Asustek's latest Eee PCs shipping in Asia in July

Asustek Computer's newest Eee PC mini-notebooks with Intel Atom microprocessors will be on store shelves across several countries in Asia this month, including Australia, Japan and South Korea, a company representative said Friday.

The devices are also already shipping to Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

So far, the latest versions of the popular Eee PC, the 901, 1000 and 1000H, are already available in Asustek's home market of Taiwan along with Hong Kong.

The new mini-laptops all run on 1.6GHz Intel Atom microprocessors and come with either a Linux or Microsoft Windows XP OS.

The Eee PC 901 is the smallest of the new devices. It weighs around 1 kilogram and has an 8.9-inch screen. Internally, the mini-laptop carries 1G byte of DRAM and either a 12G byte or 20G byte SSD (solid state drive) for storage. It costs NT$16,988 (US$559) in Taiwan.

Pricing for all of the devices will vary by market.

The Eee PC 1000 and Eee PC 1000H sport 10-inch screens, larger keyboards than the 901 and weigh between 1.3 to 1.5 kilograms, depending on whether a user chooses an SSD (solid state drive), which is lighter, or an HDD (hard disk drive) for storage. The H in Eee PC 1000H stands for HDD, the 80G byte storage drive inside.

The Eee PC 1000 and 1000H are also a bit more expensive. While prices will vary by market, in Taiwan, the Eee PC 1000, which runs on Linux only and carries a 40G byte SDD, costs NT$19,988 (US$658), compared to NT$18,988 (US$625) for the 1000H, which comes with either Linux or Windows XP.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.