Well these new pictures that have emerged give us a good idea. From the looks of it, the Eee PC 701SD will be built in a similar chassis to the 901 but lacks the rounded edges. The lid has the new Eee logo in the top right corner and is covered in a black and white matte finish.

The touchpad button has a divot separating the right and left click button, which if you recall, the original 701 did not. Other than that, the keyboard looks to be the same as the original.

According to this leaked ASUS Eee PC roadmap slide, there are a few 701 SDs expected: 701, 701SD(30G HDD), 701SD, 701SD-4G. Interesting that one will sport a 30GB The storage device that holds your OS, programs, and data.
Learn Morehard drive considering its SD tagged name. We don’t know any more about specs, other than that we are expecting it to run Intel Atom.

We have got lots of pictures in our gallery below. Did we miss any details?

All of this gets me thinking about a price tag. If the 701 currently is selling for $399, can the hard drive version get a $299 or even a $199 price point? ASUS can you go back to the original promise of a low-cost Eee PC?

Vista better than XP on a mini-notebook? Puzzling? Yep. I had to see it to believe it. So loading Vista Home Premium onto the Eee PC 1000H was my weekend activity.

Simple Install, Drivers Needed
Installing Windows Vista Home Premium onto the Eee PC 1000H was a breeze and took about 45 minutes. When I first went to boot the system I was, of course, missing all the necessary drivers. ASUS lays out all the necessary drivers of the 1000H on its Web site and even though they are designed for XP they each work flawlessly in Vista.

Note that I had to use another computer to download the Ethernet and wireless drivers but once I ported those over to the 1000H via a USB stick I was able to download the rest of the drivers directly to the system. Those that are planning to put Vista on their Eee PCs should be sure to download the ASUS Advanced Configuration and Power Interface Driver; this driver is necessary for getting the wireless LAN hardware to work correctly.

Once all the drivers were installed everything just worked. The quick launch buttons on the top of the keyboard were programmable and the Super Hybrid CPU engine integrated with Vista.

Swift Application Launching
Granted I was a bit put off by the 1 minute boot up time, but when it came to actual everyday performance I was seriously impressed. Application launch times and the multi-tasking proved to be no obstacle. It was nothing like I had experienced with the HP Mini-Note 2133 (powered by VIA’s CM7 chipset) running Vista. Opening Windows Media Player was swift and took less than 2 seconds. Simultaneously chatting in Skype and Digsby while surfing the Web in Firefox 3 didn’t hold up the system at all. For those that are interested, the Vista Experience score is rated at 2.7.

Smooth Graphics and Video
I was even more impressed when it came to making a video call in Skype (which I wasn’t even able to do on the HP Mini-Note). The call connected quickly and our video launched within 5 seconds. The quality was pretty good as well; images of our caller were clear and void of any pixelation.

Streaming an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia over Hulu.com looked sweet. There was no blur or pauses. Similarly, a downloaded HD clip from Microsoft had no motion blur or skips when played back in Windows Media Center.

Shorter Battery
Vista on the Eee PC 1000H performs almost as well as Windows XP, except in the area of battery life. On our battery test (which cycles Web sites over and over again in Firefox) Eee PC 1000H running Windows XP lasted 4 hours and 28 minutes. With Vista running the system got about 4 hours of run time.

So do I beleive it now? Does Vista run just as well, if not better, than Windows XP? It surely runs better than I ever thought it would. Those that need to run Vista or want to run Vista should have no fear. The Eee PC 1000H its Intel Atom processor can handle “the wow.”

We don’t have any official announcement on these and we don’t know whether they will ever come to the U.S., but these pictures, first posted by our friend Sascha at EeePCNews.de, look very legitimate.

The first accessory is an Eee PC external The storage device that holds your OS, programs, and data.
Learn Morehard drive (or Eee Drive). From the pictures, the black glossy square drive has an extending USB port. Perhaps this will come bundled with smaller SSD versions of the system, or it will just be an added upgrade for those have used up all their mini-notebook space.

Also appearing on the scene is an external Eee PC optical drive (or Eee Writer). Not much to say about this but it sure will help with the restore discs that ASUS provides in the Eee PC boxes.

Saving the best for last, ASUS has come up with a branded 3G connection card called the T500. The card seems to fit into a USB port.

A couple of days ago, we interviewed Henry Kwan of ECS about the G10IL, who told us that, outside of the U.S., his company’s new mini-notebook will be sold by wireless carriers with mobile broadband in much the same way they sell phones with voice plans. Sign a long-term contract for wireless Internet and get your mini-notebook at a much lower price or even for free.

Today, our buddy James Kendrick of jkontherun has posted about a wireless provider in Japan that is giving away an Eee PC (we’re not sure which model, but it looks like a 7-inch unit) with external wireless modem for less than $1 in exchange for signing a two-year contract for wireless broadband service.

This leads us to an obvious question: would wireless-carrier-subsidized mini-notebooks sell in the U.S.?

Honestly, we don’t think the notebook subsidy model would fly in the U.S. and we’re not sure why consumers in other countries would want this either. Here’s why:

Mobile broadband appeals to businesses, but mini-notebooks don’t. With high prices and slow connection speeds relative to wired broadband, consumers aren’t going to be rushing out to ditch their DSL or Cable connections for mobile broadband anytime soon. To add insult to injury, many carriers place severe restrictions on how you can use your mobile broadband connection, restricting users from gaming or downloading video.

So the only people who would want or need mobile broadband are professionals who absolutely must be connected at all times from all places for work. That kind of mobile businessperson is going to carry a full-fledged business notebook, not an Eee PC. Also, in the case of all but the smallest businesses, laptops are provided by a company’s IT department, and there’s just no way an IT manager is going to outfit the company sales manager with a mini-notebook.

Imagine getting notebook tech support from your wireless carrier. It’s hard enough to get support from the company that manufactures your laptop. Now just imagine yourself buying a Sprint or Verizon Wireless notebook and being asked to go through the wireless carrier’s voicemail system to get help when you’re getting the blue screen of death on your notebook. And do you think the major carriers want to provide notebook tech support?

The cost of the hardware doesn’t justify the expense of the service. When consumers look in the mirror, they want to know that they they’re not throwing good money out for bad. Spending $60 a month—or $1,200 over two years—just to get mobile Internet on a $400 mini-notebook is hard to justify. That’s like getting a free Yugo in exchange for promising to fill it up only with super-high-octane gas.

We think most mobile broadband users would rather that carriers cut the price of their service than give away mini-notebooks as incentive. But we could be totally wrong here. What do you think?

This seems like a smart move on ASUS’ part since its 901 and 1000 series (and maybe even a 903, 904) sporting the latest Intel Atom processor will be the likely choices by consumers and retailers. Of course eventually, you will be able to get an MSI Wind for $499 and that will sport a larger 10-inch screen and the Atom processor. What this price drop doesn’t answer is if an Intel Atom Eee PC 900 is headed our way for $399.

But a search of Amazon.com confirms that the Eee PC 900 running Linux will be hitting the market with an Intel Atom processor, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of space. Best part? It will finally have the $399 price point it should have had from the start.

Confused? We sure as hell are. Why is this model with 4GB less space and a faster processor be $150 less than the orginal Eee PC 900 for $549.99? We have contacted ASUS and hope they have an answer on this topic. We want answers!

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.

Of course that was just a rumor, until my friend Sascha over at EeePCNews.de posted some pictures of what looks to be an Eee PC 903 and Eee PC 904 (links in German).

The Eee PC 903 (picture after the jump) looks puzzling. It seems to lose the fancy build of the 901 including the silver hinge and dedicated shortcut buttons along the top of the keyboard. It resembles the Eee PC 900 more than anything else.

Could this be a cheaper 8.9-inch Eee PC with Atom? Is this move designed to make the Eee PC more price competitive with the MSI Wind?

From the looks of it the Eee PC 904 sports the same chassis as the Eee PC 1000, but has an 8.9-inch screen and along with that comes a larger keyboard. Perhaps those are speakers on the side of the Eee PC 904’s screen, a flash back to the original 7-inch Eee PCs. Unfortunately, it also looks like ASUS still has the right Shift key in the wrong place. We are unsure if the rumored 905 has the same build as the 904 with different specs.

We got all the pictures below. Check them out. We will bring you more details as we get them.

This week, when our friends at DV Nation lent us a blazing-fast 64GB Samsung SATA II SSD, we couldn’t wait to install it in our Eee PC 1000H and this time run a complete battery of real-world tests to see how much a difference a high speed SSD can make in a mini-notebook.

With the easily accessible upgrade panel on the Eee PC 1000H, we were able to swap out the system’s default 5,400 rpm hard drive, a Seagate Momentus, with the Samsung SATA II in minutes. After installing a fresh copy of Windows XP Home SP2 with all the ASUS drivers and utilities, we were ready to put the system through some tests.

We opted to test the high-speed SSD-enhanced Eee PC 1000H not only against the Eee PC 1000H with its default hard drive, but also against the Eee PC 901, which has the same RAM and CPU as the 1000H but sports a smaller 9-inch screen and a pair of SSD chips as its hard drive. We wanted to see not only how much an SSD could improve the performance of the 1000H, but also how the aftermarket Samsung SATA II SSD compares to the built-in SSD chips ASUS uses on every Eee PC model except the 1000H.

We won’t bore you with too many details about ASUS’s SSD chips, but it’s important to note that all Eee PCs with more than 4GB of storage space (900, 901, 1000) actually come with two different SSDs, with the first 4GB on one chip and the remaining storage on a slower, higher-capacity chip. We ran our tests on the primary 4GB chip to get the best performance possible.

HD Tach Tests

To get a rough idea of each hard drive’s capability, we ran the quick bench test in HD Tach 3.0.4.0. Looking at the results, we were not surprised to see that the Samsung SATA II, which is rated at 100MB/s read and 80MB/s write speeds, gave transfer rates that were double that of the Seagate Momentus 5,400 rpm drive and the ASUS 4GB SSD which HD Tach detected as an “ASUS-PHISON SSD TST2.04P.”

After all, the Samsung SATA II 64GB costs anywhere between $800 and $1,000 online and the 32GB version is in the $400 – $600 range, depending on where you find it. The entire Eee PC 901 computer costs $599 so we expected a huge performance gap between ASUS’s SSD and a top-of-the-line drive like the Samsung. Nevertheless, we were surprised to see that the random access time was exactly the same on both SSDs.

The real question is not how these drives look in HD Tach, but whether they make the Eee PC faster and more pleasant to use in the real world. In everyday computer use, system boot time and application launch times are extremely important to users, because the last thing anyone wants to do is sit there and wait while the hard drive light flickers.

Boot Time

We measured boot time on all three Eee PCs, by pointing a camera at the screen and filming the entire start up process from the moment our finger touched the power button to the appearance of the last tray icon. We then went back to the video and determined the time down to the tenth of the second.

There was a huge, nearly 8-second difference between the HD and both SSDs. However, the two SSDs offered nearly identical times, proving that boot time is more dependent on random access than transfer rate.

It’s worth noting that there’s very little one can do to make the boot time faster than 31 seconds. First of all, part of the boot process involves waiting for the system to post before Windows even starts loading and then we have to wait for all the little tray icons that the Eee PC needs like its video driver, power management application, and touchpad software.

At one point, we tried turning off a whole bunch of Windows services, disabling the WIndows splash screen, and setting our paging file to a static size, and we were able to lower the time from 31.3 to 29.7 seconds.

Application Launch Times

We used the camera again to capture application launch times for a few popular programs. All launch times were measured the first time an application was opened after booting to prevent Windows from caching parts of the program in memory.

As expected, the high-end Samsung SATA II blew away both the 901’s ASUS-Phison SSD and the 1000H’s Seagate Momentus. The battle for second place was more heated, with the 901’s SSD opening more applications more quickly than the 1000H’s hard drive, but in a few noteworthy cases, the 5,400 rpm hard drive was significantly faster.

Microsoft Word 2007

In Word 2007, the Samsung SSD was twice as fast (1.3 seconds) as the 901’s ASUS-Phison SSD (2.5 seconds), but both really blew away the 1000H’s hard drive. In the 9.5 seconds, it took for the Seagate Momentus to open everyone’s favorite word processor, we could win a bull riding contest.

Adobe Premiere Elements 4.0

As we expected, the Samsung SSD blew away the other drives by opening the resource-heavy Premiere in only 12.2 seconds, but we were shocked to see that the Eee PC 901 (25 seconds) took almost exactly the same amount of time as the 1000H with default hard drive (24.7 seconds).

Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0

Like Premiere Elements, Photoshop Elements is a resource-intensive program that is fairly slow to load. And just as we saw with Premiere, the Samsung SSD opened the program fastest (10 seconds). However, this time the Seagate Momentus hard drive actually beat the pants off the Eee PC 901’s SSD by launching the program six seconds sooner (17.7 to 23.8).

Adobe Reader 8.1.2

Our Adobe Reader launch test was slightly different than our other tests in that we chose to open a large document, the 585-page 9/11 Comission Report, rather than starting the program by itself. We figure that absolutely nobody is going to launch Adobe Reader unless they’re using it to open a PDF. Here you can see that the difference between the Samsung (2.5 seconds) and the ASUS-Phison (2.3 seconds) is negligible, but the hard drive is way behind them both (6.1 seconds).

Next Page: More Application Launches, Battery Life >>

I have only spent a few hours with the system but I have to say my comrade Jeff Wilson was 100 percent correct in his review of the 901 when he said, “with the promise of the 10-inch Eee PC 1000 and Eee PC 1000H just around the corner, some may want to play the waiting game.”

Update: Wait no more. Our full review of the Eee PC 1000H is right here.

A Fresh Black Look, Larger Footprint
The Eee PC 1000H is only available in “Fine Ebony” aka black at this point. The glossy black system has a more elegant, almost high-fashion look to it. The system will definitely become smeared in fingerprints, but ASUS includes a cleaning shammy to assist in cleaning up the mess. Like the 901, the new Eee PC has a silver hinge and and the new Eee branding on the lid.

The 1000H is by far the largest mini-notebook we have seen and encroaches on a regular notebooks territory. With its 10-inch screen the system has a larger feel than the MSI Wind, and at 3.2 pounds has got more on the scale as well.

Wider Screen
Under the glossy lid, it is a pleasure to find a larger 10-inch screen. Like we found with the MSI Wind, the 10-inch screen is less of a constraint on your eyes. Similar to the 901, the system has four quick launch buttons above the keyboard, one which is a resolution switcher. This lets you toggle between 800 x 600, 1024 x 600 (default), 1024 x 768, and 1024 x 768 compress, which smushes the image vertically to make everything fit but leaves the image a bit blurry. Note: We aren’t seeing any difference between the 1024×768 and the 1024 x 768 compress. Since the screen’s native resolution is 1024×600, it’s impossible to run the system at a true 1024×768 resolution. Above the display is a 1.3-MP webcam.

The Keyboard We Have All Been Waiting For?
What was our biggest complaint about the previous Eee PCs? The cramped keyboard. However, with the 1000H’s more spacious keyboard, the whining is over. I am no longer having to prepare my hands for clawed typing. But the work to perfect the keyboard isn’t over for ASUS.

As you can see in the hands-on video, the keyboard has an extreme bend to it which can only be fixed by prying off the keyboard and clicking it more firmly into place. In addition, the spacing of the keys is odd: the Shift key is oddly placed over the up arrow button and there is extra space between the backslash key and the page up button. The 1000H has the exact same trackpad as the 901.

So Long Solid State
The Eee PC 1000H is the first Eee PC to sport a The storage device that holds your OS, programs, and data.
Learn Morehard drive. Our Windows XP Home system came with 80GB of space, split into two 40GB partitions. The C drive contains the XP Home operating system and the D drive has nothing on it. Also, proving our point that a hard drive boot can boot as fast as a solid-state drive, the system boots in 40 seconds (the same as the 901 with a 12GB SSD).

Atom Performance
Its reassuring at this point to see a mini-notebook sporting a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor. The Eee PC 1000H, like the other Atom systems with 1GB of RAM we have reviewed, smoothly runs multiple programs. A video conference call over Skype was smooth and a streaming episode of The Daily Show from Hulu.com had no skips and looked great at full screen. I haven’t had enough time with the system to gauge its battery life, but we expect it to notch a slightly lower score than the 901, which lasted just about 4.5 hours, but had a smaller screen.

Early Verdict
The Eee PC 901 was a solid system and our biggest complaints were its cramped keyboard and expensive price point. The Eee PC 1000H certainly solves the cramped keyboard complaint and also adds a bigger screen. However, the same cannot be said for the price point.

Though pricing is not official an ASUS rep told us last week that the system has an expected MSRP of $649.00. That is $150 more than the MSRP of the MSI Wind. Before me make a call on the system we will wait to see how the not-so-little guy does in the lab and on benchmarks.

Hands-On Video