Filed under: Laptops

We already knew ASUS’ Eee PC S101 had it going on when it came to design, but how did it hold up under the stresses of everyday use? The critics over at Laptop Mag took the fashionable netbook into their testing lair, and while it was deemed “gorgeous and strikingly thin,” users who opt for this one must be willing to “make some trade-offs in the name of fashion.” For starters, the $699 machine shares almost all of the same internal components as the $449 Eee PC 1000H, so you’ll have to fall awfully hard for the looks in order to justify the delta. Generally speaking, the palm rest and keyboard were both praised, but the critics did find the Shift key to be “awkwardly placed”. In the end, there wasn’t much here to discuss outside of cosmetic differences, and while this crew couldn’t place its highest recommendations on the pricey S101, those with deeper pockets may certainly feel otherwise.

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Filed under: Laptops

Confession: we love, love slim laptops. Air, Envy, X300, slips of copier paper with “laptop” written on them… anything decently under that magical 1-inch thick mark has a special place in our hearts. And then there’s the Eee PC S101. Don’t get us wrong, we really like this little netbook. It’s slim, light, solidly built, not entirely gaudy and comes with quite the pedigree, but we’re having trouble choking down that $699 pricetag for what’s still ostensibly a “second” computer. Here’s the way we see it: this new, wonderful 0.75-inch thick form factor can’t just be a random noodling by ASUS, we’re expecting all sorts of trickle down to other models in the future — except there’s really no place to trickle down on the specs. Perhaps they could drop the Bluetooth, or the “n” spec from the WiFi, but at the end of the day 1GB of RAM and an Atom processor are pretty baseline for netbooks, and we expect something exactly delicious as this netbook from ASUS or elsewhere before the glossy paint is dry on the S101 — or at least a built-in 3G option in a few weeks to make this thing obsolete. Our other big gripe is with the keyboard. The keys are good-sized and rather tactile for a netbook, but they could certainly be better, and the right shift key is inexplicably on the far side of the up arrow key — basically unreachable by our mortal pinkie. It makes zero sense from a typing standpoint, and since we tend to over-rely on the right shift key out of bad Mavis Beacon-induced typing habits, we’re not stoked about ASUS’s choice here. Otherwise there’s a nice collection of ports, a great (multi-touch) touchpad, a wonderful matte screen and that pesky hole in our wallet where all our cash used to be.

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Filed under: Laptops

We went back and forth on price specifics for the States, and now it looks like ASUS has landed firmly in the “forth” category. ASUS’s new “fashion-on-the-go” Eee PC S101 hits the States November 1st, and brings with it a hefty $699 pricetag. What you get for that price is a new super-slim enclosure (a mere 0.75-inches thick) and some stylish accents, but the specs are pretty standard for the higher-end of netbooks. There’s an Atom N270 processor doing the heavy lifting, 1GB of RAM, a matte 10.2-inch 1024 x 600 LED-backlit display, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, multi-card reader, multi-touch touchpad, VGA webcam, 5.4 hours of quoted battery life (unlikely) and Windows XP. There won’t be a Linux option offered in the States. All of this weighs in at 2.3 pounds, and there’s still room for “hybrid storage” of a 16GB SSD and 30GB HDD — but despite the laptop’s slimness, it seems a bit of a reach at this price. The laptop comes in “copper brown” and “graphite” versions. Stand by for our impression later today.

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Filed under: Laptops

Although ASUS’s “premium” N10 netbook managed to ditch the Eee branding, it looks like the S101 is having a harder time breaking loose from the fam — the 10.2-inch netbook just showed up in the FCC database sporting the Eee PC name, even though ASUS told us it won’t be an Eee when it goes on sale. We’ll see how it’s is labeled when Uncle Sam gets done with it — we’ve got a feeling ASUS is going to take its already-confusing Eee marketing to a whole new level with this one.

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Filed under: Laptops

Remember the ASUS Eee PC roadmap we peeped a few days back? Right, the one that lists the new Ultimate S-series and Pro Fashion Eee PCs amongst the 23 models. Turns out both categories are planned for a 2008 launch with specs like dual-core Atom processors, 120GBs of hard disk, and 32GB SSDs. This according to ASUS president, Jerry Shen. The first Eee PC with a 32GB SSD (wink wink Buffalo) will launch in late September and feature a 10-inch, 16:9 aspect LED backlit display and battery life of about 4-5 hours. As members of the Exquisite and Extremely slim and light S-series, these Eee(ee) PCs will cost between $700 to $900 with the “high-end market” in mind. Funny, we didn’t know there was a high-end to the race to the bottom.

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