Gizmodo: asus s101

Hands On Asus Eee S101, Just as Slim and Air-y in Person

Benny Goldman — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:45:00 EDT

We took a look at Asus's Eee S101 today, and as predicted, it's the prettiest looking netbook we've seen since the birth of the category.

It's 2.2 lbs., extremely light and thin, and the chrome finish on the trackpad area is much better looking than the generic plastic of similar models. The 10.2-inch matte screen is compact without straining your eyes, and the keyboard feels bigger than the original Eee's (that or my fingers have gotten smaller to accommodate this segment of the PC industry). The only thing painfully tacky in the S101 is a Swarovski crystal accent on the hinge, but it isn't very obvious until you glance at it.

At $700, it's not exactly cheap for an Atom-powered laptop running Windows XP off of a 16GB SSD, and that's the only configuration you can order up. Still, in addition to its good looks, it's got more inputs than a new MacBook: 3 USBs, a 4-in-1 card reader and VGA video out. It'll arrive in copper brown and graphite; too bad that the champagne paint job, in the Continental's opinion the best suited to accompany the Swarovski accents, won't make it to the US. [Asus]

Asus S101 Looks Thin and Pretty In Real Life, Too

Mark Wilson — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 11:00:00 EDT

While I thought the Asus S101 (or generic Macbook Air, as I'm pretty much insisting on inaccurately calling it from now to eternity) looked great in its CG mockup, these new, real photos reveal the truth: The Asus S101 won't quite fool anyone into thinking you're using a some $2,000 computer, but at .7 inches thick, it's definitely svelte enough to keep things interesting:

Yeah, I'm kind of feeling Asus again. Though, is a $699 starting price too much for this little machine? (Answer: probably not, since only 1,000 will be available in the US at launch.) [Engadget China via Engadget]

More Info on the Asus S101, The MacBook Air that You Can Actually Afford

Mark Wilson — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:33:00 EDT

It's been a while since an Asus product has rocked our world—we think the last time must have been the Eee—but the Atom-powered SSD-based Asus S101 looks amazing for its price—even better than we thought before. Just 2.2lbs and a tapering .7 inches thin (a bit thicker than the Air), its 10.2" LED screen runs at WSVGA (1024x600) resolution. And with 802.11n, ethernet port, Bluetooth, multitouch trackpad, 4-in-1 card reader, 20GB of free online storage and high quality speakers, the S101 packs plenty of useful features—though it only has 1GB of RAM and appears to have the same fatal flaw as the MacBook Air. Yes, the S101 uses a non-replaceable, 5-hour polymer battery.

OK, now that we're done with the specs, how much does the thing cost? It's just cheap enough to be exciting, but not quite as impulse-buyable as the original Eee.

16GB SSD, 16GB SD, Windows XP
$699

32GB, Linux
$699

64GB, Linux
$799

The only catch is obviously that XP is not included in the better configurations. But still, if this rendering is in any way accurate, it looks like Asus may have knocked one out of the park, again.
[HardwareZone]