"Eee PC 701 and friend: looking forward to a hard drive"

You just couldn't resist it, could you!

But, apart from even more excuses to run that pic, the news is more than welcome

are you ever going to run out of tag lines for "that photo" or run out of excuses to show it again - I'm not complaining....

Indeed.

Their supply of the 701 Eee PC in both its 2GB and 4GB SDD variants has been awful. The things have been as rare as hens teeth. The sceptical would say that Asus did this in purpose to drive up interest and demand, while having no intention to cater for the latter.

For certain the 900 Eee PC will be a hit over and above the 700 so one has to hope that Asus get it more right this time. There is absolutely no point having this "groundbreaking technology" if no-one can get their hands on it.

Paris - 'cos I, too, was sad not to be able to get my hands on a 4GB Asus Eee PC for love nor money.

Babe notwithstanding, I've been watching Eee evolve and on the whole I like the idea and I really like the price. Be a shame to blow it by forcing me to go with someone else's choice of wireless provider.

That's a really good way to get me to buy someone else's product.

Don't you just hate it when you lie on a beach and end up with sand in the most awkward of places...your keyboard, your USB ports...

Mine's actually a large towel

Seriously, she isn't

paris, because she isn't either

Come on Shen, bring on on-board HSDPA. I see that planned competitor devices have it in their specs.

This will be good for two reasons: mobile net access, obviously. But once they incorporate room for a SIM we'll start to see these devices advertised for free* on mobile network contracts.

*That's free on an 18-month contract of course. But at £15 a month I'd have one. It's gotta be the future.

Logic Supply in the US sells an adapter to use a CF card as a 2.5 in laptop drive:

http://www.logicsupply.com/products/cfdisk_2g

as well as a line of flash ide replacement modules.

Anyone got an old laptop to experiment with ? 4G would cost less than $100, and get a bigger screen. Battery life unknown, and I would put a lot of ram in it, to minimize swapping.

I quite like the idea of having this sold by the cellcos etc so long as

(a) the deal isn't exclusive ie the current channels continue, preferably with *much* better supply

(b) the price is right (say, free on contract, maybe the same as a £200-retail smartphone)

(c) the PC isn't subject to the traditional operator lock-down tactics (I can live with a long contract, I do mind being restricted in what I can do with *my* equipment).

This is an IT website, she's wearing a bikini.

'Nuff said.

Well done.

Just wanted to tell El Reg here I don't ever want to see an Eee PC article ever WITHOUT the obligatory beach babe.

I think El Reg should sponsor a small competition for the best photoshopped mermaid's tail on eeePsie girl. Then we wouldn't have to keep looking at the cellulite.

... Asus, do something about the analogue modem situation.

The 701 has an RJ11 plug with no circuitry behind it, and finding a Linux friendly USB modem (at least in the UK) seems impossible.

You aim the 701 at the new/casual user, so why do you seem to assume they are going to have a wifi enabled broadband router? I personally know of 3 pensioners who would buy one tomorrow for casual email and a bit of web if only it could do dial up.

I have been waiting for over 2 months for my 5 x 701 and cant see them arriving anytime soon. Does this increase my excitement about future models? No infact it makes me think what is the point in ordering future ones if they are going to have the same supply issues.

Yes they may have sorted out the supply issues by then but i fear that there is enough people annoyed about it that they will go elsewhere anyway so if Asus are doing this on purpose then i think it will have a negative effect.

Matt

I'm on the verge of concluding that these things just don't exist. I've had two 701s on order for 3 months now with no idea of a delivery date. Not only was Christmas missed, now the first birthday of the year will soon pass. Until yesterday, Expansys were showing 1 more day's wait on both white and black 701, today the black one's gone back out to 7 days (not that that means anything).

No point in preannouncing new products, colourful variants of the existing if they can't deliver. They'll need to send that girl from the beach round to my house with the 701s tucked under her arm to restore my confidence. Asus need to get their supply chain in order immediately otherwise they'll lose all credibility. I have never seen such inability to execute.

"Their supply of the 701 Eee PC in both its 2GB and 4GB SDD variants has been awful. The things have been as rare as hens teeth. The sceptical would say that Asus did this in purpose to drive up interest and demand, while having no intention to cater for the latter."

And why would Asus drive up demand - then not bother to sell anything?

Or perhaps, just perhaps, they were surprised by demand and were unable to ramp up production enough (or as intimated in the article, their battery supply was inadequate). Sorry, does that make too much sense? I'll get my coat - it's the non-sceptical one.

Just got back from Taipei and can happily report Guanghua market abounds with the white 701s. None apparently under £200 though so not actually worth the hassle of bringing one back to blighty. If you don't mind a white one then your local Toys R Us might be a good bet...

Last month my local Toys R Us had white 4G 701s in stock to take away, and PC World has also had them in stock recently - check the Eeeuser forums for more information on where to buy one.

Gold lamee swimsuit would sort of fit the democratic market segment of the eee, don't you think?

What are all these comments about supply issues? This can't be a UK problem because I could have 10-20 of the 7in EEE's delivered tomorrow if I wanted them.

I went into Micro Anvika a fortnight ago and paid for an EEE (100% deposit so I'd go to the head of the queue, 'cos I'm a selfish bastard). Got a phone call four days later saying it's waiting for me, collecting it tomorrow.

Although supplies have been a bit limited, anyone who has waited months should be kicking their retailer, not Asus. Incidentally, there are plenty of the 512MB/2GB ones around at about £200 inc VAT. I reckon that's a serious market knowledge cock-up on Asus' part - when the thing's only a two hundred quid, who wants to save 10% enough to cripple the storage?

Julian Bond wrote"

"I think El Reg should sponsor a small competition for the best photoshopped mermaid's tail on eeePsie girl. Then we wouldn't have to keep looking at the cellulite."

Geez Julian, I'm not complaining!

If that's all the cellulite she's got then she's welcome to check out my PC any time she likes and I'm more than happy to rub suncream onto those legs :-)

Err, that sounds like the phone...

I have an eee Pc and it's main selling point is size and lack of moving hard drives, so you can carry it without worrying, and as it is so small you forget half the time it is there. So you end up sitting on it half the time. It rocks.

But it annoys me that by may you can buy one of the new versions, but the month after you might get a different colour and you could at a later date get a hard drive and then you might also get 3g.

how many variants, models and versions are they planning. The whole point of the asus was it had two models, big and small, everything else was the same. Granted in some countries, big and small were far from equal. :) Us had the 8g and 2g, we got the 4g and 2g.

That is the most annoying thing. Just get it all sorted then ship it with all included in a range of colours.

And where were the pastel shades for the eee 701. My eee pc box has them on but they are not for sale.

Lots of retailers have them available to pre-order, stock checker http://www.pc-how-to.com/laptops/asustek-eee-pc.htm, but never actually have them in stock, whilst others do manage to get them in for a short while until they sell out.

Do you think those who allow pre-ordering are only filling pre-orders and not stocking up, or are they just not trying hard enough? Has anybody who has pre-ordered from the likes of dabs actually recieved the goods?

More importantly, are there any other shots of the beach babe?

I know the bikini babe is distracting, but did everybody miss the caption? ... waiting for a HARD DRIVE. ? Sorry for the big letters, but really, where's your imagination? Apparently not down in the gutter with mine. As for the EEE, I have had no trouble getting a black 4G model in the States (hate white), have purchased two in the last month, in fact. The first was a mistake only because I ordered a surf on ebay and wanted a webcam. I'd like to have an 8G, but if they're releasing it with XP, forget it. I don't like paying for an operating system I don't use. Otherwise, the EEE is very smart, very upgradeable and very open, especially for an inexpensive item.