ASUS' popular Eee PC gets a screen, memory boost

The wait is nearly over for an Eee PC with a larger screen. DailyTech reported in early January that ASUS was hard at work on an 8.9" version of its wildly popular Eee PC sub-notebook. Today, images and details are finally rolling out for the highly-anticipated update.

Engadget was able to fondle ASUS's new Eee PC at CeBIT, but ASUS officials would not allow the publication to boot the machine up -- likely for fear of spilling the beans on the Eee PC's processor/chipset. However, we do know that the Eee PC 900 will feature 1GB of memory and will be available in storage capacities up to 12GB (up from 8GB max on the current Eee PC).

As previously reported, the 8.9" display should have a 1024x600 resolution which is a welcome jump from the confining 800x480 display on the first-generation Eee PC. The increase in screen real estate made a minimal impact on the exterior dimensions of the device -- the Eee PC 900 is slightly larger and thicker and features a larger touchpad. The keyboard looks to identical to the previous model.

According to Engadget, the larger display will have a negligible impact on battery performance with battery lifetime quoted at 2.5 to 3 hours.

We will have to wait until tomorrow to get the full specifications for ASUS' Eee PC 900 -- at that time, we'll learn if the new model will use a traditional Mobile Celeron processor as its predecessor or one of Intel's new Atom processors.

ASUS says that the Eee PC 900 12G will launch in mid-2008 with a price tag of €399 ($600 USD).

Source from DailyTech