UPDATE November 10th, 2008: We have posted our FULL REVIEW of the ASUS Eee PC 1000.
When the first Asus Eee PC was announced last year, it turned a lot of heads. The little seven-inch wonder carved out a whole new niche in the market, fitting somewhere in between a QWERTY-packing PDA and a full-sized notebook computer. Yes, I realize that the UMPC guys were trying to occupy the same segment with devices like the Samsung Q1 Ultra, but these things never did catch on quite as well as the very affordable Eee PC.
Following the success of the original Eee PC, Asus officially expanded the lineup by introducing no fewer than three new Eee PC subnotebooks at COMPUTEX Taipei 2008. They held an official launch event on the afternoon of June 3, 2008, introducing the world to a new generation of Eee PCs, all of which are bigger, badder, and more powerful than ever. They also appear to be much more energy efficient, because Asus has managed to bump the battery life up to nearly the eight hour range by using something called the Super Hybrid Engine. You’ll be hard-pressed to get that kind of life out of a full-sized notebook. I guess the Eee PC is pretty green.
Ushering in the Era of Atom
It had been rumored for months that Asus would be creating an Eee PC powered by the hotly anticipated Intel Atom processor. Those rumors finally came to fruition at Computex Taipei where Asus CEO Jerry Shen proudly showed off no fewer than three Atom-powered Eee PCs.
The Asus Eee PC 901 is essentially using the chassis from the Eee PC 900 (which, in turn, is a modified version of the one from the 701) and it’s all over that Atom goodness. Previous units were powered by Intel Celeron and Intel Mobile processors. Atom is a line of x86 microprocessors that have been designed for the 45nm CMOS process. Right from the get-go, it was intended for use with UMPCs, smartphones, and devices like the Eee PC. It’s relatively low power and that explains, in part, the improvement of battery life on the Eee. The Atom-powered Eee PC 901 is going to be a hot ticket for sure.
The other two notebooks that are getting loaded with Intel Atom processors are the Eee PC 1000 and the Eee PC 1000H. Along with the introduction of Atom, these two units also boast a first for the Eee PC line: large 10-inch displays. The original Eee PC had a screen that was only seven-inches and Asus received feedback from the community that they wanted a bigger screen. The Eee PC 1000 and 1000H address this very concern. And it’s not just the screen that’s bigger.
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Hard Drives and a Growth Spurt
Unlike the 7-inch and 8.9-inch models, the Asus Eee PC 1000 and 1000H seem to be based on a different chassis altogether. The overall size of the notebook is quite a bit bigger than its smaller counterparts. The keyboard is 92% the size of a full keyboard, so typing on the Eee PC 1000 is a lot easier than on the 701 or 901. The mouse trackpad also appears to be larger.
You may be wondering what’s the difference between the Asus Eee PC 1000 and 1000H. They both get Intel Atom and a 10-inch display, so what is it that sets them apart from one another? Well, the Asus Eee PC 1000 gets loaded with a massive 40GB solid state drive. The Eee PC 1000H, on the other hand, represents the first time ever than an Eee PC gets its primary storage through a conventional hard drive. If you opt for the Windows-powered version, you get a 80GB HDD. Take on Linux and you get a 160GB hard drive. Clearly, this is in response to competing subnotebooks that come with real hard drives.
If that’s not enough space for you, every Eee PC also comes with 20GB of online storage. That’ll go really well with the inclusion of 802.11n Wi-Fi connectivity found on all three of the subnotebooks announced at the event.
We Love the Competition
As part of his speech at the official launch event, Jerry Shen also addressed the growing number of competing devices on the market. When the first Eee PC was unveiled to the world last year, there was nothing quite like it on the market. Fast forward to one year later and it seems that everyone is making a subnotebook. You’ve got the HP Mini-Note 2133, Everex Cloudbook, and MSI Wind, as well as rumored offerings from Sony, Dell, and Acer. It’s getting a little crowded in the area of tiny laptops.
Shen’s response was that he welcomed all these other offerings. He welcomed the competition, because he feels that having so many small notebooks on the market can only serve to expand the popularity of the form factor and it will solidify Asus’ position as a recognized industry innovator. Interestingly, Asus and Jerry Shen also have no trouble drawing comparisons between their Eee Stick motion-sensitive gaming and multimedia controller with the nunchuk attachment from the Nintendo Wii. I guess you give a little and you take a little when it comes to “being inspired” by the work of other companies.
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Eee: A Brand All Its Own
I don’t think that Asus ever expected that the Eee PC would become quite as popular as it has. They started with a modest seven-inch budget machine and the Eee PC has now grown into a ten-inch unit that can easily rival many “primary” notebooks on the market. You have to remember that the Eee PC is meant to be a secondary machine, one that supplements your main computer. Sales of the Eee, which number well north of one million to date, continue to impress us.
As such, Asus plans to spin off a whole family of products under the Eee banner. What this means, based on the translation I got from the press event, is that the next generation of Eee PCs, Eee desktops, Eee TVs, and whatever else they’re going to sell under the Eee banner will not have any explicit Asus branding. It will (or has already) become the Eee PC 1000 and not the Asus Eee PC 1000.
Yeah, I guess it is pretty easy to use, easy to carry, easy to play, easy to share, easy to learn, easy to work, easy to play, easy to… well, you get the picture. Stay tuned all this week for continuing coverage of COMPUTEX 2008 Taipei.
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