14 DAY TRIAL // It's not been that long since ASUS' CEO Jerry Shen confirmed the company's plans to extend the Eee PC family from 11 models to 23, and we're already being offered the very first set of photos showing one of the new Eee PCs. Since you must be anxious to know which is the model that already got this special treatment, wonder no more: it's the 7-inch Eee PC 701SD.
Earlier this week, we reported on a story about a leaked photo of a slide showing the ASUS Eee PC roadmap. The slide presented 23 Eee PC models separated into three different categories, two of which were completely new. At first, we could only presume that the Taiwanese manufacturer was planning on putting out the new models sometime in the near future, since nothing was officially confirmed at the time. Later on, Jerry Shen confirmed the company's intentions, by saying that a number of those new models was going to be released before the end of the year.
Besides the two new categories, the company's current Eee PC lineup will be included as part of the Smart Casual segment, which will also receive a couple of other additions, including an upgraded version of the first Eee PC to have ever been released, the 701. It is this new 701SD that has surfaced in a number of detailed pictures posted by the German website Eee PC News. And, from the looks of it, we are dealing with a definite improvement of the Eee PC 701, which borrows some of the features of the company's Eee PC 901.
One very interesting detail that the new 701SD version is going to include consists that it will not bear the ASUS logo on it. Since the 701SD model is branded as Eee PC, this can only mean that ASUS has reached that point where it feels that the Eee brand can stand on its own, without the support of the company's name as well.
The pictures show only a black and white version of the new Eee PC, but ASUS is likely to offer more color versions once the netbook is officially launched. The keyboard seems to be slightly larger, while the touchpad appears to be almost identical to the one on the initial model. Just check out the images below and see for yourselves whether that truly is the case.
