The PC Report

The Asus Eee PC T101MT is the latest touchscreen addition into the Eee PC range – and it also packs a swivel display. The official word on this laptop is that it comes with a 10.1″ swivelling resistive multi-touch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1,024×600, an Atom N450, up to 2GB of RAM and 320GB hard drive, Windows 7, webcam and the usual netbook-style ports and a 6.5 hour max battery life.

As per usual, Asus has denied us info on a price or release time frame, but we also know that with the netbook purchase you get a free one year 500GB Asus WebStorage trial.

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Another Pine Trail Eee PC has surfaced, this time on Amazon.de. Available now for pre-order at ~US$360 is the Asus Eee PC 1001P (what seems to be the little brother of the 1005P/PE) which packs the usual 10.1″ display in a clamshell body alongside a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N450, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive loaded up with Windows XP. Oh, and no dodgy bumpy trackpad! If you pre-order one now it will ship by January 6.

Intel’s latest Atom upgrade to Pineview seems to be all ready to go with the latest Eee PC being revealed and containing the latest Pineview processor. The Eee PC 1005P and 1005PE both have sexy 10.1″ LED backlit displays, Intel Atom N450 processors, 1GB of RAM and GMA 3150 graphics (still not the best of GPUs). The PE carries a larger (250GB) hard drive and a battery that should last up to 12.5 hours.

Of course as these netbooks have yet to be announced, we don’t have a price or release date, however we expect that to be very soon. We do know, though, that the netbooks will pack Windows 7 Starter Edition, which isn’t the greatest of the Windows 7 distros but should suit you just fine. If you’re looking for a new, cheap and small laptop then the latest Eee PC with a Pineview processor should be a good purchase.

The next generation Asus Eee PC has been shown off in an international event. The Eee PC 1201T is one of the first laptops to adopt the AMD Congo platform – the 1201T is going to be powered by the 1.6GHz AMD Neo MV40 and HD 3200 graphics for some netbook grunt comparable to the Intel ION platform. Other internals include 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 250GB hard drive and a 6-cell battery.

All of these bits and bobs will fit inside the sleek looking Eee PC 1201T shell with a 12.1″ display at 1366×768, which unfortunately still carries the borderless trackpad with dimples that many people dislike. No word yet on pricing or availability, but we expect them to be announced soon. It will be interesting to see if 1080p playback really is possible as AMD said…

Asus appears to be ramping up its ROG Connect overclocking system – they’re adding remote Bluetooth control to the list of things it can do. On the back of the Asus Maximus III Extreme motherboard is a button that when pressed, switches from normal control to a Bluetooth system that allows your “Bluetooth-enabled PDA phone” to review their system’s status and tweak settings wirelessly. Sounds pretty cool on paper, but we are yet to see it in action.

The board is set up for the serious, with a P55 chipset for Core i5/i7 processors, five (yes, five) PCIe 16x slots for graphics cards in multiple configurations, 6 SATA 3Gb/s ports and 2 SATA 6Gb/s ports, two USB 3.0 ports and a myriad of USB 2.0 ports and a maximum of 16GB of DDR3 RAM via 4 slots. Apart from the actual motherboard specifications, there is no price or release date as of now.

USB 3.0 is starting to make a push into the retail world, as companies start implementing the technology in their cameras, external hard drives and optical drives. With this push though, you’ll need to upgrade your motherboard to support it, and if you’re an i7 user, this Asus X58 board should suit your needs. Unfortunately though, the Asus P6X58D Premium motherboard only sports two USB 3 ports, however I think we’ll cope for now.

Other features of the board include support for 24 GB (yes, twenty-four) of DDR3 RAM via six slots, three PCIe 16x slots for your graphics expansion cards, two SATA 6Gbps ports plus those two USB 3.0 ports and four USB 2.0 ports and the LGA 1366 slot for your Bloomfield i7 CPU. The motherboard is available now for purchasing for US$310 via Newegg.

Asus axed its last attempt at a USB 3.0 motherboard in July “not for any particularly interesting reasons.” It looks like Asus is having another crack at a USB 3.0 motherboard with the P7P55D-E, which will be supporting SATA 6Gbps alongside USB 3.0 like the cancelled P6X58. Sadly though, the motherboard only carries two USB 3.0 ports, unlike the 10 USB 2.0 ports. SATA 6Gbps is also lacking with only 2 of those ports vs. 6 SATA 3Gbps.

Other than the USB/SATA, the motherboard is designed for the latest Intel i5 and i7 (and upcoming i3) processors with its LGA1156 socket and P55 chipset. It also carries both CrossFire X and SLI with its two PCI-E slots, and can support DDR3 RAM up to 2200MHz. The motherboard will be hitting retailers early next month for US$299.

In a scoop by Times Online it looks as if the next entrant to the Asus Eee series will be the “World’s cheapest” e-book reader. The device’s design is clearly designed to resemble a traditional book, with the two touchscreens representing two pages and will be unveiled by the end of this year.

The Eeebook will offer many features other ebook readers on the market today don’t have. It will have features of a typical laptop too, including speakers, a webcam and a microphone. Asus plan to release a budget version and a premium version of the Eeebook, with the budget version thought to be targeted to be around 100 pounds or US$160. Note that the closest competiting ebook reader currently on the market is nearly double this price.

Asus do what they did with netbooks, and manage to make e-book readers common. Coming from someone who bought an EeePC 701 in the same week it was released, I can’t wait to check this out.

If you looked in our forums a while back you would have noticed the announcement of the Asus MARS GTX 295 graphics card (now known as the Asus Republic of Gamers (ROG) MARS GPU). This card is set to be packing two GTX 285s in the one graphics card, along with 4GB of onboard memory, making it 23% faster than the standard GTX 295.

HotHardware has stated that the card is on it’s way to shelves, but of course you’ll need to be quick to get one, as only 1000 units are being manufactured, each with a custom number on them. Asus has stated that the time and place where you can get these shall be announced via the Asus Official Twitter page. Get your wallets ready though, as it’s going to cost a small fortune.

You might have heard or seen info on the ASUS Eee Keyboard and it’s release date for later this month, but one modder on eee-pc.ru just couldn’t wait to get his hands on one, so he made his own out of an EeePC 900

He stripped down the netbook and shoved all the parts into a wooden casing under the keyboard, minus the screen and battery. His Eee Keyboard features the 900 MHz processor, 1GB RAM and 20GB SSD + WiFi found in the netbook, and while the real Eee Keyboard offers some more beefier specs, this is still a great effort on the part of the modder. Check out some more pics after the break.

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