Want to get a bit more battery life out of your Eee PC? The current generation of batteries come in 4400 and 5200 mAh varieties, which tend to die after 2-3 hours of use. Asus plans to sell a 6-cell, 7800 mAh extended battery soon, which should give you a bit more power. But if you don't feel like waiting for Asus to begin selling extended batteries, you can pick a 3rd party battery on eBay today. Best of all, there are already 3rd party batteries with capacities up to 10400 mAh, which is reportedly enough juice to power an Eee PC for nearly 5 hours.

Asus hasn't announced pricing on its extended batteries yet, but plans to charge $99 for a replacement 4-cell battery. So it's probably a safe bet that the 6-cell version will cost a bit more. These 3rd party 10400 mAh batteries, on the other hand are available for about $64. They ship from China, so you may have to wait a little while to receive your package.

Note that the extended battery does jut out from the back of your computer, which will probably make it hard to fit your Eee PC in its slipcover or other tight-fitting case. But that seems like a small price to pay for a battery that can double your time away from a wall socket.

Bluetooth and a multi-touch trackpad aren't the only surprises we found in the FCC documents related to the upcoming Eee PC 900. The next generation Eee PC will also have a much larger power adapter.

While the current Eee PC power adapter looks more like a cellphone charger than a computer power brick, the Eee PC 900 will ship with an adapter that should look pretty familiar to anyone who's purchased a laptop computer in the last few years. It comes in two parts, a power adapter and a battery power system. Basically, one part converts AC power from a wall socket to DC power, and the other part sends that power to your computer.

The benefit of the new adapter is that it will likely lead to faster charging times. Right now, it takes a ridiculously long time to fully charge an Eee PC, especially if you're using the computer while it's charging. The downside is that the new adapter will be quite a bit bulkier than the current model, making the Eee PC 900 slightly less portable than the Eee PC 701/702, even though the computer itself should be pretty much the same size and weight.

It looks like that rumor that Asus would be adding touchscreen displays to the Eee PC just got a whole lot stronger. Digitimes has received confirmation from Asus VP of sales Kevin Lim.

Lim says the Eee PC 900 with a touchscreen and possibly built-in GPS, should ship in May or June for about NT$15,000 or US$500. It's not clear whether you'll have to get a unit with GPS and a touchscreen, or if these will be optional components.

In other news, a fire at an LG Chem plant in early March has caused a worldwide shortage of laptop batteries, which could affect the Eee PC ship date.




ccording to Kevin Lin, vice president of Asustek's sales department. Pricing is projected to reach NT$15,000 (US$500), Lin added.

The company is also looking to ship its E-DT (desktop PC) priced at US$199 at the same time, according to Lin.

The company aims to ship up to five million Eee PCs in 2008 through retail channels and contract orders combined, with quarterly retail-only shipments expected to total 650,000-700,000 units, according to the company. The device is seeing a 50% supply shortage in the Taiwan and Hong Kong regions and 70% worldwide in the first quarter of 2008.

Lin also pointed out that the company currently is facing a battery shortage for its Eee PCs due to a fire at a plant of LG Chem earlier this month but expects to solve the battery shortage in the second quarter of this year.

The 8.9-inch Eee PC will adopt Intel's low-cost notebook platform and the lowest memory capacity will be upgraded from 512MB to 1GB, while the SSD (solid state drive) capacity will be upgraded from 4-8GB to 8-12GB, according to industry sources.

While the Eee PC is a pretty incredible little computer for the price, there's certainly room for improvement. Sure, it'd be nice if there was more RAM, a faster processor, and more money. But if you really need those things, you can go out and find a computer that sells for 3 or 4 times the price. No, what I really would like to see is a model with a larger, higher resolution screen, better battery life, and shorter battery charge times.

And apparently Asus CEO Jerry Shen agrees. It's not entirely clear at this point what those improvements will do to drive up the cost of the $400 laptop. I'm almost certain a larger screen is going to add at least $50 to the price, if not more. A higher capacity battery could easily do the same, but Asus may also be able to increase battery life by implementing power saving techniques and/or using a different processor than the 800MHz and 900MHz Celeron processors the company is currently packing into the Eee PC lineup.

[via EeeUser]

Asus appears to be launching a line of Eee PC accessories. There's no word on pricing or availability yet, but Asus has added images and specs for several items to the Eee PC website. It looks like you'll be able to pick up a spare charger, battery, or mouse or headset. The mouse comes in several pastel colors, which is umm... exciting. But the thing I'm most thrilled about is the fact that Asus will be selling a 6 cell 7800mAh battery.

The 4 cell battery that comes with the 4G and 8G units is 5200mAh, and lasts for around 3 hours in real life conditions (although it's advertised as a 3.5 hour battery). Hopefully that means you'll be able to get 4-5 hours out of the 6 cell battery.

[via Eee PC World]