A part of the future of mobile computing? The Asus Eee PC 701 starting at $199

I didn’t make it to Computex so this post is based on the news reports. Probably the most interesting product shown, at least to me, is the new, 2.5 lb Asus Eee PC 701. Based on an Intel processor, a small LCD display, and 2GB flash drive, the $199 notebook PC is targeted as a second notebook. The idea of the Ultramobile PC never made sense to me; why pay 1.5 – 2.5 more than a base laptop for a smaller PC with a ton of compromises? The Eee PC has a reasonable size keyboard, a small, but apparently usable display, and what appears to be a Linux OS. The only compromise is in the amount of storage. Now if they would just implement good utilities to allow you to access Internet-based storage like Amazon S3 or a Windows Home Server, as long as you’re connected to the Internet you could have access to all the storage that you need. And with online apps like Google Apps and Documents and Google Gears, it looks possible that you could do a lot of work whether connected or not. Suddenly 2GB of onboard storage doesn’t seem so restrictive.  Now as long it has built-in wifi or accepts a 3G card.
I’m looking forward to buying one of these when they launch in the retail channel in 3Q07. Now the only question is which one to buy… the 7″ model for $199 or the 10″ model for $299.