ASUS is apparently about to start shipping their long anticipated (and oddly named) Eee 701 micro lappy. In fact, they are taking US$150 non-refundable deposits on the diminutive device. Let’s hope that, unlike Palm’s now dead Foleo, that will actually ship this little wonder.

If you are unfamiliar with this unit, it is a very compact PC laptop likely designed around a Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) Intel chipset and a solidstate hard drive. It comes with 512MBs of RAM (max of 1GB), 2GB or 4GB storage capacity, and is pre-loaded with an unspecified Linux distribution (likely Ubuntu). The 2GB unit comes only in black while the 4GB models come in black or white.

The only drawback I see to this unit is its very anemic battery life of 3 hours. ASUS even states this. I’m not sure how that’s going to work. Pricing ranges from US$259.99 to US$399.99 and will supposedly be available starting in early October.

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