ASUS Eee PC with Windows XP lands in Australia

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by Alex Zaharov-Reutt

Monday, 03 March 2008

Page 1 of 3 ! The wildly popular ASUS Eee PC has already been available with XP – but only in Japan. Now the promised Eee PC pre-loaded with XP will finally arrive on Australian store shelves sometime this month – but how much will it cost? Related stories Google Gears up Safari support JavaScript speed boost ahead for Mozilla's Firefox Adobe Flash fingered in malware clipboard trickery Apple tops vulnerability list, but Microsoft still ahead on exploits Dragon NaturallySpeaking goes double-digit The ASUS Eee PC surely has to be the world’s most popular and successful computer pre-loaded with the Linux operating system, which in the Eee’s case is supplied by Xandros. UPDATE: We have received the official Australian price for this model since publishing this story yesterday when the price was unavailable. Please read on. Although plenty of other computers over the last few years have had Linux pre-loaded onto them, the sad reality is that most of them have been rubbish. This has not been the case with the Eee PC, generating millions of sales worldwide and being dubbed the most popular Christmas gift in the US last year. But even though ASUS has won much acclaim and many fans for its bold use of Linux, especially on a PC that comes with a modest, yet very capable, technical specification, the market dominance of Windows XP led many to wonder just when an XP Eee PC would be available and what it might cost. Of course, ASUS knew that people might want Windows XP from the start, and offered a set of downloadable drivers that could be easily burnt to a CD (or presumably a USB flash drive) so that users could install their own legal copy of XP onto the Eee and quickly load all the right drivers without needing to hunt around the Internet. While this kept many happy, it’s still too difficult for some who simply wanted XP pre-loaded. Now they have gotten their wish, with XP Eee’s due in stores sometime this month, March 2008. Just as the original Eee PC was originally aimed at education and children, with the huge general consumer interest being of great surprise to ASUS, the XP version is likewise being aimed at the education market, and will indeed be available via ‘special tender for education institutions’ and will also be available ‘through the channel’, meaning computer retailers. According to ASUS, a “number of Australian schools have already taken advantage of the cost benefits associated with the Eee PC and have introduced the product into classrooms, experiencing great success with enthusiastic students”.   So, what are ASUS saying about the machine, why has no price been set as yet (and what do we think it should be priced at), UPDATE: what IS the price now that ASUS locally have confirmed the AUD $ price, and is there an easy way to load Linux onto the machine if you want to, especially if you’ve received an XP Eee as a gift but want to try the Xandros experience? Please read onto page 2. << First page <   1 2 3 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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