Circuit City has the a 15-inch HP Pavilion dv6833us with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 3GB of RAM, and a 250GB hard drive for a low $699 (after rebate). It includes 802.11a/g/n. Did we mention free shipping?

Newegg also has lots of deals going on, with free shipping on most products. You can get an Acer Aspire AS5520-5281 with an 1.9-GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 for $649. The notebook sports a 15.4-inch screen, 3GB of memory, and a 250GB hard drive.

Those are some of the cheap laptops we know of thus far. Techbargains will be updating their deals over the weekend (check the notebook bargains here). Rumor has it HP is going to have a nice blowout sale starting tomorrow. Perhaps they’re making room on the shelves for new Intel Centrino 2 systems, like the dv5?

That’s why ASUS is rolling out the Eee Box B202 (mini desktop), Eee Stick (Nintendo Wii-like controller), and the mysterious Eee Monitor, which looks like an all-in-one PC. But why stop there? Here’s how we think Eee should be pimped out next. Share your Eee gear ideas in the comment section.

1. The WheelEee
Now that gas prices have surpassed four bucks per gallon, what the world needs is an electric car that will curb our dependence on foreign oil and help the environment bounce back. Like the Eee PC, the WheelEee 900 coupe is powered by a compact AC adapter and can run for up to five hours on a charge. The 1000H cross-over gets a little less mileage, but there’s plenty of room for the kids and all your stuff.

2. SuckEee
Eat my dust, Dyson. This high-powered vacuum cleaner not only sucks up dog hair like nobody’s business, it eliminates the boredom commonly associated with household chores. A small Windows Sideshow LCD (borrowed from the ASUS W5fe) tells you when it’s time to empty the cup, and it displays a fresh RSS feed each time you pull the EeeSuck back toward you. This part of the machine detaches as a hand vac so you can stay up to date on the latest Eee-related news even while you’re cleaning your brand-new WheelEee.

3. MemorEee
The MemorEee is a flash-based camcorder with the largest LCD in its class at a whopping 7 inches. All the controls are operated through the multi-touch screen, and you can upload your videos directly to YouTube through the camcorder and then watch them via the built-in Mozilla browser. It comes in two flavors: 4GB and 8GB. The best part: the pistol-grip barrel doubles as a kickstand so you can use the MemorEee as a digital photo/video frame.

4. The PhonEee
ASUS’s first stab at the smart phone market for the U.S. was a bit of a letdown, and the ZX1 Lamborghini phone doesn’t look like much more than a midlife-crisis handset, but that’s all going to change with the Linux-based PhonEee. Sort of like an Eee PC in miniature, this unlocked white or black clamshell looks like LG’s enV2 but borrows the mini-notebook’s intuitive tab-based interface. See ya, Windows Mobile!

5. CrankEee
Going green is fashionable these days, so why not ditch the traditional battery and outfit your Eee PC with a cool crank option to give your mini-notebook the juice it needs? This accessory is great for taking your Eee on camping trips, and 5 continuous minutes of cranking provides 30 minutes of battery life. The CrankEee also comes with tips to power all of the above gear as well as other mini-notebooks, cell phones, MP3 players, and more. Not compatible with the XO laptop.

So we spoke with OCZ CEO Ryan Petersen about these potentially game-changing SSDs.  In our interview, Peterson confirmed that the drives are made Multi-Level Cell (MLC) flash,  and that they will be available for purchase July 12th or shortly thereafter.

Because MLC flash memory has a reputation for being less reliable than SLC, we asked OCZ a follow-up question about estimated number of write cycles to failure, and we’re still waiting for an answer beyond the 1.5 million hour MBTF number quoted in their specs. Our interview is below.

How did you manage to get the prices so low on the Core Series?
The biggest barrier to SSD adoption has been price, and we have been exploring ways to bring down the price without sacrifices in performance. With the Core Series SSD drives are able to take advantage of lower cost multi-level cell technology in a multiple channel configuration and when coupled with new proprietary firmware we can maximize the speed while simultaneously lowering the cost. The previous issues with using MLC technology in SSD limited the write speeds, reducing the overall performance to that below current high speed HDDs, with the core series this is no longer an issue.

Does OCZ manufacture its own flash memory chips? If not, who is the supplier?
OCZ, while not a foundry, is able to leverage our existing relationships with partners, in this case Samsung to bin flash ICs for the highest possible write and read speeds.

Who is the target audience for the new Core Series drives? Desktop users? Laptop upgraders?
The Core Series is designed to bring SSDs down to a price point where mainstream users can benefit from the technology. Our target with this series is generally anyone who wants to take advantage of increased speed and reliability. Of course, SSD technology provides these.

Our singular mission and the reason we entered the SSD market was to develop products that suit the needs of end user, but at an affordable price point. Basically to give the end users the products that they ask for, and ones that we would personally want to buy ourselves.

Do you think a lot of laptop users will buy Core Series drives to replace their laptop hard drives?
We hope that users will enjoy the performance advantages, and there are a number of benefits to notebook users including the added reliability of having no moving parts.

Will you sell the Core Series drives to any OEMs?
Yes.

Will you continue to sell your original, more expensive SSD models, the OCZSSD2-1S32G and OCZSSD2-1S64G? Why would a consumer want them?
While our focus will be on the new Core SSD drives we will continue to sell the original products to select OEMs who require the slightly faster write speeds for their specific applications.

Will you be able to meet high demand for these drives?
We are ramping up production now and fully expect to be able to satisfy the demand for the products.

Which U.S. retailers will stock the OCZ Core series drives?
We are making the Core Series available through our existing channel which includes the vast majority of major retailers and all the top e-tailers.

Is there a plan to release higher capacity SSDs?
Absolutely, increasing the capacity of the drives is just as important as maintaining speeds and bringing down the costs to consumers. We are currently planning up to 256GB drives in the near future.

The specs are promising. Measuring 9.2 x 7.0 x 1.0-1.3 inches, the compact Elego weighs only 2.1 pounds. A 1.6-GHz Intel Atom CPU and anywhere from 256MB to 1GB of RAM give the machine its internal power. According to the printed user’s guide, this system will have a 2GB to 4GB SSD or a regular SATA hard drive. It has built-in 802.11b/g wireless connectivity.

As for ports, the Elego includes a headphone, mic, LAN, VGA-out, 4 USBs and a card reader. The screen is 8.9 inches and has a 1024 x 600-pixel resolution. A webcam is centered on top of the display and the materials indicate that it could be either 0.3 or 1.3 megapixels.

From my short hands-on experience with the Elego in Taiwan a few months ago, I noted the sturdy keyboard and the comfortable trackpad. The arrow-shaped mouse buttons also struck my fancy. Stay tuned for more details on the Elego and its availability.

Once you’ve purchased a track on your phone, you can open up Rhapsody and download another copy.

Here’s how:

1.    Click “My Account” in the top tool bar.
2.    Click “Manage My Account” from the drop down menu
3.    Log in with your VZW phone number and registered password
4.    Click “Downloads” at the bottom of the left toolbar list
5.    Click the “V Cast” tab
6.    Select the checkbox next to the songs you’d like DRM-free copies of on your computer
7.    Click “Download Tracks”
8.    Rhapsody will download the tracks to your computer

I grabbed Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds for just $0.99. You can then sideload the tracks onto your phone’s microSD card.

Overall I like the service, but prefer Amazon’s MP3 store, because it also offers unlocked DRM music, and some of the songs are $.89. Furthermore, the Amazon store is simply that: a shelf that you can quickly purchase songs from without having to deal with a whole iTunes-like interface that Rhapsody is. I really wish that you could choose to send your newly downloaded songs from Rhapsody to the phone over the air, but I know that Verizon Wireless would never let its data network clog up like that, so I’ll dream on.

Verizon Wireless also claims that you can use the monthly unlimited Rhapsody subscription plan of $15 per month to keep your handset fresh with new tunes. However, keep in mind that you’ll lose your whole library the day you stop paying that bill.

On the other hand, it’s a big step for Verizon to allow users to now own hard copies of songs they download from their handset. Because while some users may purchase $2 songs from their phone, most will want to play it back elsewhere on other devices, like their iPods or computers.

Thankfully, now those users can do just that.

ASUS originally announced the Lamborghini ZX1 at Computex in May, and it claims the phone is “designed by racers, for racers.” Because race car drivers talk while driving, too.

While most of the phone sports a car-like interface with a gauge-based UI system, the underlying OS is Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional. Since it supports UMTS 850/1900/2100MHz networks, as well as EDGE/GPRS/GSM 850/900/1800/1900 bands, it could potentially serve as a 3.5G phone on AT&T in the United States.

Other notable features include built-in GPS, WLAN 802.11b/g support, and a 3 megapixel camera. Whether or not we’ll see this on store shelves is still up in the air, but I have my doubts that a carrier would pick up a, likely expensive, Lamborghini flavored phone. Even if a carrier doesn’t choose to sell it, the phone may be sold as unlocked so T-Mobile or AT&T subscribers could buy and use it on either GSM network.

Gallery, including internal pics, is below.

Our ASUS rep had no specs on the monitor or availability. However, based on the photos, we’re wondering whether this is actually a monitor or a new all-in-one PC or a rip off of the iMac.

To our discerning eyes, the monitor looks to be 19 to 20 inches and has a webcam centered on top of the display. Below the screen are controls for adjusting the brightness and contrast. The right side of the display sports 2 USB ports and a card reader.

In addition to 4 USB ports, the back of the monitor is strangely equipped with two Ethernet ports, three audio ports, one for a mic, and 2 audio-outs. What we don’t see is a VGA or DVI port, making us wonder whether this is meant to be a monitor for an Eee PC or a self-contained all-in-one computer. If it’s meant to serve as a monitor, it must also double as a docking station, because otherwise there’s no reason to have Ethernet and audio ports.

The Denon logo on the bottom right of the display indicates that this potential all-in-one may have a built-in Denon amplifier and speaker system. If it is a standalone system, we suspect its CPU is none other than Intel Atom, but other than that we have no clue what’s inside. The Eee Monitor has been rumored to have a built-in TV tuner and a starting price of $500.

We have all the shots you could dream of below.

Thanks to Sascha for the moral support.

Think the Eee phenomenon has gone too far? Us too. Check out our post on the next Eee gear.

All of these rates, if accurate, would make the Core drives as fast as or faster than industry-leading drives like the the Samsung SATA II SSD (100MBs Read / 80MBs Write) , the Mtron MSP 7000 series (rated at 120MBs read / 90MBs write), or the Memoright MR25 (120MBs Read / 120 MBs Write). It would even share the read, but not the write speed of the Mtron MSP 7500 (130MBs read / 120MBs write), which is widely considered the fastest SSD on the market today, but is intended for servers and costs well above $1,000 at even the 32GB size.

If the price and performance of the OCZ Core Series live up to expectations, the entire hard drive market is in for some earthshaking changes.

Massive Upgrades

If consumers can buy high-speed SSDs for such low prices, we may see a wave of notebook owners buying the OCZ disks and using them to replace their current notebook hard drives. Even though the Core Series drives cost a lot more than higher-capacity traditional notebook hard drives (a 320GB 5,400 rpm goes for about $100 now), the speed and power-saving advantages could lead many users to swap out their own drives.

Those who buy hard drive-based mini-notebooks like the MSI Wind may find themselves spending an extra $169 to replace the built-in hard drive with an OCZ Core. Even sub-$600 15.4-inch notebooks could be turned into fast booting, power-sipping systems for under $750.

Notebook-makers Lowering Prices on Their SSD Options

At present, several notebook manufacturers offer SSD configuration options for their business notebooks, but these options typically cost around $1,000. For example, right now, Lenovo charges $1,045.49 to upgrade a T series ThinkPad from its lowest option, an 80GB 5,400 rpm drive, to a 64GB SSD made by Samsung.

When consumers can buy their own 64GB OCZ Core series SSD with faster transfer rates for $259 or pay $479 and get 128GB, will OEMs like Lenovo be able to justify charging four times for a slower drive? Or will we see massive SSD price cutting by other manufacturers and OEMs? It’s quite possible that OCZ’s low cost entry will force Dell, Lenovo, and HP to either switch suppliers or put pressure on SSD manufacturers to deliver drives at a similar cost to OCZ’s.

If OCZ can meet expectations with its product, there’s a good chance the option to configure your new notebook with a 32GB SSD will cost less than $200 and 64GB less than $300. We may also see more consumer notebooks being offered with SSD.

Otherwise, the machine still sports a 1.2-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo low-voltage processor, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and a built-in optical drive.

Update: According to a Fujitsu rep, the LifeBook P8010 will not be available in North America.

This isn’t the first time Fujitsu’s gone pink. It released its LifeBook P7230 in pink last year. Which leaves me still wondering, do women really want pink gadgets and laptops?

The Akoya Mini has a 10-inch with a 1024 × 600-pixel resolution and looks like the MSI’s identical twin in the shots below. While it might lack the Bluetooth found in the Wind, it is bundled with Corel’s WordPerfect. I have reached out to Medion to see if the Akoya Mini will make a stateside appearance, but it looks like U.S. patriots will be waiting for the Wind over the Independence Day weekend. In the meantime, you can buy this MSI Wind e-mail address on eBay. Hey, it’s free shipping!