Busy weeek
Today is the official launch day for the new generation of Asus Eee PCs – the 901 and the 1000 – but right now they seem to be pretty thin on the ground. So we spoke to Kay Clark of Tru PR, who Asus appointed to handle its notebook PR a couple of months ago, to get some clarification.
It turns out that the 8.9-inch 901 was delivered to distributors last week and so should be available today. Clark couldn’t comment on why we’re having such trouble finding it. The Asus UK website lists some online retail partners but a quick look today didn’t turn up any 901s.
It looks like the 10-inch 1000 is around a week behind the 901, with UK disties expected to get their hands on it this week, meaning it should be available to buy next week.
The pricing of the 1000 hadn’t been revealed in its press release, but Asus was able to confirm to us that it would be between £349 and £369 depending on spec.
Lastly, we covered the much rumoured 904/905. Clark wasn’t able to comment on it as there doesn’t seem to have been any official word from Asus. We told her we understood that it’s essentially a 901 but with a wider keyboard, and that it will come with an HDD option. She neither confirmed nor corrected that assumption, but was able to reveal that a there is definitely no model called the 905 to the best of her knowledge.
Subsequently we spoke to Stuart Watson, notebook product manager at distributor VIP, who told us that his guidance had been to expect the 901 in the first week of July and is not expecting them to arrive until later this week. Furthermore, he said that stock will be very limited in the first batch and that we’re looking at closer to the end of July until it will be available in large quantities.
The MSI Wind, also due to launch today, is currently available at Morgan and was available at Ebuyer earlier today but, as of 18:00 appears to have sold out. Play.com doesn't seem to expect any until the end of the month.
