Buy your 7in and 8.9in Eee PCs while you can - Asus is going to phase them out next year, company chief Jerry Shen has revealed.

Don't expect it to happen all of a sudden - Shen told DigiTimes it'll happen slowly. However long it takes, it's clear that Asus sees the 10in form-factor as the emerging standard for netbooks.

Shen said HDD-based netbooks amount to 70 per cent of the total number of such machines shipped. Windows XP is ahead of Linux by the same percentage he added.

So the 'standard' netbook next year will be a 10in model with a hard drive and running XP - MSI's Wind or the Asus Eee PC 1000H, in other words.

The good news is that prices will plunge. Shen said he expects the company to launch a $200 (£123/€156) Eee PC next year.

That should help drive worldwide netbook shipments to 20-25m units, which is Shen's forecast for the coming year. He reckons around a third of them will have Asus and/or Eee written on the front.

10in Netbook Reviews
Advent 4213
Eee PC 1000
Carphone Warehouse Webbook
Advent 4211
MSI Wind

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