can't be bothered to keep track of all of the ASUS Eee products. Is this the one I should look at or is there some other that's better? Is this one as small as the Dell or bigger like the Acer? What's the keyboard like? Etc.

The Acer, while imperfect of course, is $399 for the 6-cell version with 160GB/1GB/XP. So it still seems as if this is at least $100 too expensive even if you ignore the hard drive space. That said, 12GB is probably okay since I think an XP install with a reasonable set of programs like Office is in the 8GB range, and I ASSUME this thing has an SD slot for some media.

[andres @ Sep 8th 2008 6:33PM]

sounds like its time for someone to take his mid-day nap

[Dany Bui @ Sep 8th 2008 6:44PM]

AA1 still owns all netbooks in price and value. The EEE 901 should at least match Acers 399 price point. I don't know why anyone would pay 550 for the MSI Wind and EEE 1000

[Sean @ Sep 8th 2008 9:04PM]

Bigger hard drives.
If the AA1 was $399 with a 16GB SSD I'd have ordered one by now.
8GB is nice and all, but 16GB is really the absolute minimum for me

[KiL @ Sep 9th 2008 2:20AM]

Well, I don't know about the US market, but in Japan you can get the msi wind with a 120GB HD for almost the same money (OK it's about ¥4000/U$37 more). So why would I want the EEE PC?

[Quispus @ Sep 8th 2008 6:43PM]

I'm still leaning towards the Lenovo IdeaPad S10. I checked out the EEE as well as the Acer at Best Buy, the EEE keyboard is too small but I did like the Acer.

[ProjectDecember @ Sep 8th 2008 7:23PM]

Yea, when I caught wind of the Lenovo Ideapad S10, I shit myself, because I had just received my eee 901 in the mail. Son ova bitch. The S10 ohh soo purdy. And I had to correct this comment 1000 times because of this tiny ass keyboard.

[Prad @ Sep 8th 2008 7:11PM]

Even the 1000H has dropped down to $449 on amazon. But it is only available in black (or fine ebony)... wish they had it in white!

[ProjectDecember @ Sep 8th 2008 7:01PM]

You are a mega-10 liter-douche apple fanboy. And I hate you.

[patrick @ Sep 8th 2008 7:05PM]

Make them top out at $400 and keep the entry fee at $299 and you'll have some winners.

[Mark @ Sep 8th 2008 7:06PM]

It sounds about $150 too expensive (the specs are close to the Acer less storage), but the argument of SSD vs. Hard Drive reminds me of the issues DAPs had back in the day. I've been happy with my Acer (battery life is a little short) and would like to know why most of the netbooks don't reach any kind of parity in price point with it. Is Acer making a smaller profit margin and counting on volume?

[bebop @ Sep 8th 2008 7:41PM]

I always though the high price on the 901 was partly Asus had to protect sales of the lower price models below the 901, 900, 701 series etc, partly bcause teh 901 actually IS better spec'd than the A1 (bluetooth, more storage, wireless n, larger battery), and partly because, Acer was going with a console-war price strategy : lose money initially and make it up later when they dominate the market and the BOM cost falls.

[OddManOut @ Sep 8th 2008 7:15PM]

Yeah...when these netbooks became the shiznits it kinda seemed like Asus et al forgot they were supposed to be like $199 - $400 on the outside...nice to see these companies with their heads up their er...um...yeah...nice to see them coming up for air...

To date I think the only 'netbook' to actually sell for $199 has been the Razorbook, which I'm a hair away from buying. I know...I know, in a world dominated by the almighty Atom, a netbook sporting a 400mhz MIPS based CPU doesn't seem all that appealing (and admittedly a 624mhz ARM would be preferable), but at $249 (the price of the upgraded '400' model with LAN + WIFI + Modem integrated) I think it's worth it as a toy. I've looked high and low and thus far haven't gotten the skinny on what kind of graphics hardware it actually has but it's supposedly optomized for video. So long as it's got the equivalent of say an ATI Imageon graphics accelerator and 8mb of vram or more, it should be adequate...

For what these things do, 400mhz / 128mb is probably enough (works on my iPaq 4700). If it can do MP3's, SD Divx rips, casual web surfing, email, and VOIP (still trying to confirm the last bit) reliably for $249 then I'll take 2. And since my similarly spec'd PDAs CAN do all those things, I rather think it's worth the risk...

[iofthestorm @ Sep 8th 2008 7:18PM]

I thought the EeePC was actually thinner than the MBA. And it's definitely lighter.

[bill @ Sep 8th 2008 7:25PM]

Actually and the 1000H had a price CUT huge if you ask me 449@zipzoomfly

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10008846&prodlist=celebros


Who can beat this price and these specs?1000H FTW

Tottaly awesome!!!!!

[ProjectDecember @ Sep 8th 2008 7:39PM]

Im not sure if it's thinner. But its def. smaller. Plus I don't consider the MBA a netbook; too expensive. So comparing these two is ridiculous.

[TareX @ Sep 8th 2008 7:29PM]

They had to lower the price. The spec-2-spec comparison with the super ultraportable Everun Note with the dual-core processor and dedicated 128MB ATI card was ridiculous before this price drop.

Still waiting for the Everun Note....
http://www.umpcportal.com/2008/09/everun-note-visual-appetizer/

[Ruben @ Sep 8th 2008 7:39PM]

To be honest, i would easily pay 800 for the Everun, if only the battery life were not disappointing.

The battery life suffers from trying to be a laptop in a netbooks shell. Regardless, its an amazing netbook (and it is truly amazing they got that much power in something that small).

[Steve Paine @ Sep 9th 2008 5:58PM]

Full review is up now....
http://www.umpcportal.com/2008/09/everun-note-full-review/

Personally, I love it but watch out for short battery life!

Steve.

[Cybergypsy @ Sep 8th 2008 7:33PM]

The Air is not a netbook........

[melo @ Sep 8th 2008 7:36PM]

GOD.. I'm so fucking sick of hearing about the fucking Eeeeee.

Enough already.


Engadget... why don't you actually 'research' and find something new to write about... its the same shit over and over and over.

Eeec pc, Oled, the Wind, more Eeee..... blah blah blah. Oh.. another Zune! WTF