We’re still waiting for an official release for ASUS’ Eee Keyboard – the latest we hear is that it should drop sometime in August – but that hasn’t stopped French site Blogeee from getting their hands on one. Rather than cherish it for the rarity it is, they’ve decided to open the Keyboard up and find out what’s making it tick inside.
Video demo after the cut
It looks like the torrent of Atom N270 netbooks won’t be followed by a similar rush of Atom N450-based budget ultraportables, as several manufacturers have apparently revealed plans to delay mass production until netbook heavyweights Acer and ASUS show their hand. That could push bulk availability back until the first half of 2010, despite engineering samples of the new Intel N450 chip already being available.
We’re used to our mobile devices flashing at us to let us know when there’s a missed call to be addressed, new SMS message or battery problem, but it’s less common for a notebook or netbook to blink for attention. JustBlair decided to change that, adding a three-color LED to his Eee PC 901 that flashes whenever a new Twitter, email or IM message comes in.
ASUS have confirmed that they will be offering three versions of their touchscreen netbook, the long-awaited Eee PC T91. According to AsusTablet’s source, the company plan the basic T91 with a single-touch screen, together with a multitouch-capable T91A and 3G-enabled T91GO.
ASUS‘ latest motherboard for AMD Phenom II processors has been announced. The ASUS ROG (Republic of Gamers) Crosshair III Formula uses the AMD AM3 socket platform, together with CPU Level Up real-time overclocking and bundling a SupremeFX X-Fi sound card.
More and more notebooks and netbooks are getting multitouch-capable touchpads, but if you’re chugging away with your existing machine and you want some straightforward multi-directional scrolling then you may need to take things into your own hands. As you can see from the newly-acquired nubbin in the right palm-rest on this Eee PC 901, modder Dave Astolfo decided to extract the trackball from an Apple Mighty Mouse and implant it into his netbook.
Video demo after the cut
You’ve got to hand it to ASUS: one way or another they’ll keep pumping out the Eee PCs until everybody has at least two of their various netbooks. If they’re not announcing a fresh model then it’s a new color scheme, and today the Eee PC 1005HA and 1008HA “Seashell” netbooks bear the brunt of ASUS’ designers felt-tipped pens.
How can you make your external USB Blu-ray drive better than everyone elses? Well, you could make it a Blu-ray burner, give it a range of connections and make it super-cheap, or you could go the ASUS way and put a great big light-up blue X on the side.
After telling us – and then telling us again – that the Eee Keyboard would arrive this month, ASUS are now promising their nettop-in-a-keyboard will actually drop in August 2009. Rather than blaming manufacturing delays or last-minute firmware tweaks, ASUS claim the Eee Keyboard – which squeezes in an HD capable nettop and 5-inch touchscreen – was in fact held back while they attempted to define a niche for it to sit in.
It comes as no great surprise, seeing as we saw the product page back in May, comparison shots with the 1008HA a few days after and an unboxing video a few days ago, but ASUS have now officially announced the Eee PC 1005HA Seashell. Available to preorder from today, the 1005HA Seashell has the usual Intel Atom processor – in this case the 1.66GHz N280 – paired with 1GB of RAM, but it also offers what ASUS are calling the longest-lasting battery life for one of their netbooks to-date: up to 10.5hrs, in fact.
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