14 DAY TRIAL // Just after ASUS' CEO confirmed the rumors of new Eee PC models being in the making, the first photos of the upcoming products have already surfaced on the Internet. Now that the Eee PC 701SD has had what can only be deemed its fair share of media attention, time has come for another one of the company's yet-to-be-released models to step into the spotlight. Ladies and gentlemen, we have the first pictures of one of the company's high-end models, scheduled to come out in mid-September.
Yesterday in Taiwan, ASUS held an investors press conference where the company's CEO, Jerry Shen, was showing off (more or less in a similar manner to that in which Michael Dell introduced to the world the upcoming mini-Inspiron), what looked to be a sample of the company's future Eee PC S101 model. Despite the fact that the pictures lack something in quality, it certainly looks like we'll be dealing with a very different Eee PC, at least as far as design features are concerned.
First of all, the model that the company's CEO was holding featured a brown and black trim chassis, as opposed to the white and black colors featured on most Eee PC models. Even with the notable lack of more details, it is possible that ASUS provides for this model other color options as well, at launch. Secondly, when compared with the white Eee PC 901 that Mr. Shen was holding in his left hand, the new 10-inch S101 model seems to be thinner. That may be the reason why the HKEPC website is reporting that ASUS could actually ditch the Eee branding for this model, as it plans to have it compete with Apple's MacBook Air. Various reports have it that, apparently, the new model is 16-21mm thick, whereas the MacBook air is 16-25mm.
This goes to contradict the initial rumors, set off by a leaked slide image showing the S101 model as part of the Eee PC roadmap. According to the information provided by the HKEPC, the S101 will be based on the same Intel Atom N270 CPU (1.6GHz/512KB L2/533MHz FSB) and 945GME chipset. It will come with either 32GB or 64GB SSD configurations, which will be priced at US$699 and US$899, respectively.
