It’s been recently rumored that when outputting video on Eee PC devices to a monitor through the VGA port, the resolutions would be limited to rather low sizes. However one of our forum users, cheesemp (who recently got his hands on his very own Eee PC from Taiwan), has now verified that the Eee PC can in fact output 1600×1280 resolution through the VGA port. Good news!
You can read the post here.
Blogeee has a great post showing several of the future accessories for the Eee PC, including a larger battery and VOIP telephone. You can view the post translated into English here.
According to an article in PC World, the Eee PC is off to a fast start in Taiwan. According to one store employee:
“There were people waiting for them to go on sale, and 98 of them were gone almost immediately”
It seems as though from the article that if you weren’t lucky enough to get one in Taiwan already, you might be out of luck until the next shipment in November.
After seeing this, it should be interesting to see if there’s a quick sellout as well when the Eee PC 4G hits store shelves on November 1st here in the United States. (this is the word from ASUS as of this morning)
And finally, check out unboxing galleries:
It seems as though for now the majority of coverage of the Taiwan ASUS Eee PC announcement has been mostly confined to websites in Chinese.
One English-based source that picked up on the announcement was Reuters. In their article, they state:
Basically, while it looks like most of the rumors are true, not much new information is out yet. However, with immediate availability, we assume official word should soon begin to spread.
Two new pages are up on the official Eee PC website.
The first is the Eee PC quick guide. It is an interactive flash video that highlights the features of the device with sections such as Work, Play, etc. It has plenty of screen shot captures of the operating system software.
The second is an actual product page on the ASUS website for the 4gb model of the Eee PC. While no new information seems posted on it, it is the first mention of the Eee PC outside of the subsite and press releases on the ASUS website.
According to this article from DigiTimes, ASUS will indeed announce the final Eee PC prices on October 16th. It does officially confirm that the $199 price point can only be reached by contract orders, as expected. An initial batch of 10,000 units will hit Taiwan markets after the announcement. By the end of this month, Eee PC’s will be available in the BestBuy / Newegg channels (as suggested in the last news update.)
Furthermore, x94scorp on our forums noticed a new update on the official ASUS website where the RAM specifications of the devices have all been raised. The 8G model has 1GB of RAM, the 4G and 4G Surf models have 512MB, and the 2G Surf has 256MB. Have the specifications been raised? Interesting!
It looks like we might actually see the Eee PC on brick and mortar store shelves and traditional internet retailers, according to this article from Reuters. Specifically, it states:
“In the United States, the company plans to sell the low-cost laptops through channels such as Best Buy and Web-based retailer Newegg.com”
Some of the other highlights:
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The official Asus Eee PC product page has received a few more updates, specifically a table showing the possibly finalized specifications of the four models. Most notable are the device names and the battery types. The model names (going from highest end to lowest end) are: Eee PC 4G, Eee PC 2G, Eee PC 2G Surf, and Eee PC 2G Pure. In the same order, the battery specifications are: 4 Cells 5200 mAh, 4 Cells 4400 mAh, 4 Cells 4400 mAh, 2 Cells 2600 mAh.
Also, check out this review (the original is in Russian) that has CPU-Z information about the processor along with benchmarks. It appears to be the Eee PC 700 model. [thanks pulped]
The French Eee PC blog Blogeee has up part three of their great series of reviews on the Eee PC 701 (the original French version is here.)
Finally, it looks like ASUS removed the reference of the Eee PC 801 on their website- it was up, then removed, then up again, but now removed once again…
Remember the Eee PC flash slideshow on the official Asus Eee PC website that’s been the same since way back in June? It finally changed- and a full new website is up! Check it out here. It still looks like a work in progress, but maybe it’s proof that we really are approaching a release date. There are three languages that you can view the site in- English, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese- maybe a sign of the first locations the Eee PC will be released to.
Also, from other website updates, looks like there may be an Eee PC 801 model (thanks Yesh!)- possibly with an 8″ higher resolution screen!
