Asus Eee PC celebrates first birthday with sub-$300 price
Just one year after the launch of the Eee PC, Asus is celebrating its surprise success -- and consumers are finding the device on sale in unlikely places for less than the cost of an iPhone.
Asus is largely responsible for the current "netbook" craze. It was not the first company to offer shrunken notebook computers, and it certainly does not offer the most elegantly designed, but through the proper balance of price, power, and availability, the Eee PC legitimized a form factor with an uncertain future.
Apple was even rumored to be launching a netbook, and when it didn't surface this week, many analysts and customers asked why.
But only one month before the Eee PC was released in Taiwan, the Palm Foleo sub-notebook was cancelled due to a generally negative consumer response. The opinion at that time was that the Foleo was too expensive and too underpowered to be desirable.
Once Asus' Eee was released in the U.S., however, opinions changed. It was not a quirky UMPC, and it was not the "glorified Treo keyboard" that some considered the Foleo to be. There was a period of time this year where the Eee's form factor didn't even have a name, despite the deluge of similarly designed products that followed.
Earlier this month, Asustek announced that it had shipped over four million Eees thus far. And research firm IDC released its quarterly PC market findings this week (PDF Available here) showing that this is because Eee's release couldn't have been more perfectly timed. Due to global financial turmoil, tech budgets shrank, and the low-cost portable PC became more attractive.
Though the Eee brand now encompasses a number of products by Asus, various flavors of the Eee netbook can now be obtained for under $300 at some of the U.S' most popular retail locations. Best Buy carries the 900A for $299; Target sells several models for $299, and Costco continues to sell a variety of Asus netbooks.
Even Toys R' Us now sells Asus' original breakthrough model, the 701, for $269.