Further details on ASUS’ rumored luxury netbook, the Eee PC Shell, have emerged, ahead of a predicted launch at CeBIT. The netbook will be known as the ASUS Eee PC 1008HA Shell, with the company focusing on giving it longer battery life than the S101 it replaces. Meanwhile the company is also believed to be bringing the Eee PC S121 to CeBIT, complete with 512GB SSD and 120GB HDD versions.
After cellphones had their way with the headlines the previous week, the past seven days have been an opportunity for netbooks to race back into the spotlight. Rumors spread about ASUS’ upcoming Eee PC “Shell” luxury follow-up to the S101, while we saw a slimline version of the Acer Aspire One. If you want a machine in the more immediate future, though, the Samsung NC20 was made official, and Dell finally launched their Inspiron Mini 10.
The ASUS Eee PC 1000HE has shown up in a variety of new colors, including the rather fetching brushed-aluminum finish you see here. In fact the 10.2-inch netbook will apparently be offered in six different colors: black, white, brushed-silver, blue, pink and onyx.
Full color range gallery after the cut
ASUS currently has a team of engineers working on Android-based netbooks, according to Eee PC team leader Samson Hu. However, despite the investment in development, the decision to release an Eee PC running the Google open-source OS has not been made.
There’s a lot of people eagerly anticipating the ASUS Eee PC T91 convertible netbook-tablet, and bit-tech’s early hands-on with a pre-production prototype certainly won’t do anything to staunch that interest. The 8.9-inch touchscreen netbook will get a new, chiclet keyboard like the Eee PC 1000HE before it ships, and unfortunately has a non-removable battery, but there’s still plenty of good news to tide us over.
We’re currently fondling the ASUS Eee PC 1000HE and soon you could be too, as Amazon US are now taking orders for the blue version of the netbook. Listed for $374, you get a 10-inch display running at 1024 x 600, 160GB hard-drive, and Intel’s newer N280 1.66GHz processor.
According to the latest reports coming out of ASUS, the company is planning to completely phase out its 8.9-inch Eee PC range in 2009. Benson Lin, president of Asustek’s Asia-Pacific division, told reporters this week that the Eee PC range will continue with two size variants, 10-inches and 7-inches.
The Eee PC 1000HE is Asus’ answer to user complaints about the previous models. With Longer battery life, better keyboard, and staying in the same price range, the Eee PC 1000HE could be netbook choice of many. We received a unit and unboxed it.
ASUS have announced an upcoming WiMAX-enabled Eee PC netbook, the ASUS Eee PC 1000HG, which will include both IEEE 802.16e and WAVE2 alongside WiFi a/b/g/n. The company has made no commitment to release dates, but it’s part of their Anywhere Connectivity announcements this week at Mobile World Congress. ASUS have also been showing off several Eee PC models with integrated 3.5G wireless, using an Huawei EM770 WWAN module and Windows 7.
The latest installment of Eee 1000 series has been a hot netbook to get since it was announced. The 1000HE is still showing as back-order or pre-order in many online retailers such as Amazon, J&R, and etc. However a posting from a user in EeeUser forum claimed that Asus has sent 1000HEs to etailers. Some users have even received the unit from eBay sellers.
Looking around the web, I’ve found ZipZoomFly has the 1000HE Black in stock. However, ZipZoomFly does not offer the instant $25 rebate on its end. If you can’t wait, the extra $25 might worth the extra green.
JP
