Asus Eee laptop news and a recent review

(Click on photo to see larger, high resolution version.)

Andrew at Notebookreview.com gives us a close look at the Eee PC 701:

Asus Eee PC First Thoughts

[...] The home screen is very simple and intuitive. You bootup and see the "Internet" tab where you can quickly double click on any icon there to open an application related to the Internet. Double clicking on "Web" launches FireFox for instance. There are six different tabs across the top labeled "Web", "Work", "Learn", "Play", "Settings" and Favorites. Each tab had applications or links to websites underneath that corresponded with the description. For instance under the work tab were Google docs or Open office applications. Under the "Learn" tab was a link to Wikipedia -- often some of the icons when double clicked would just launch websites.

[...]

The keyboard is definitely small and takes some getting used to, I initially found that pecking at keys was faster than doing a normal style fast type. It's just hard not to fat finger the wrong key or two keys at once, even if you have medium sized fingers. The keyboard also had a bit of rattle and shake to it, but it definitely worked for getting the job done. Nobody will use this as their main PC, but if you're at Starbucks and want to surf the web and crank out a few emails, the keyboard is absolutely serviceable for that. I wouldn't write my disseration or anything on it though, you're just asking for carpal tunnel by doing that.

The touchpad worked fine and the single button mouse was easy enough to use, there's no need for a right mouse button in this software environment. [...]

The boot up and shut down times were very fast, and... well, read the whole thing! It's not very long, and There's lots of photos, with high resolution options.

I found out about this review via this site:

Eee User: ASUS EeePC Eee PC 701 and 1001
An unofficial website focusing on the upcoming ultraportable from ASUSTeK

They seem to have all the latest news, and a forum too. A great place to watch for the latest Eee information. And speaking of news, it looks like the release date is now going to be sometime in late August. AND, the machine may sell with a minimum of 8 gigs of flash memory, for $250, but the price has yet to be confirmed. I guess we won't know for sure till it actually offered for sale.