What will be interesting to see is what happens to the attractive price of the eeepc, with windows. The great thing with the current Linux version is we can see what it costs without windows. So if the price difference is small then it will be clear for the world to see that MSFTs pricing is predatory. On the other hand, If it is large then maybe the windows units wont sell because it will be too close to a full laptop.

A couple of other things:

1. How much could a full size linux eeepc be made for? Do you think £250-280 is possible? That could be interesting.

2. I wonder if they will bundle open office with the windows version .............

spegru

No doubt MSFT would play some sort of game to ensure that a Windows-based Eee PC was still reasonably priced. They would not want to create some huge price differential that could be used as a lever in the future.

The above is really moot: Eee PC is underspecced to run Vista and MS would not want to hurt Vista more than it is already by introducing stripped versions. Their easiest course of action is to just ignore Eee PC and hope it goes away.

"The R50A will incorporate GPS, always part of Microsoft's UMPC vision but never implemented until now."

Um, are we forgetting the Nokia N810 with built-in GPS and already shipping? It's ultra-micro and it's a hell of a PC... at least my N800 is.

The included mapping software is absolute crap, though.

And did you notice how you speeled "Microosoft's"? Shame!

Beat me whip me make me do embarrassing things I bought the first of these devices never never never do that. Oh well I like it OK even if there is a couple of dead pixels and you can't see it in bright sunlight. Flame me to death I deserve it. The dead bird is for me to eat.

Part of the appeal of the EEE PC beyond the size is the low price, robustness to viruses and inovative interface. These are all things that the machine will probably lose if moving to windows, so I am not sure future versions will look as appealing to users.

Don't be sad Alan, you've got a light weight, compact, fast and cheap tool there. By the time the mark II comes out with the bigger screen and M$ onboard, you'd be hard pushed to tell it apart from all the other budget laptops available.

You only have to look at the enthusiast forums, when was the last time you saw so much fuss about one laptop? At £200 people don't mind pulling the top off and poking about.

If the mark II comes as M$ only, and therefore lack the required linux drivers, I'll still be buying a £200 mark I.

As a slight aside, Asus, forget all this wimax b*llox, you've got an RJ11 on the side of the Eee, now give us a damn V90/V92 for it, I've got several perfect buyers for Eees, if only you had a modem in it!

(And before anyone says USB Modem, find me one with linux drivers in the UK... Ta!).

I have no need for Windows Vista, I don't play games which need powerful graphics cards, what I wanted was a portable machine that I could use on the train (thanks National Express for the free wifi by the way) for replying to emails, this sort of thing (yes I'm using it at the moment) and entertainment (great for watching movies)

For me the current eeePC is perfectly good

You just beat yourself, whipped yourself and made yourself write an embarrassing comment. Keep up the good work ;)

(Try 3 hours at Gas Mark 5).

just popped in to ask for a comparison with Nokia's N8x0.

According to the BBC "The entry level Eee with Wimax will cost about $999, according to reports. "

Assuming MS give a decent price for XP_Lite, the current £180/$370 entry price might creep up to $499, so that makes $500 for the WiMAX module!!!!.

Give me a HSPA dongle or module for <$200 that I can use globally anyday

I would imagine an EEE desktop would be less than that, since even small form factor desktops are much cheaper to manufacture than laptops. Until recently, Wall-Mart in the US sold low-end mini-ITX linux boxes for about $300 I recall.

Kudos to El Reg for managing to conjure up yet another excuse to use that picture!

Also I will add the usual comment that I bought an EEE before Christmas and it seriously rocks!

BBC are saying $999 for the entry-level WiMax Eee. Surely not?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7173582.stm

I doubt it, at least, I really hope not. That's probably like £550 once you include import tax. I'm not sure how a slightly larger screen and a different miniPCI card can more than double the cost.

Theres got to be more to it. Maybe we will find out when we get some pictures.

Personally I'm looking forward to the 10" model which is also omitted from CES. I hope this doesn't mean that ASUS are out of touch with their fans.

But is it as good as my P3 Toshiba Portege running Windows 2k which last 3 hours on one 3ah battery has an 11.3" screen and was built at the turn of the century complete with wifi connectivity ?

I got one for a few weeks. The little thing is actually very lovely, no bulk of notebook, more functional than nokia tablet. Please don't make it bigger and heavier - it won't compete with a regular notebook.

I bought one of these, and love it, My missus loves it , my kids love it, even my co workers (several M$ fanboys included) love it as well. . But if it was bigger, cost 300 quid and had Xp on it , would anyone be interested ? probably not as there are loads of 350 quid full size laptops in PC world right now.

What asus should do is look at what the comunity is doing (adding bluetooth etc) and explore this. Ignore your customers at your peril !

...there she is! I missed her. Well, not really, but not a bad picture to see, cellulite and all.

"given the undoubted low level of Linux driver support for WiMax hardware"

Erm, so what exactly is Intel currently demoing at CES??? That's right, Memron based devices running Linux, Wi-max included. There's not an Intel chip from CPU to graphics to wireless that ships these days without an open-source Linux driver for it.

"The R50A will incorporate GPS, always part of Microsoft's UMPC vision but never implemented until now."

Actually, the R50A predecessor (the R2H) features built-in GPS too - available since way back in August 2006! Also a long time before the N810.

Just thought I'd point that out.

Hi

First - I love it....and I want it!

But the one thing holding me back is the low screen res ...so I'm gonna wait and see what's out by the end of the summer - even if the screen is still 7", I'd like to see a better native screen resolution in Linux!

Can anyone tell me - 2 questions - is there any kind of S-Video support, and can I add a card with a SIM in it for mobile connectivity using HSDPA - or is that what the WiMax is for (I thought that was still in it's infancy)?

thanks

Philip