DigiTimes reports that Asus is preparing a notebook with a 10.2 inch display, an Intel Atom CPU, and hard drives with up to 320GB of storage capacity. And these notebooks will not bear the Eee PC name. Instead, they’ll be called the Asus N-series.
For a company that’s already done a lot to dillute the Eee PC brand name by releasing over a dozen laptops with similar names, the move seems a bit odd. The N-series will reportedly start at NT$15000 or about $479 US, which puts these computers squarely in Eee PC territory when it comes to both price and size. The only thigns I can see that really would really set these laptopss apart are the facts that they run Windows Vista and have high capacity hard drives (which might be part of the reason they run Windows Vista — Microsoft is only granting low cost laptop makers the right to use Windows XP on devices with slower processors and smaller hard drives).
If DigiTimes is correct, the N-series should be available in September.
[via Register Hardware]