It looks like Asus had a few Eee PC’s at the Hong Kong Computer & Communications Festival 2007 today.

One of our forum users, mcclane, posted some great new photos of the device on his blog that can be seen here.

The following is the text of an e-mail sent by Wynn, an attendee of the festival:

“It is a white unit comes with black keyboard without built-in web cam. According to the Asus representative there, the final specs and retail price of the EEE PC 701 has not been confirmed yet. As he heard, the unit will be available for sale here (Hong Kong) sometime this October.

Its design has a shadow of the Fujitsu Lifebook P7010 (which I use at work) except it looks and feels way more plasticky.

The size of the keyboard keys is a bit smaller than the Fujitsu P7010 and it is still comfortable to type with but definitely for prolonged word processing.

The touchpad is small but responsive. Too bad the EEE PC 701 only has one mouse button and the click-feel on this mouse button is quite flimsy comparing to the keyboard.

This EEE PC runs on Linux and it is quite fast when running the pre-installed spreadsheet program.

To me, the 7″ LCD seems larger than I expected. The screen brightness is okay and it didn’t give me too much trouble to read the icons in the Linux simple-mode. After trying the unit, I turn my head back several feet away and I can still see the icons clearly on the screen. So I think I am able to live with the 7″ screen on this EEE PC.

I hold it up the unit and noticed that it runs very warm and I can feel the heat transmitted from the vents on the rear left side. Just hope its plasticky body can withstand the transmitted heat in the long run. “

Thanks Wynn for passing on the info!

[edit: Looks like NCIX took down the pages...]
[edit2: Looks like they put back up the pages but without the $257 model.... oh dear]
[edit3: Looks like they have the $257 model back up... jeez]
[edit4: Now listed as "embargo"]

NCIX “Canada’s Premier Computer Store” has several models of the Eee PC 701 online for preorder with an ETA of “Late September 2007.” While I don’t usually post information about preorders, this is different because they seem to spell out solid specifications and pricing as follows:

• ASUS Eee PC700 Celeron M 7IN 800X480 WLAN 10/100 DDR2 256MB 2GB LAN Linux Notebook (Eee700/2G/256M) (25881) $257.38 or 284.99CAD
• ASUS Eee PC700 Celeron M 7IN 800X480 WLAN 10/100 DDR2 256MB 2GB LAN Linux Camera Notebook W/ Bag (Eee700/2G/256M/Camera) (25884) $285.10 or 329.99CAD
• ASUS Eee PC700 Celeron M 7IN 800X480 WLAN 10/100 DDR2 512MB 4GB LAN Linux Camera Notebook W/ Bag (Eee700/4G/512M/Camera) (25885) $388.05 or 439.99CAD

The question is: are these the final prices for the United States as well, or do they include some sort of Canadian import tax or upcharge?

I’m sure a lot of readers will be upset with the idea that the lowest model Eee PC 701- the $199 ultra-portable notebook- is really $257.38 with no camera, 256mb of ram, and 2GB of disk space.

I’m inclined to believe this is accurate as it includes the sku number (italicized). The deafening silence from Asus as well seems to support the price increase…

[thanks for the heads up, brenny]

US, Europe, China, and Taiwan will begin to receive the first shipments of the Eee PC 701 in September, according to an article in Digitimes. The first shipment will target 20,000 units and the article speculates that it will most likely be the $349 “mainstream” model. The lower priced $199 and $239 models will come in subsequent shipments.

[Thanks for the tip, Dean]

Note: This sounds very much in line with this post and this post on the forums…

According to this post by cclo on our forums, there are some new and updated rumors surrounding the EeePC including:

1. Price range: $229 - $369
2. EeePC 701 is the first generation, available September
3. Second generation EeePC will have choice of 8″ or 8.9″ screen; available somewhere in between Q4 2007 and Q2 2008; fanless processor
4. 2 cell, 4 cell, or 6 cell battery depending on model!
5. Much more at the link below

http://www.eeeuser.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=80

(thanks, cclo!)

It seems appropriate since there’s not a lot of Eee PC news to update on some of the related products and announcements out there:

• There are some new pictures of the Via Nanobook out, a device that is really only a “reference design” and would cost ~$600. It looks small and nice, but it’s awful expensive for what you would get.
• There’s been a fair amount of press in regards to the Palm Foleo, for instance some solid facts on the specs and also some new pictures. It should be arriving somewhere around september with it’s hefty price tag….
• If low cost computing is your interest and you live in China, you will be able to get a $198 PC from Lenovo. PC means big, bulky, desktop, PC.
• Kohjinsha, makers of a line of UMPC devices similiar in size to the EeePC 701, is coming out with a new device.
• And some EeePC news? LSPCI and LSUSB info on an EeePC 701 courtesy of matty.

There’s an interesting discussion going on over at the EeeHackers forum. Member matty claims to work for Xandros, the company behind the Eee’s Linux distribution of choice, and has provided some little tidbits of information about the Eee PC’s they have on hand, ie:

• The single mouse hardware button below the touchpad is actually two mouse buttons
• Screen is able to be read outside
• Can use SDHC cards

Check out the rest of the discussion here.

[edit] also thanks to bigmat1201 for asking such good questions in the discussion!

According to a post by user Don on our forums, Asus has moved the release date of the EeePC 701 to “Mid/Sept to Early/Oct.” No word on any more details…

Read further: http://www.eeeuser.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=105