Asus to limit netbook storage options

While the earliest Eee PC netbooks all came with solid state disks, Asus now offers a wide array of netbook models with either SSDs or higher capacity hard drives. But according to ZDNet, Asus officials are planning to cut back on the number of choices available in any particular country soon.

The idea is that when Asus launches a model in a new country, the company will decide to offer it with either a hard drive or an SSD. But both options won’t be available. At least not in that country.

On the one hand, this could help clear up any confusion about what customers are buying. If the Asus Eee PC 1000HE is sold in the US with a hard drive and no SSD option, then you’ll know what you’re getting when you place your order. On the other hand, as frequently as people complain about the many, many Eee PC model numbers, I’m of the opinion that it’s rarely a bad idea to offer customers more choices.

Of course, this could mean more business for companies like Buffalo which provide third party SSDs for netbooks like the one pictured above.

Posted on Monday, March 16th, 2009, 4:23 pm by Brad Linder

turn.self.off

i would have sold all models with SSD by default, but leave room in the design for a hardrive if the user wanted to pop the cover off…
thequinox

Agreed. The biggest problem is that most netbooks use relatively crappy SSDs, that and the fact that many customers want high capacity drives leaves them implementing HDDs in more and more netbooks.

When I first bought my EEE 701 when they came out, the biggest selling feature for me was the SSD. 4GB? So what? That was enough for WinXP and Office. The point was it was small, but decent quality. These days they are all putting low performance 20GB cards in theme or whatever. More storage space, but substantially slower.

I think the best option would be to design all the netbooks with a 2.5″ bay and then simply drop in either a 2.5″ SSD or HDD depending on the model. Enough with these PCI-E cards. Now that we are getting 10″ netbooks we have the room for the drive bay. Since I have lost faith in netbook manufacturers releasing netbooks with decent SSDs these days, my next purchase will a netbook with an HDD which I will then swap out for a SSD.
Lee

Asus screwed themselves up with all these models and differences. That is one of the reasons why Acer walked in and cleaned their clocks on sales and profits. While Asus was busy doing 900, 901, 901A, 904, 1000A or whatever the hell they were doing Acer offered one or two choices. Dell offered one choice and now they have a whopping 2 choices. Asus could have ruled the roost for years but instead they punked out.
turn.self.off

i would have sold all models with SSD by default, but leave room in the design for a hardrive if the user wanted to pop the cover off…
thequinox

Agreed. The biggest problem is that most netbooks use relatively crappy SSDs, that and the fact that many customers want high capacity drives leaves them implementing HDDs in more and more netbooks.

When I first bought my EEE 701 when they came out, the biggest selling feature for me was the SSD. 4GB? So what? That was enough for WinXP and Office. The point was it was small, but decent quality. These days they are all putting low performance 20GB cards in theme or whatever. More storage space, but substantially slower.

I think the best option would be to design all the netbooks with a 2.5″ bay and then simply drop in either a 2.5″ SSD or HDD depending on the model. Enough with these PCI-E cards. Now that we are getting 10″ netbooks we have the room for the drive bay. Since I have lost faith in netbook manufacturers releasing netbooks with decent SSDs these days, my next purchase will a netbook with an HDD which I will then swap out for a SSD.
Lee

Asus screwed themselves up with all these models and differences. That is one of the reasons why Acer walked in and cleaned their clocks on sales and profits. While Asus was busy doing 900, 901, 901A, 904, 1000A or whatever the hell they were doing Acer offered one or two choices. Dell offered one choice and now they have a whopping 2 choices. Asus could have ruled the roost for years but instead they punked out.
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Asus to limit netbook storage options

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