ASUS S101 drops Eee badge, chases Air crowd

The S101 notebook that once topped ASUS' Eee PC listings is being refocused against designer ultraportables such as the MacBook Air, based on details provided by company chief Jerry Shen. The 10-inch system will still run a 1.6GHz Atom processor like other netbooks but will lose the Eee PC badge due to its higher-priced and more exotic design; the piano-gloss casing is between just 0.63in and 0.83in thick despite the small screen, Shen notes.

Like its possible Apple influence, the S101 will also rely on a large amount of solid-state storage as its key selling point but sit above other models in price as a result. A base version with a 32GB drive will be priced significantly above the the Eee PC 1000 at $699 in the US, while a 64GB version will be available for $899. ASUS hopes to ship the S101 in mid-September for at least the Taiwan area and should follow suit for North America; no mention is made of whether the pricing includes Linux or Windows. [via iTech News Net]

S101 (below) versus 8.9-inch Eee PC 901 (top)