The Asus Eee PC 1201PN is the first of several 12 inch laptops from Asus that will succeed the company’s Eee PC 1201N. And it looks like you should be able to pick one up for about $499. ExcaliberPC is now taking pre-orders for the Eee PC 1201PN, with an estimated ship date of June 11.

The Eee PC 1201N was the first notebook from Asus to feature NVIDIA ION graphics. it also happened to have a dual core Intel Atom 330 CPU. The Eee PC 1201PN sticks with a more conventional single core Intel Atom N450 1.66GHz CPU, but swaps out first generation ION graphics for a more powerful second generation ION chip.

The laptop has 2G of RAM, a 250GBВ  hard drive, HDMI output, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, and Windows 7 Home Premium. It has a 6 cell, 47Whr battery and should be more than capable of playing 1080p HD video as well as some 3D video games.

What’s not entirely clear at the moment is whether the laptop will feature NVIDIA Optimus technology for automatically shifting between integrated and dedicated graphics depending on what you’re doing with your PC. We’d heard that this model would ship without that feature enabled, but I’ve heard some inklings that a demo unit on display at Computex last week had Optimus capabilities.

via Netbooked

Sure, you can throw a video game emulator on pretty much any computer and relive your youth by playing Pac Man, Frogger, and Galaga to your heart’s content. But it’s so much cooler if your computer looks like a classic arcade game tablet… which is why one hacker decided to dissect an old 9 inch Eee PC and throw the pieces back together into a custom case designed to look like an old video game tablet — complete with joystick buttons on the sides.

The cabinet is made of wood and aluminum, and there’s a clear plexiglass cover on the top where the display panel hangs out.

The guts of the system are still an Eee PC running Windows XP, so you could surf the web or do pretty much anything else. But it’s one heck of an awesome tabletop system for classic gaming.

The whole thing is up for auction on eBay now. But it’s not going to sell cheap. Last time I checked it was going for $560, and there are still 4 days left in the auction.

You can check out a video explaining the whole project after the break.

via Blogeee and Hack A Day

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The first Asus netbook was a model with a 7 inch display. The Eee PC 701 was successful enough as a product to kick-start the netbook revolution, but it had a low resolution screen and a cramped keyboard. So about half a year after its launch, Asus introduced a series of models with 8.9 inch displays, and later that same year the Eee PC got one more size bump with the launch of the Eee PC 1000H and its now-standard 10 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display.

So you might think that the whole 8.9 inch screen thing was nothing more than a phase Asus was going through while trying to find the ideal screen, keyboard, and overall case size for a netbook. But it looks like Asus isn’t done with the 9 inch netbook. A few weeks ago we spotted a new model called the Eee PC 900AX on the FCC web site. And as expected, it turns out that what we’re looking at is a brand spanking new Eee PC netbook with an 8.9 inch display.

Asus added a product page for the Eee PC 900AX to recently. And I have to say, the spec sheet reads like something straight out of 2008. The notebook has a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, an 8.9 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, 802.11b/g WiFi, 0.3MP webcam, a 4 cell battery, VGA output, mic, headphone, and Ethernet jacks, and 2 USB ports. It weighs about 2.5 pounds. Oh yeah, and it also runs Windows XP.

All in all, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Eee PC 900AX is essentially the same computer the company was selling in 2008 as the Eee PC 900A or Eee PC 901. Maybe Asus found some extra units in a warehouse somewhere and decided to slap a new name on them. Or maybe there’s some extra feature hidden away that I’m just not seeing.

There’s no word on when or where the Eee PC 900AX will be available or how much it will cost. But while the 10 inch netbook has become the de facto standard, I know there are some people out there who really prefer the smaller size and lighter weight of 9 inch models, so you might be able to take heart in the fact that Asus is at least still thinking about smaller netbooks.

Update: The user manual is now available. There doesn’t contain too many surprises, but does confirm that there are only 2 USB ports. It also looks like you get a single headset jack with mic and headphone capabilities instead of separate jacks for each. The touchpad supports multitouch gestures.

via Notebook Italia

The pieces of the Eee PC 1201-series notebook puzzle are starting to fall together — but just starting. The company already offers (or has in the works) the following models:

• Eee PC 1201N with a dual core Atom 330 processor and NVIDIA ION graphics
• Eee PC 1201PN (not yet released) with Atom N450 and next-gen ION graphics
• Eee PC 1201NL with an Atom N270 chip and ION graphics
• Eee PC 1201HA with an Atom Z520 processor and interated graphics
• Eee PC 1201T with an AMD processor and ATI graphics

A few weeks ago, several new model numbers were uncovered, but there were few details available about the Eee PC 1201K and Eee PC 1201X. Today there are still few details, but the folks at Netbook Italia managed to grab an updated product manual for the series, and it shows what the cases will look like for each computer.

The Eee PC 1201X appears to have the same case design as the Eee PC 1201T. It’s not entirely clear if this means it will also have an AMD chipset, but it does tell us that there’s no HDMI port on this model.

The Eee PC 1201K is a bit more of a head-scratcher. This model appears to have no USB ports on the right side (I assume there may be 2 on the left side, but there’s no picture to go by at the moment. There are also no access panels on the bottom of the computer, which could make upgrading RAM a headache. Netbook Italia guesses that this model might have a VIA Nano processor, but we won’t know for certain until Asus releases more details.

via Netbooked

Asus

The intrepid sleuths at Netbook Italia noticed something interesting on the Asus support web site recently. The company has support pages for two previously unannounced models, called the Eee PC R101 and Eee PC R105.

There’s not much information about the new models aside from the fact that they’ll have Intel Atom Pine trail processors, WiFi, and Bluetooth — a lot like pretty much every other netbook Asus has introduced since January.

I checked with Asus and it doesn’t look like these models will be available in the US. Most likely they’re localized versions of existing products such as the Eee PC 1001P and Eee PC 1005PE. It’s not clear what part of the globe these models are destined for.

The Asus Eee PC 1005PR looks exactly like the Eee PC 1005PE — until you turn it on. That’s when you’ll find out that the netbook has a high resolution 1366 x 768 pixel HD display and it can handle HD video playback thanks to a built in Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator.

Asus first showed of the Eee PC 1005PR in early March. Now it’s available for pre-order from Amazon and B&H. Both retailers are charging about $400 for the laptop.

Here’s a rundown of the specs:

• CPU: 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450
• Display: 10.1 inch, 1366 x 768 pixels
• Graphics: Intel GMA 3150plus Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator
• OS: Windows 7 Starter Edition
• Memory: 1GB DDR2
• Storage: 250GB, 5400rpm hard drive
• Connectivity: 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, Ethernet
• I/O: 0.3MP webcam, 3 USB ports, 1 VGA port, SDHC card reader, mic, headphone jacks
• Battery: 6 cells (Asus claims up to 11 hours of run time)
• Dimensions: 10.3″ x 7″ x 1.5″
• Weight: 2.8 pounds

You can check out a demo video from Asus after the break.

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It’s been about 14 months since Asus first showed off a 10 inch convertible tablet-style netbook. And now it’s finally on sale in the US. You can pick up the Asus Eee PC T101MT from Amazon for $499 plus free shipping or from Mobile Advance for $509 including shipping. I checked with my contact at Asus, who told me that the netbooks are due in today, which means that Mobile Advance and other retailers should be able to ship orders within the next few days. I suspect additional retailers will start selling the Eee PC T101MT in the coming days.

The Eee PC T101MT is a netbook with a 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel touchscreen display. You rotate the display 180 degrees and fold it down over the keyboard for use in tablet mode. So while the netbook is a big heavier and bulkier than the Apple iPad, it’s about the same price and offers the benefits of a physical keyboard and the Windows 7 operating system.

On the down side, this particular model ships with Windows 7 Starter Edition, which means you don’t get some of the touch-friendly features included in other versions of Windows 7.

The Eee PC T101MT-EU17 that Mobile Advance is selling has a 1.66Ghz Intel Atom N450 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, and a 0.3MP webcam. Asus is also offering a higher end model with additional memory and storage and Windows 7 Home Premium in some areas.

thanks Rochelle!

Like most netbooks, Asus’ Eee PC mini-laptops don’t have disc drives. But that hasn’t stopped the company from shipping a recovery DVD with each and every Eee PC model shipped… until now. The company has posted a note on its support page explaining that Asus will no longer ship support DVDs with Eee PCs.

Asus says the move will help cut down on waste, which is true. It will also save the company a few pennies for each product shipped, which probably doesn’t hurt either.

But here’s the thing — most Eee PC models ship with a recovery disk image already preloaded on the hard drive. Just hit reboot your computer and hit the F9 key when the Asus splash screen comes up and you can recover your computer to its factory default settings. So to some degree the support DVD was redundant — and kind of useless for customers that didn’t have USB DVD drives.

Of course, if you accidentally delete the recover image on your hard drive while trying to install Ubuntu, OS X, or another operating system, this could mean there’s no going back — without obtaining a full Windows installation disc.

via Netbooked and EeeUser Forum