Nearly a year after Asus unveiled the first Eee PC at Computex 2007, the company is expanding its line of insanely popular "low-cost" notebooks with the new Eee PC 901, 1000 and 1000H models. These new iterations focus chiefly on the inclusion of Intel's new Atom chips as well as extended battery life, larger screens, and solid state discs.
The new Eee PC 901 offers a 8.9-inch screen, while the 1000 and 1000H models boast 10-inch screens and a more comfortable keyboard that is 92% the size of generic notebooks. Furthermore, the Eee PCs come with a built-in 1.3-megapixel webcam and will be available on both Windows and GNU Linux platforms.
Spec-wise, the 901 model is basically the same as its 900 sibling with an update to the form factor and CPU - which has been replaced with Intel's new Atom chip. The 1000s are still a bit of mystery, though they are expected to offer some sort of WiMAX and 3G connectivity as well as 2GB RAM, SSD storage and a traditional hard disk option for the 1000H model. The SSD unit comes with 40GB and runs on Linux while the H version will come 80GB with Windows XP preinstalled.
Pricing and availability for the new Eee PCs are still up in the air, but with MSI's 10-inch Wind sub-notebook starting at $399 Asus now faces some serious competition and may want to revise its prices in order to stay competitive.