Asus 3epc
Typical, the one day that I spend very little time browsing the web and this happens. Ultra-portable laptop for $200 (no word on UK retail price). It will be sold around the world (not just to kids with no food or electricity in Africa) and will come with a 2Gb flash memory-based hard drive (no word whether that’s pre- or post-Operating System) – there’ll be 4gb and 6gb ones as well apparently. The specs will not be stellar, but it looks perfect for students taking lectures notes, or typing a letter while on the train, or whatever. Besides, the hard drive size isn’t a big deal, it has USB ports – and a 4Gb USB flash drive now costs about £20. Me want!
EDIT: I was ecstatic about this little thing. Then I found out it even has built-in 802.11g wifi!
EDIT 2: Here the Asus press release and a slow-loading Flash demo site.
EDIT 3: Engadget claims that Asus have given August as the release date. If that’s a global date, it’s in time for the new academic year. Rock on Asus!
EDIT 4: The operating system is Xandros, not Mandriva as originally reported by some sources.