Incredible Low Cost Notebook from Asus

Jonney Shih, Asus chairman, has recently announced during Intel's Computex keynote a remarkable new product which costs only $ 189. The announcement came as a blast over all attendants who remained speechless in front of such a lilliputian price for a laptop, as the announced product is a laptop.

Based on a custom-defined Linux operating system the notebook weights not even a kilo (890 g), which is proportional to its small dimensions, 120x100x30 mm (width - depth- height). Additionally, the 3ePC has a 7-inch display. The Linux system the notebook comes with is kind of similar to that used by the OLPC project, but with a less childish interface. Among the software included there would be the Firefox web browser and a productivity suite similar to MS-Office. The notebook is also said to be compatible with Windows XP.

Named Eee PC (3ePC), the miniature computer is based on 2 GB flash memory and it is able to boot in 15 seconds. According to Shih, 3ePC is wanted to be one of the "lowest cost and easiest PC to use". He also said that Asus' intentions are to market it everywhere and not only in the emerging nations.

The 3ePC processor and chipset were not specified, but they are said to be Intel. Asus official said that the 3ePC's graphics processing unit (GPU) would benefit from a unified memory architecture (UMA), which means it borrows memory from the 3ePC's 512MB of DDR2-400 main system memory. He also said that the provided storage is somewhere between 2 and 16 GB of flash.

Among the I/O I could count: a 56K modem, a 10/100 Ethernet, 802.11b/g WiFi. The device benefits from built-in stereo speakers and it also has a 300K-pixel video camera. The four-cells battery is said to be able to maintain the notebook working for three hours.