ASUS generated a lot of buzz with its Eee-branded line of products, starting with the Eee PC netbook

and is responsible for introducing the netbook to the PC market as an affordable and simple laptop

solution for students.

A netbook (a portmanteau of the words Internet and notebook) is a small portable laptop computer

designed for wireless communication and access to the Internet.

By late 2008, netbooks had begun to take market share away from laptops. It is estimated that almost

thirty times more netbooks were sold in 2008 (11.4 mn) than in 2007 (400,000).

After the release of the ASUS’s Eee PC, almost every major PC vendor HP, Sony, MSI, Toshiba, Acer,

Dell have released competing models. Some companies design them in different directions away from

the original Eee PC and they got bigger, more powerful, more expensive, and have even become luxury

items. Furthermore, Windows XP has dominated over Linux as the installed operating system.

ASUS range

1.    ASUS Eee PC 701 4G: with Xandros version of Linux, had a 4GB solid state drive, a small 7in

screen, 512MB of RAM and an Intel Celeron M CPU, also available in a variety of color at a cost of $349.

2.    ASUS Eee PC 900: With slightly bigger 8.9in screen, but it has more storage and RAM and is

available with either or operating system versions.

3.    ASUS Eee PC 901: based on the Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz) CPU, Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11n

wireless networking with 6-cell battery, sleeker but heavier model has an 8.9in screen, 1GB of RAM and

was available with either Linux (20GB storage) or Windows XP (12GB storage)  operating systems

installed. It cost $472.

4.    ASUS Eee PC 1000H: with its spinning hard drive it gives little more speed than those solid state

drive-based models. Features are same as Eee PC 901 with 10in screen and little closer to a

conventional notebook but it only cost $509.

5.    ASUS Eee PC 1000HE: with new “Chiclet keyboard” that provides wider gaps between the keys to

improve key travel, it includes a 10in screen, 160GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM and an Intel Atom N270

1.6GHz CPU, cost $654.

HP range

HP was the 2nd vendor after ASUS to introduce a netbook to the market.

1.    HP 2133 Mini-Note PC aims at business users, not students. It had an 8.9in screen, a VIA C7-M

By:

About the Author: