Asus will this month further muddy the netbook waters by releasing an Eee PC with an optical drive. The E1004DN will have the usual Atom N280 CPU, a 120GB hard drive and the HD-capable GN40 graphics chipset. Presumably it will also have the usual complement of SD card reader, triple-USB ports and six-cell battery.
We’re stumped. Why would Asus stick a battery-sucking, space-eating optical drive in such a tiny machine? With an optical drive, is this even a netbook anymore? And, most urgent of all, where will Asus put the drive? We guess that the machine will become a lot thicker to accommodate the spindle, therefore breaking the purse-ability (yes, we made that one up) of the netbook.
The price, too, is a little steep — NT$18,000 to 20,000, or $530 to $590. That’s a lot more than a netbook. In fact, it’s close to cheap notebook territory. We understand why many people want an optical drive inside a full-sized notebook — it doesn’t make my MacBook too big, for instance, and it’s useful for ripping CDs and DVDs. But in a netbook? We’d say that if you need an optical drive, it’s more practical to just buy and external USB burner. Cheaper, too.
Asustek to launch new Eee PC with built-in ODD in mid-April [Digitimes vis MSI Wind Forums]
Photo: Matt Biddulph/Flickr
