Asus Gears Up to Launch 11-inch Eee PC
Asus is reportedly preparing a late June shipment for its upcoming 11-inch Eee PC netbook, priced at roughly €400 or $555.
It’s been weeks since we first caught wind of Asus’ plans to launch an 11-inch version of the company’s hugely popular Eee PC line. This week the company officially announced the Eee PC 1101HA.
You’re looking at an 11.6-inch ‘netbook’ packing an Intel Atom Z520 processor at 1.33GHz. Slashgear reports that the 1101HA will sport the same “Seashell” styling as the smaller Eee PC 1008HA and 1005HA along with a WXGA 1366 x 768 display, 1 GB of RAM, a 160 GB hard-drive, a full-size keyboard and trackpad, WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth, a full size VGA port and of course the obligatory 1.3-megapixel webcam.
We still stand firm in our belief that anything over 10 inches isn’t really a netbook but the price is pretty competitive when you consider there are smaller netbooks out there that exceeds said price. Where do you guys think the line should be drawn for netbook size? More importantly, do you plan on purchasing one of the 11-inch Eee PCs once they’re available? Let us know!

Seriously, anything with an atom processor in it over $500 has completely lost any sort of value considering entry level laptops start at that price with far better specs.
Seriously, anything with an atom processor in it over $500 has completely lost any sort of value considering entry level laptops start at that price with far better specs.
Will the 11.6" screen sneak in under MS's limit for the cheap version of W7? Maybe that is its reason for being.
I would call it a "netbook" if the size of the keyboard is below what the average person can use to type normally (with two hands).
This will change once screens become OLED as they will go right to the edge hence allowing for large screens. I'd say anything 10" below right now is a "netbook."
I think the term "netbook" is misleading anyway. The difference between "netbooks" and regular laptops is disappearing (aside from size). Even the DVD drive won't matter as many laptops will drop them (as they should).
Why not just call them all laptops?
Then, I bought a refurb 900 series EeePC for $169 shipped from a different store.
That's $548... Yes, I spent $7 less and got TWO computers. One is more powerful,
one is more portable. Hmmm....
These netbook prices are getting totally out of control.
What else is there this laptop has that an Atom does not have?
On the other hand, if you can spare the few mili seconds of lag, the Atom Z processor should run XP or Linux just fine,and give you good battery life.
Though I'd probably prefer a Celeron M processor over this if performance is concerned.
I think width with 1366 pixels for that small 11" wide screen is excessive, with very small letters, horrible to read ! It should be 1152 or even less ! As netbooks are used to access internet, height is more important than width.
I use a 1280x1024 19" (4x3), and I believe it is a good balance for comfortable reading and space for applications.
A netbook needs to be VERY mobile, 3-4 pounds, and have excellent battery life, 6+ hours. But more importantly it should really only have very basic capabilities. The screen size seems to be more based on preference. I think a 13" is very mobile and a 15" isn't all that bad. The reason we normally don't consider larger screens to be more mobile is because usually the larger the screen is, the more the laptop weights.
NetBook for me is (1) low weight, less then 3Lb if possible and no more then 4Lb with battery and charger; (2) reasonable price, (3) enough pixels to make it usable (1024x600 is the absolute minimum, with 1280x800 or more strongly preferred), (4) big enough screen so I do not need a magnifier glass to read it (1366x786 on a 9" screen is useless for me), and (5) usable performance for web surfing, movie / flash playback, and light use of normal office applications (tried out an Asus PC900 with 16GB SSD and was too slow for any use - shipped it back due to unacceptable performance; SSD light continuously on was likely the main culprit, unacceptable slow writes to SSD killed its performance even for looking at my.yahoo). Battery life is not a big issue for me - I have an outlet where ever I am likely to spend more then a couple of hours at a time - but I will take what I can get, given the other restrictions from above. Dual core / hyprethreading is kind of required so the system keeps on responding while one thread is locked in by an errant program.
A third mouse / tablet button (like I have on my Compaq 8510W laptop) comes in really handy for opening new tabs in Firefox / new IE; as it does not take a lot of $$$ to put it in, and it is quite useful, I am amazed so few models have it (pressing both buttons at once simply does not work properly, tried it out in more laptops and netbooks then I can mention here).
Other deal killer for me are the shiny surfaces, specially shiny screen which are common in new laptops - I will not buy at any price a laptop or notebook with a mirror instead of a normal, old style, glare-free LCD. I need to be able to read it with no reflections - no "Crystal Clear" screens I have seen so far come with a lifetime free supply of Windex for the mirror-like surfaces. I would really appreciate if reviewers mention which notebooks / netbooks have such screens, or worse, shiny fingerprint magnet keyboards and cases so I can avoid them....
Uhuh.
What I really want is a slate tablet that does pretty much what a netbook does, for a similar price and with similar features, but without the keyboard (with the ability to add one if needed). When they figure out how to make those for under $300 and 2lbs, with WiFi, Bluetooth and cellular (although there's always Bluetooth tethering), they'll sell like crazy and make netbooks disappear, as they'll be perfect eReaders, web browsers and TV viewers for commuting, travel and such.