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Asus expects Windows Eee PC to outsell Linux counterpart 6 to 4
Asus has never been one to shy away from making from making bold predications about it's fast-selling Eee PC, and it's now come out with yet another feat of prognostication, saying that it expects it's forthcoming Windows-based Eee PC to outsell its Linux-based counterpart by a ratio of 6 to 4. As PC World points out, that's despite the fact that the Windows version will cost nearly twice as much as the cheapest Linux-based Eee PC. Asus chairman Jonney Shih seems undaunted by that fact, however, and assures us that "a lot of people have been waiting for the Windows version."
Asus spills more details on the 9-inch Eee
In a recent interview, Asus CEO Jerry Shen talked up the company's newest edition to the Eee family, and also dropped a few more details on the forthcoming laptop. Apparently, the new set of miniature PCs will up the SSD capacity, with sizes ranging from 8GB in the XP-equipped model, up to 12GB or 20GB in the Linux versions -- though it's hard to say why the smaller-footprint Linux would need more drive space. Shen also revealed that there are tentative plans to release WiMAX and HSDPA-enabled models sometime in Q3 of 2008, and he confirmed that come May the company will trade up to Intel's Diamondville (er, Atom) chips. In addition, more colors are on the way, and the base price in the US will be $499 at launch -- though that figure is expected to drop in the following months.[Via Eee Site]
Acer: Eee PC killer on track for Q2/Q3
We had the chance to corner Acer at CeBIT to ask them about their plans for that Eee PC killer. We received confirmation from Stefan Engel, Managing Director and Country Manager for Acer Germany, that they were on target for a Q2/Q3 release. Incidentally, they will continue to offer the 7-inch Packard Bell EasyNote XS (aka, Everex CloudBook, NanoBook, FIC CD260) along side the Acer branded 7- to 9-incher even though Packard Bell is all but officially an Acer subsidiary.
Asus and Microsoft working an Eee-targeted version of Windows 7?
So now that the nine-inch Eee is officially available with Windows XP pre-installed, people are wondering the obvious -- why XP and not Vista, since XP is being discontinued in June and Vista can kinda-sorta be made to run on an Eee? The answer, direct from Microsoft, is both obvious and a little surprising: Given the Eee's "other requirements," Asus and Microsoft "couldn't go the Vista route," presumably because the Eee doesn't really have the horsepower for it. Sure, but what caught our interest was that Microsoft is "in close discussions with Asus [regarding] how to take that forward... in regards to the Windows 7 Europe timeframe." Windows 7, you'll recall, has that lean new kernel, which would presumably make building a stripped-down version specifically for Eee-class machines easier -- but the last we heard, Windows 7 wasn't due until at least mid-2009 (and possibly not until 2011), so either Microsoft is planning to continue shipping XP after June or Windows 7 is coming much earlier than we thought. Our money is on XP continuing to soldier on, but here's hoping.[Thanks, Omar]
ASUS' 9-inch Eee PC, now with living pixels!
We showed you quite a bit of the 9-inch Eee PC from ASUS yesterday, but they wouldn't let us turn it on. Now that CeBIT has officially begun, however, ASUS is lighting up those pixels loud and proud. ASUS tells us the screen is 1024 x 600, and it looks to be almost the exact same pixel density as the 7-inch version. The computer was being shown in both Linux and Windows XP versions, so it looks like you'll be able to have your choice of OS when the 9-incher is released later this year.%Gallery-17479%
7-inch Eee PC vs 9-inch Eee PC -- ready, fight!
We know you need it. Now you've got it. ASUS' 7- and 9-inch Eee PCs lined up for a side by side comparison. The new 9-incher is clearly the bigger brother to the shorter original. Too bad too 'cause that chunky bezel on the 7-inch already offers plenty of room for screen-estate growth. You can also clearly see the bigger touchpad and beefier display hinge of the new 9-inch. Check the gallery to see all the hot 9- on 7-inch action.%Gallery-17383%
Hands-on with the 9-inch Eee PC
If you hadn't guessed from the headline, and as rumored just an hour ago, there's 9-inches of LCD on this thing. Actually, 8.9, but who's counting? We found out that and a few other little tidbits about this Eee PC "New Generation" at the ASUS booth just now, but for the most part the 9-inch Eee PC is quite similar to its 7-inch forebearer. Anything past that ASUS is saving for tomorrow's press event when this laptop will become officially official, but whatever they end up calling it (Eee PC 900 is rumored), it's certainly for real. The battery impact of the new display is said to be "negligible," with 2.5 to 3 hours of battery quoted. ASUS wouldn't let us turn it on since it's all so very secret at the moment, but they did confirm some release details. The 9-inch Eee will hit in the "middle" of 2008, with that €399 pricetag for the 12GB version, but other capacities available (we saw an 8GB on display). No word yet on US pricing, but we're trying to pry it out of them.%Gallery-17382%
ASUS set to announce 9-inch Eee PC 900?
We're hoping to get official confirmation for this in just a few minutes, but the current scuttlebutt is that ASUS is planning to announce the rumored 9-inch followup to the Eee PC soon. The new laptop will be purportedly named Eee PC 900, and should be the same size as the original, just with more screen to squint at. Other rumored additions include 1GB of RAM standard and SSD capacities up to 12GB. The base price will be 399 €, but hopefully that doesn't mean $600-ish in the US -- that conversion rate is certainly getting painful. While we can't vouch for the source of this rumor, Blogeee.net is claiming this is official word straight from Asus, so take that for what you will.[Via Eee Site]
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 smorgasbord 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. There's no word on price or availability for any of these yet, but we're guessing none of them will break the bank -- they sure don't look it.%Gallery-17329%
Sony exec sees Eee-like PCs as having potentially negative impact on industry
So at Sony's Open House we were having lunch with Mike Abary, Sony's US SVP of Information Technology Products Division, who oversees Vaio computers (among numerous other things). Of course, the inevitable question came up about the Eee PC's success thus far, and what that means to computer companies on the higher end of the spectrum, like Sony. Mike's response was a little surprising, but certainly sensible enough: if consumer expectations begins to weigh too heavily toward the $300 end of PCs, he believes that kind of consumer adoption would have a profoundly negative impact on the industry, referring to its effect as "a race to the bottom."We know there are a lot of Eee fans in the house, but the man makes sense. Sony isn't trashing ultra-cheap machines so much as recognizing that it's hard to push things forward when your primary objective becomes making the very cheapest possible machine you can (and not very best). Innovation is hard enough to subsidize, but when your already thin margins flatten even further in trying to sell ultra-cheap machines, it's easy to see the economics working against tech companies. (Asus has less to worry about here because its primary business is making PCs for other companies.) Of course, the reality is that ultra-cheap machines probably won't soon envelop the lion's share of computer sales and threaten what most think of as "real" PCs, so we probably don't have to worry about the industry bottoming out because of the Eee. False advertising and abusive trialware, however, are different stories entirely.
Linpus rolls out Linux-based OS aimed at low-cost laptops / UMPCs
While its claim of being the "first" to offer an OS specifically designed for the latest crop of low-cost laptops and UMPCs may be a little dubious, the unfortunately-named Linpus is at least pretty quick to jump on the bandwagon. To that end, the company's just let loose its Linpus Linux Lite OS, which it says will run just fine on laptops like the Eee PC and Cloudbook, or any other system with as little as a 500MHz CPU, 128MB of RAM and 512MB of storage. Just as importantly, the OS is also apparently designed with low-res 7-inch screens in mind, although as CLUMPC points out, it doesn't go so far as to include support for little things like built-in WiFi out of the box. Still, if you want to give it a shot, you can grab it now in the form of a Live CD direct from Linpus.
Eee PC hacked to accommodate 1.2GHz Pentium M processor
In case you haven't noticed, the Eee PC has quickly become a favorite among folks that like to, shall we say, customize things, and it now looks like you can chalk up another big modification to the list of operations the laptop has gone under. This latest come to us from one "guryhwa," who managed to cram a 1.2GHz Pentium M processor into the laptop, giving it a bit of boost of the stock Celeron. Needless to this, this particular hack involves some soldering and a good deal of guts, but you apparently at least don't have to make any modifications to the BIOS. Without any changes, however, the processor only runs at 840MHz, although guryhwa's apparently working to improve that.[Via Eee Site]
Factory-fresh ASUS Eee PC vulnerable to hackers
Everybody's ritual when they get a new computer is different: some people start installing their favorite programs, some people set their desktop picture to Pushing Daisies (not us, other people... who aren't us), and others check for vulnerable processes that might allow hackers to gain root access. RISE Security falls into that latter category, and spotted a vulnerable version of Samba on a virgin Xandros Eee PC. They ran a pre-built exploit they had for just an occasion, and found that they can indeed root the system through ill-gotten means. No word if there's an update available to patch this hole, but in the interim keep an eye out for scruffy-looking men wearing skull and crossbone paraphernalia snooping around your network. [Thanks, Eliot]
DreamBook Light IL1 runs on VIA, won't run ASUS out of business
The Eee PC has certainly turned into a sort of rallying point for obscure laptop manufacturers and OEMs, and now Pioneer Computers Australia is getting in on the action. From what we can tell, the DreamBook Light IL1 is a relatively unique shell wrapped around VIA's reference C7-M design. The 7-inch LCD runs at 800 x 480, and the 1GHz processor is backed by up to 1GB of RAM. Most interesting here is the absolute configurability, from OS choice (including Vista, XP and Ubuntu) to connectivity, but unfortunately it comes at a price: the $499 AUD ($446 US) base model doesn't even include WiFi. Looks like this round goes to ASUS, but we like where this all is headed. [Via jkkmobile]
Third party Eee PC accessories hint at Eeecosystem
You must doing something right to capture the attention of third party accessory makers. Meet Brando's $18 Car and $23 Travel Chargers for the Eee PC. Of course, ASUS already sells an official travel charger so really, only the Car Charger is likely to garner any interest. Still, it does makes us wonder if a "Made for Eee" logo and licensing tithes are just around the corner?Read -- Car ChargerRead -- Travel Charger
Install gOS on the ASUS Eee
We're not sure that you'd want to do it, but it's nice to know that you can do it. If you're really sick of the native OS that came with your Eee -- or you're trying to feel out what a Cloudbook would be like if you could buy one -- you can now install Everex's Google-centric gOS onto your system with little-to-no effort, simply by following this ten point breakdown. You'll need an external optical drive, a wired internet connection, and probably an hour or so, but once all is said and done, you can break free of Xandros and roll deep with the Ubuntu-based gOS. How the software performs on the miniscule laptop we couldn't say, but at least now you can show your friends how truly unique you are.[Thanks, Tom]
The 42-inch Eee PC TeeVee? Yes, and more
Just as we feared, Asus is getting ready to dilute their Eee branding until it's RAZRed down to a hint of its former panache. The new family of low-cost, Eee products will include the E-DT (desktop), E-TV, and E-Monitor. The $200 - $300 E-DT will initially sport a Celeron processor when it ships without a monitor sometime in April or May. The E-Monitor then, is more than that name would have you believe. It's a 19- to 21-inch all-in-one PC with built-in TV tuner and a remarkable $499 price tag. It'll be based on Intel's Shelton platform when the AIO launches in September. The 42-inch E-TV will also launch in September and feature a Linux PC integrated into the LCD. It's expected to list for a $200 premium over the low-cost 42-inch sets it will compete with. Just don't get too hung up on those prices, kid. The Eee PC was only supposed to cost $200 when it was announced. Now for the bad news. ASUS will not be offering a touch-panel in their next generation Eee PC after all -- their market research shows limited demand. Not avid Engadget readers, are we ASUS?
MSI prepping Eee PC competitor with Diamondville inside
We're short on specifics, but MSI looks to be getting behind Intel's upcoming 45nm Diamondville processor in a big way -- a totally unsurprising turn of events. Diamondville is pretty much built from the ground up for powering low-cost ultraportables of the Eee PC's ilk, so we're sure to be seeing it in all sorts of cheap computers in the coming year or so, but MSI is one of the first to announce a budget laptop built around the platform. The chip is due to be formally unveiled in April, and MSI says the "when Diamondville is ready, our project will be ready." That should be around July or August, and we can't wait to see those design chops (pictured above) put to good use.
Asus rolls out Eee PC in Japan, Windows XP standard
It's taken a while, but it looks like folks in Japan can now finally get their hands on Asus's diminutive and eminently-hackable Eee PC, although not exactly the same models we have 'round these parts. Dubbed the Eee PC 4G-X, the Japan-centric laptop is apparently identical to the regular 4G model, with the notable exception that it now comes pre-loaded with Windows XP Home Edition as standard instead of the usual Linux OS. That, of course, takes up a hefty chunk of the 4GB of internal storage, so Asus has thoughtfully 4GB SDHC card with the laptop as well. Look for it to be available in your choice of black or white for ¥50,000 (or about $468), with free access to NTT's WiFine hotspot network thrown in for good measure.
Eee PC with all the hacks, but can it ever learn to love?
There are plenty of hacks out there for the Asus Eee PC, but now someone has brought it all together in a glorious amalgam of hackery. This here exposed, but proud, Eee holds within it add-ons for GPS, Bluetooth, 802.11n, FM transmitting and SDHC card reading, plus a modem, USB hub and 2GB of RAM just for good measure. Total cost of the upgrades is $454.38, so this is clearly a labor of love -- too bad all the radios in the world could never teach this little 7-inch beauty the joys of human emotion. [Via Digg]
