ASUS says YES to free SG battery upgrade

Philip Wong | Apr 25, 2008

Good news! ASUS Singapore has finally decided to go ahead with a comparable free extended battery upgrade to match its Hong Kong office.

Currently, customers in the Special Administrative Region are entitled to a free upgrade to the four-cell 5,800mAh battery upon purchase of the ASUS Eee PC 900 which presently sports a lower-capacity 4,400mAh battery. This upgrade is available till end July, although we've learned that future batches of the UMPC will carry the larger-capacity cell.

For Singapore, this was until today not the case. Now ASUS Singapore has decided to follow suit indefinitely, though it isn't clear at this point if future Eee PC 900 stock will offer the 5,800mAh battery.

To be entitled to the free upgrade, Singapore customers will have to get in touch with the ASUS Singapore office for registration together with the original valid invoice from authorized ASUS resellers. Following this, a notification will be sent upon availability of the replacement battery with the original 4,400mAh exchanged in return.

The gen-two Eee PC 900, which is finally coming to Singapore this weekend, will be priced at S$798 (US$563.36) a piece. For the rest of Asia, it is slated for rollout in Thailand this month, followed by Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines in May. We have no word on whether these countries will get a free battery upgrade or not.

Meanwhile, for S$200 (US$141.19) more than the original 4G model, you will be entitled to the following upgrades;

	Eee PC 900	Eee PC 8G	Eee PC 4G
Display size	8.9-inch	7-inch	7-inch
Screen resolution	1,024 x 600	800 x 480	800 x 480
Memory	1GB	1GB	512MB
Storage capacity	12GB (Windows XP) 20GB (Linux)	8GB	4GB
Inbuilt Webcam	1.3-megapixel	0.3-megapixel	0.3-megapixel
Touchpad	Wide multi-touchpad	Touchpad	Touchpad
Weight	0.99kg	0.92kg	0.92kg
Price	S$798	S$768	S$598

In a nutshell, the new 900-series offers higher-resolution screen and Webcam, as well as increased Solid State Drive (SSD) capacity, among others. Speaking of which, you will have a choice of 12GB or 20GB SSD for Windows XP and Linux operating systems, respectively. There're superficial cosmetic variations, with a paltry 10mm increase in depth plus extra 70g bulk.

For those planning to accessorize their new toy, ASUS will be scheduling a tentative June launch for related accessories in time for Singapore's PC Show computer fair. The lineup will include spare power adapter, compact USB Bluetooth dongle, USB mouse, carry case (in the pipeline), and an extended 5,800mAh battery.

Filed under: Notebooks
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ferdiei

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ferdiei says...
price is a disappointment, whereas you could get a full featured ACER laptop with 12-inch display for S$200 more! ASUS is still following the old way of bumping-up the spec of initially released product, then without further price cut on the OLD model, offered incremental price increase from lower spec'd models (not revolutionary after all). they should have drop the price of the 701s then maintained (or close at least) the introductory price of the 900. if tech companies stayed this way, there's no economic benefits to customers they're offering really...

Apr 23, 2008 20:22

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shyoshya

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shyoshya says...
You cant compare this to a full fledge laptop as its not suppose to be.
just like how you cant compare this price to a phone. and personally if i want a full fledge laptop, it will be above 3K.

as for the promotion for HK, i believe after reading the official announcement in the HK asus webby, that the promotion was due to a mis-comm during their roadshow or smth , as they demonstrated using the high-cap batt instead of the lower-cap which was suppose to be bundled.

Apr 25, 2008 11:40

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ferdiei

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ferdiei says...
3k for a full-pledged laptop? you're one rich guy who may afford an Apple-air or even the Thinkpad-X300, but doesn't help the consumer masses (this message or product targeted). we're not even talking about laptops here, but an evolution in form factors versus feature/capability.

good that they will be providing a battery upgrade though.

Apr 25, 2008 21:19

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ink2order

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ink2order says...
This machine is extreme good for people who require a business machines on the move. It is light. In HK, web site pc pop, already introduce which you can get it for HK$3999.00 which with today exchange rate only S$695.00 I think probably will come with Asus 2 year International Warranty. Singapore always sell notebook at a premium price. No doubt it is more expensive here.

Apr 26, 2008 20:36

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