A member of the EeeUser forums called mburris has been modifying his Asus Eee PC 901 with great success and he has posted up a video of his ‘creation’ – a touchscreen Eee PC 901 running Windows 7 as the operating system and running Firefox which is working with the ‘grab and drag’ plugin.
Sounds impressive doesn’t it? Well, watch the video yourself and see that this modder didnt just stop at adding a touchscreen to his 901, he went even further and built the touchscreen into a kitchen cabinet too with great effect:
Following on from the news that was reported yesterday telling us that the price for the new Asus Eee PC T91 in the UK will be £450 or roughly US$750 and will be available in the UK from ‘early July’, we can now advise any interested readers that the official US Asus product page for their new tablet netbook has gone live.
Asus have published the Eee PC T91 product page here although there is still no word on a definite US release date or US pricing details for the touchscreen netbook, that is the first from Asus to feature a touchscreen display that folds over the keyboard to enable use as a tablet PC.
Members on the Eee User forums have revealed, after testing the theory out, that the new chiclet style keyboards that are fitted on the 1000HE and 1000HA models of Eee PC netbook are actually compatible with the 10″ Eee PC 1000H model and it is entirely possible to upgrade that model to the chiclet keyboard, although the part needed is only available currently in the US and some users are reporting problems such as keys not working. More details are available in the forum thread along with updates on potential issues that may arise.
Asus sell the chiclet keyboard here and it isn’t expensive either, running out at $15 and the install consists of a quick swap of the currently installed keyboard and a few modifications to the new keyboard to fit it to the chassis on your netbook.
The Eee PC ‘dedicated’ Linux distro called OpenGeeeU Luna Serena 8.10 has been announced and is now available to download here at the official OpenGEUwebsite.
The changelog follows:
•OpenGEU is not using any external settings manager anymore, we developed our own light-fast e17-settings-manager (thanks to Quaker), completely customizable via command line for experienced users!
•The new Geutheme, the OpenGEU Themes Manager, is now able of controlling even more parts of the look of your Desktop! The user interface of Geutheme has been completely redrawn too, to let you have easier access to all of the options you need!
•The Places Module, able of showing and even auto-mounting any device connected to your box. Places is completely compatible with OpenGEU’s File Manager, Thunar.
•A new and more advanced Mixer module, capable of showing you all the properties of your soundcard!
•Wizard, the new E17 module by Rasterman which will help you customize your Enlightenment session, with new experimental features for NetBooks too (even a Virtual Keyboard is being developed).
•The OpenGEU Defaults Configuration Manager, a more advanced tool for restoring your default OpenGEU settings. With this new tool you’ll be able to choose between a complete restore of the default OpenGEU session or the start of the Wizard Module configuration procedure, which will let you have a 100% customized E17 desktop!
•OpenGEU Upgrade Manager: with this tool we really hope you will have no more problems in upgrading the Enlightenment Desktop in the future! The Upgrade Manager will safely upgrade your system for you, turning off E17 during the entire upgrade process.
•Echomorph, the 3D Enlightenment Window Manager! Basically, Echomorph (By Hannes J. from our team) will bring an incredibly nice looking 3D desktop to your Enlightenment system, exactly like Compiz! Of course, to run Echomorph you’ll need a 3D enabled video card but do not worry: the main target for OpenGEU is still a generic 2D desktop and always will be. To run Echomorph you need to change your session from the Login Screen (GDM). You can try it on the Live CD too, you just have to log off, change the default session and log in again ;)
•When you’ll be running an Echomorph session, you won’t be able to use the default OpenGEU Desktop Effects, so, trying to open the corresponding panel from Geutheme will open for you an Echomorph configuration screen instead!
•Configuration Menu, a new module able of showing you all of the E17 settings directly from the E17 menu! This is a great feature and basically it means that all of the E17 settings are now a mouse click away from you and that you’ll be able to access any of your usual Gnome System tool from E17 Menu –> Settings –> System
OpenGeeeU is a custom version of the OpenGEU distro which is specifically made with the Asus Eee PC netbook series in mind, using EasyPeasy 8.10 as a base, so as Brad Linder pointed out, the distro should work ‘out of the box’ on most Eee PC hardware as the drivers should already be lined up for the Eee PC.
The Asus Eee PC 1004DN made its first appearance during CES 2009, and while Asus specified that they won’t be launching this netbook any time soon, it has just cleared testing at the FCC, which means it can now be used inside the U.S. The FCC certification also gives Asus a reason to finally release this new netbook, provided that it is ready for the market. The most interesting part of the Asus Eee 1004DN is its built-in optical disk drive, squeezed in on the side, which makes it the first Asus-made netbook that’s got a disk drive. It will also have Intel’s new 1.66GHz N280 Atom processor. No word yet on official sale release date or price, but we’ll be waiting for it and will update you when it comes out.
Asus are holding a Valentine’s contest where on offer for the winning contestant is a stylish Eee PC S101. Runner up prizes include an Eee PC 1002 HA for second place and for third place the lucky winner will receive an Eee PC 900HA. There are further prizes of an ASUS WL-520gC wifi router and Targus netbook bag and gift pack on offer too.
How do you win I hear you ask? Well, this is the fun part and anyone in any country can join in with the fun (you just can’t enter the contest unless you’re in Hong Kong it seems). If you head over to the Asus Hong Kong website you can decorate a virtual Eee PC S101 with virtual ‘bling’ in the form of virtual Swarovski Crystals as part of a Valentine’s promotion that Asus are running. Eligible contestants can then enter their ‘design’ into the competition and post it up for voting. The designs with the highest number of votes win one of the prizes and for everyone else, we win anyway because we get to write our name on an S101 with fake crystals!
We told you about the partnership that has been set up between Asus and Phoenix Technologies to bundle the Phoenix HyperSpace OS with its laptops and netbooks. Well, a few details were eluding us and thanks to jkOnTheRun, we now have a few more details to update you with.
Jk has had word from the PR company representing Phoenix Technologies and they have answered a few of his questions as noted below:
HyperSpace will ship on a variety of ASUS models, such as the recently announced Omega Series notebooks and the well known ASUS EeePC netbook.
HyperSpace will be pre-installed. The Hybrid product will appear on the higher performance devices, while netbooks will see the Dual product.
ASUS will ship HyperSpace with a standard annual subscription. That’s $39.95 for the Dual on a netbook, $59.95 for the Hybrid on a notebook.
The extra details give us confirmation that Hyper Space will be available on the popular Asus EeePC netbook but, at a price, $39.95 for an annual subscription. Good news if you were interested in using Hyperspace on your future EeePC but, if you wanted it for free, you’re out of luck it seems.
T-Mobile are offering a new and good deal on a mobile broadband contract that will furnish new customers with a ‘free of charge’ Asus Eee PC and free USB modem.
The deal gives an Asus Eee PC 904HD netbook, the USB modem stick, 3GB of usage, 200 free texts and WiFi Spot access according to ITProPortal and will cost £25 a month on a contract lasting 24 months which is a competitive deal from T-Mobile who only recently began offering the Asus netbooks due to supply problems they had with Acer.
The deal page is located here with full details and specs on the model of netbook and broadband deal on offer from T-Mobile.
Apparently, Asus have indicated that they intend to create a 12 inch netbook in the near future. It is destined to be an ‘ultra thin model’ according to Digitimes but, the question is – when does a netbook become too big to be classed as a ‘netbook’?
Asus created the netbook and once upon a time the netbook was a 7inch, highly portable unit that wasn’t truly a notebook and the netbook tag fitted the product perfectly. Now, netbooks have bulked themselves out and we see 10.2″ models, for example the ‘top of the range’ S101 Eee PC from Asus themselves. 10.2″ is ok, we’re used to that but, 12 inch…..that’s a notebook isn’t it? Well, yes, that’s what Asustek have decided, their new 12″ model will not be tagged as a netbook – Asus are adding to the notebook range in their collection of ‘books’ and the notebook tag fits this model a little better, it’s all very well clinging on to the netbook tag, netbooks are incredibly and increasingly popular so it’s understandable why any company would tag their products as a netbook if they can get away with it but, Asus seem happy to move their bigger model into the ‘notebook’ range, although the tie-in to the Eee PC range should keep that netbook tag working for the company regardless of the size of screen.
The 12″ netbook, will be a part of the ZX series and will be of similar specification to the S101. With specs like that and the inclusion of a larger screen with 16:10 aspect ratio, Asustek could be onto a winner, again. Digitimes’ sources have predicted the unit will cost below NT$30,000.
To clarify where the netbook line stopped and the notebook line started, Asus president Jerry Shen stated: “that any device with display larger than 10.x-inches is not a netbook. Related devices with 11-inch or larger displays will be part of the company’s Asus brand”. So thats clear then, 12″ is a notebook, the man said so.
Thanks to a press release posted by jkontherun, we know that Super Talent are producing three mini PCIe SSD’s which will be made specifically for the hugely popular ASUS Eee PC, expected in the next month or so.
Three drive sizes, a 16GB, a 32GB and a 64GB will be available and will have a maximum 40MB/sec read speed and a maximum 15MB/sec write speed. They will cost $53, $79 and $149 respectively, which seems a reasonable price for the size of the drives.
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