If you live in Japan, you can look forward to buying your very own Eee PC 4G (without having to import it from a different country) in less than a week!
Bic Camera (a Japanese electronics store chain that makes Best Buy look like a mom and pop store) will begin to carry the Eee PC on January 25th. It appears as though they’ll be carrying them in black and white. Interestingly, they will also come with Windows XP preinstalled, instead of the default Linux distribution.
They will cost 49,800 yen, which is about $465 usd.
[Thanks, Richard!]
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whatever happened to the 16GB?
On January 24th the EEE will also finally launch in Germany.
We pay 299 €, which is about 436 US Dollar.
So, when can we get an Eee’s with XP loaded in it in the USA, WHERE?
Greg
The only launch I’m waiting for is the 8.9 inch screen with a decent resolution. I can always add XP later if I wanted to.
thats lame… i jsut ordered mine from the states hah
Windows XP? why? -> should be vista …
Hope in europe we can still chose between Linux and windows.
Because i want linux, not paying for the M$ tax… (there are computers without windows… you know?)
Difference from those available outside of Japan is that these Japanese models come with 4G SDHC to provide yet more storage.
haha i was in the ikebukuro big camera last week and saw them put up the asus eee advert sign
Its great that the eeePC is making it around the world… but why XP?
the eeePC is suppose to be a sub notebook and as such cost is quite key, why add the extra cost of an Microsoft license to this.
I plan to grab one of these in a couple of months cause it fits in nicely with what I require. I *REALLY* hope this little beauty doesn’t start coming with the Microsoft-Tax
A better solution probably is to continue shipping with Linux but provide a voucher that the user can goto microsoft.com and download an XP install setup for hte eeePC, that way us that really don’t want Windows don’t have to pay, those that want the eeePC as is get that, and those that really cannot live without windows can get it
Would be better a Ubuntu or other full distro than XP…. Glad they did not say Vista!
we have two 3es since november, one running xandros, the other one windows xp … from my experience, if this is just a regular XP Home installation, i feel pity for the japanese customers. first they have to pay the ‘windows tax’ (hence the 70 dollar difference) and what do they get in return? a computer lacking the great functionality, the 3e has proven with Xandros (i know, not all is perfect with xandros easy mode … but it beats xp out of the box single-handed).
we all know that XP needs a lot of tweaking/stripping to make it suitable for the 3e, you also want to tame its ferocious swapping behavior in oder to increase the lifespan of the ssd. after a regular installation, there ain’t much space left to install all the software that is included in the default xandros distro. and some applications just don’t work well on the 3e (e.g. Skype for windows which imho is a royal pain in the butt @ 800×480)
microsoft, instead of just jumping the bandwaggon, should have released a xp version designed for UMPCs … so, if this is a regular XP Home installation, the lads in Japan are getting far less for way more money, sad.
I’m eagerly waiting for the EEE here in Japan, preordered at Pc-Koubou on the 17th and I sincerely hope they’re going to have the merchandise on the 25th (which is… in 3 more days
)
I’m adding 2gb of ram on that thing, I don’t want it to suffer from the OS… should be lots of fun
Btw Tanuki, where did you see that Japanese models came with 4gb SDHC ? I didn’t see that anywhere.
Hi!
I was just in Japan and the eees Bic Camera were advertising had the regular Xandros OS. 49,800 yen. A black one only was on display….
Actually Windows Xp has been confirmed, at least at places I looked (Joshin, Pc-Koubou, Sofmap).
http://gigazine.net/index.php?/news/comments/20080117_eeepc/
Here is a hands-on review. The price for the Windows XP version is 49,800 yen, so maybe they have both XP and Xandros models, but I’d doubt it.
After a quick check :
http://www.biccamera.com/bicbic/jsp/w/pc/new/asustek/index.jsp
Bic Camera offers Windows Xp as default os (on their website anyway)
Great now they can add another E to the mix for expensive.
haha awesome I have had mine in Tokyo since about mid-december.
lame
$70+ for XP…
id rather get the Linux version and all the preinstalled and “tested” software.
Also i enjoy being inmune to Viruses and Spyware, malware, trojans, worms, etc.
if you are not going to game in the Asus eeePC, why the hell place XP in it… total waste of money..
if they wanted something more familiar they should had included eeeXubuntu
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