ASUS Eee PC S101 - Australian specs

Hamish Taylor
Thursday, 09 October 2008 09:06

Your IT - Entertainment

An ASUS public relations representative in Australia has released details of a new ASUS Eee PC, the S101. Whilst an official release date was not stated, it is understood that the device is soon to be released in Australia. The spokesperson said that "the S101 is unique to the Eee PC family in terms of its design. Its focus is more as a luxurious Eee PC".

An ASUS Australia spokesperson has confirmed that ASUS will be "launching the Microsoft Windows version before releasing the Linux version. When the Linux verision is released in Australia, there will only be a minimal price difference (if any) and this will be mainly due to specs".

So let's have a lok at the specifications:
Screen: 10.2" WSVGA
Processor: ATOM 1.6GHz
RAM: 1GB DDR2
HDD: 16GB SSD
WLAN: 802.11b/g/n WiFi
O/S: Initially XP Home, later Linux
Battery: 4 Cell
Colours: Graphite, Brown, Champagne

The Recommended Retail Price (RRP) will be AU$999 inclucing GST, but we can expect to see some discounting, as has happened with all of the other models in the Eee PC range.

ASUS confirmed it has experienced strong sales of both the Windows XP and Linux Eee PC versions. "In this market, there is higher consumer demand for Windows XP compared to Linux (which explains the stock availability for Windows compared to Linux). Linux does however have a strong, more niche following" said the spokesperson in a interview conducted via email.

When asked about the recent comments from an MSI sales representative, Jerry Tung, that a higher number of MSI's Linux devices have been returned compared to Windows devices, the spokesperson stated that: "without reason for return there is not really any comment to make, therefore ASUS is unable to comment on its rate of returns for ASUS netbooks".

However, iTWire was told that "Basically ASUS has not experienced a large number of returns that would warrant making any comment", and that it "would really depend on the reason why the unit has been returned, eg. is it a hardware, software or OS issue?"

So, while the Eee PC brand goes upmarket, ASUS is continuing their support for Linux.