Asus abandoning mini PC

New chassis better for bigger hands

1 July 2008 11:25 GMT / By Katie Scott

Asus is definitely trying to widen its appeal.

Mid-June, it announced the Asus Eee Box PC - moving away from mini laptops to a low-cost desktop model.

And it has also expanded its line-up from the original Asus Eee (the 701) to include the 900 - the 8.9-inch model unveiled at CeBIT in March and, more recently, the 901, 1000 and 1000(H) models, that claim to "add even more options to users" and run on the 1.6GHz Atom processor from Intel.

But now Asus is reportedly planning to abandon the original Eee PC chassis.

The company is apparently going to replace the Eee PC 900 and the newly-launched Eee PC 901 with two new models, the 904 and the 905.

These will retain the 8.9-inch screen, but, according to a DigiTimes report, put it into the chassis designed for the company's 10.2-inch models.

This means that the company can then make the keyboards bigger on their laptops, but also may have room to add more storage space in the design for, for example, a bigger battery.

And the price of the new machines, if reports are to be believed, are meant to be the same as the 900 and 901.

Asus's UK representatives are keeping quiet at the moment on the rumours.