Asus Eee PC S101 Notebook with Intel Atom

Asus Eee PC S101

Freed from the shackles of being lumped in with its ever- expanding, cheapo Eee range, Asus has whipped out a sleek, slim netbook for those folks that like a dash of style when they’re tapping away on a wee lappie.

The Asus S101 has been officially set for an early November release and it’s a bit of pricey number at £449 - but that’s still well under half of the price of the Mac Air, and it’s certainly a better connected notebook.

The netbook comes with an Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor, Intel 945 Express (GMA 950) graphics, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, three USB ports, a built-in 4-in-1 card reader, RJ-45 Ethernet socket, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and an user-changeable battery (got that, Apple?) with a claimed battery life of around five hours. It all looks sweet to us apart from the crappy 0.3-megapixel webcam.

It’s stick-thin at just 18-25mm thick, with a 10.2-inch screen offering up to 1,024 x 768 pixels resolution. Asus’s multitouch trackpad is onboard and the keyboard is rumoured to to be a vastly improved number.

Asus S101 Upmarket Netbook LaunchedThe S101 will be available in a Windows XP Home version (16GB SSD plus bundled 16GB SD card) and two Linux versions packing in 32GB or 64GB of SSD, with graphite, champagne and brown colour options.

We could see execs rather liking this Asus: seeing as most of them only ever need a laptop for looking up and writing reports, sorting out email and browsing the web, the Asus is well up to those jobs and has boardroom-wooing looks to match.

Specification

Operating System: Genuine Windows® XP Home / GNU Linux

Display: 10.2" wide active matrix LED-backlit TFT, WSVGA 1024x600, 252K colors

Intel CPU & Chipset: Intel Atom N270 & Intel 945GSE / ICH7-M

Ethernet Communication: Onboard 10/100 Mbps Fast Ethernet controller

Memory: 1GB (DDR2)

Wireless Data Network: WLAN: 802.11n / Bluetooth V2.0

Hybrid Storage: XP: Solid State Drive16G / Linux: Solid State Drive 32G/64G / 30GB Eee Storage

Camera: 0.3 M Pixel

Audio: Hi-definition audio CODEC / Built-in high quality stereo speakers / Digital Array Mic

Storage Cards: 4-in-1 MMC, SD, Memory Stick and MS-PRO flash card slot

Input / Output: 1 x VGA port (D-sub 15-pin for external monitor) / 3 x USB 2.0 ports / 1 x LAN RJ-45 / 2 x audio jacks: Headphone / Mic-in

Battery: Lithium Polymer Battery: 36W/hr; 2S2P (2450mAh/cell)

Dimensions: 264 mm (w) x 180.5 mm (d) x 18 ~ 25 mm (h)

Weight: 1 kg

Infusion: Brown, Champagne, Graphite

Asus Eee PC 1002HA Notebook

Asus Eee PC 1002HA

Asus has added yet another model into the ever growing lineup, this time it is the Eee PC 1002HA. Basically, the 1002HA seems to marry some of the S101 styling with the features found in the Eee PC 1000 series.

The 1002HA will feature a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive. A big drawback of the 1002HA comes in part to the battery, which is a lowly 2-cell model, as opposed to the large 6-cell that is available in many of the 1000 series models.

Of course, the smaller battery option will save some overall weight, the 1002HA will weigh in at around 2.4 pounds. Additionally the 1002HA includes three USB ports, a VGA out, SD card reader, Ethernet, Kensington lock port and a built-in webcam.

As for availability, a specific release date has not been announced; however, it looks like this one will be hitting the European market shortly. As of now, a US release has not been mentioned.