Following the introduction of what appeared to be a value-pack in the UK where the 600Mhz non-bluetooth Q1 Ultra was being packaged with the keyboard and organiser pack for 500 pounds [aff link] , it appears Samsung Germany are dropping prices too. The price for the 800Mhz Q1 Ultra, 60GB, 1GB with XP at Amazon.de has just dropped from 1100 to 899 which brings it nearer to the 850 price of the R2E. The HSDPA version is steady at 1200 which is very expensive in comparison now.

200 Euros is a great price saving but you’d think that after one year of sales, Samsung would have some flexibility and drop it into a consumer pricing zone. 900 Euros still isn’t attractive to most consumers.

Compare it to an Eee PC 701 and you get these features with my estimated end-user value in brackets.

• Higher screen res + Touchscren (100 Euros value)
• 60Gb storage (50 Euros value)
• Bluetooth (20 Euros value)
• Lighter and smaller (value depends on user but no keyboard offsets that.)
• XP Tablet edition (100 Euros value)
• 1GB RAM (50 Euros value)

That’s a total of 320 Euros value for 600 Euros higher cost. Personally I regard the Samsung Q1 Ultra as a much better device than the Eee PC and I put a very high value on its mobility and flexibility but for most people, that’s simply not the case.

Update: Marc points out that the 600Mhz version in the UK can be had for 449 pounds (565 Euros) making it very comparable with the Eee PC 701 + 40Gb HDD + XPTE + Touchscreen + Higher Res + 1GB upgrade + Lighter and smaller.

Here’s a question: If the Q1 Ultra was 599 Euro, which would you buy. The Q1 or the Eee PC 701?

Samsung Q1 Ultra Pro 800 Besar 7 Zoll WSVGA Tablet-PC (Intel Pentium 1GHz, 1GB RAM, 60GB HDD, WinXP Tablet PC Edition)

This very brief bit of info from Current in Australia could be read one of two ways. Either you read it that ASUS is launching a new, tablet version of the Eee PC and you get excited about the prospect of a new sub-$400 ultra mobile PC or you take a wider view and consider that ASUS already have 3 versions of the R2 touchscreen devices already on low-power platforms, one that never launched and another two devices launching with Atom. [Click on images about for details.] The current R2E is already a very good value device and a small bit of re-engineering and re-marketing could easily see this launched as a low-cost Eee-branded UMPC. Moving an old design into a new brand to give it a boost makes total sense to me and although it wouldn’t be ‘new’, I’m sure a new price would stimulate a lot of interest.

We’re just finalising a review of the R2E which will be up next week and I’m going to follow up with a post that shows how the R2E is just a re-marketing exercise away from being an R2Eee

Via Liliputing on Twitter.

The 901 is ussemed to be the Atom-based version of the 900 which makes sense but isn’t 100% confirmed yet. There aren’t any more details to accompany the images either but I feel sure we’ll see more of this and many other Atom-based devices at Computex in a few weeks. It looks nice apart from the shiny plastic buttons up by the battery. I’m sure it’s going to look even better in black though.

Blogeee.net have a whole load of images so check out their site.

This must be a typo right? Buy.com are offering an Eee PC 900, SKU EEEPC900-W012X, with a 1.7Ghz Celeron processor. Click the image on the right to see the details. [Buy.com product link.] The same is also appearing at ZipZoomfly.

I wonder if this is an attempt to sneak a high-end Eee PC 900 out of the door with Windows XP before the rules change!

Thanks, whatever7, for the tip.

What is there to say about the Eee PC 900 that JKK hasn’t already covered yet? It’s mobile, productive and people absolutely love it. The big question is, do you need a small, lightweight, good value mobile computer like the Eee PC 900 or do you want a mini-laptop like the HP2133 and MSI Wind, devices that are trying to balance themselves between ultra mobile and sub-notebooks. There’s not much between all the netbook devices which makes it a difficult choice. Hopefully this 35-minute info-packed video will help you decide!

Source: JkkMobile.

More information, links and specs in the EeePC 900 summary page.

UMPCPortal have been fortunate enough to be able to build some good relationships with resellers over the last few years which means there’s a nice two way channel for information that can go to and from potential customers.

For example, yesterday I contacted Gigabyte about the rumored 912, 8.9" netbook and I should be getting some official news very soon. In the other direction, came the following information for UK and Australian customers…

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