ASUS ships designer Eee PC 1002HA to US Dec. 1st

ASUS has confirmed it will bring the Eee PC 1002HA to the US. The netbook is billed as mid-way model between the ordinary Eee PC 1000 series and the upscale S101 with a new part-aluminum shell that slims the shell down to under one inch despite the portable's 10-inch display. The PC maker also estimates about five hours of battery life despite using a small, slimmer two-cell battery.

The 1002HA has the characteristics of most typical high-end netbooks and carries a 1.6GHz Atom, 1GB of memory and a 160GB hard drive. Although ASUS mentions the system optionally coming with Linux on the world market, the American edition is expected only to carry Windows XP. Production netbooks should be available stateside on December 1st and will sell for about $499. [via Laptop]