Asustek Eee PC 8G Delays, New Products (No Touchscreen)

Asus Eee PCEarlier this week, DigiTimes reported on Asustek’s woes in regards to rolling the Asus Eee PC 8G out to consumers. According to Asustek, the problem is both flash memory and battery related:

Asustek company president Jerry Shen admitted SLC NAND flash is running tight, although he noted that the shortage of batteries is more of a concern for the company.

Asustek claims that the Asus Eee PC 8G will begin shipping again in 1-2 weeks.

Today, DigiTimes mentioned that there will be no touchscreens coming to the upcoming next generation of the Eee PC lineup:

In other news, Shen also pointed out the company’s market research has determined that touch screen is not a highly demanded feature for Eee PC customers, and therefore it will suspend plans to include the option of a touch screen panel in the next generation of Eee PCs.

In addition, the Eee line will be adding a couple of new members to the family, this time expanding it radically from the 7″ Eee PC laptops we’ve already seen. The new products are:

E-DT : Desktop PC, April-May launch, Initially an Intel Celeron, and moving to Intel’s Shelton ’08 based on Diamondville CPUs and the Intel 945GC chipset, with an expected price of $200 – $300
E-TV : 42″ LCD TV with Linux-based PC functionality of other Eee PC products, September launch, No more than $200 over TVs in the same range.
E-Monitor : September launch, All-in-one computer, similar to the Apple iMac or Dell’s XPS One, with a 19-21″ monitor and built-in TV capabilities. Asustek is aiming for a price of $499. Also based on Intel’s Shelton ’08.

While those are not ultraportable laptops, it’s interesting that Asustek is expanding the Eee family, and chances are they will work to have the 7″ Eee PC laptops integrate with those products, since they’ll naturally compliment one another.