Asustek, the first company to conquer the sub notebook market with its Eee 700 netbook is about to launch another Eee brand netbook with built-in optial disc drive (ODD).
The E1004DN will be the first netbook to be equipped with an ODD and will be priced around $531-590. This may be quite odd as this machine is already encroaching the low-cost notebook market. E1004DN has Atom N280 CPU paired with GN40 chipset while low-cost notebook of the same price range has better dual core CPU and bigger display.
The netbook is to be released on April and is no longer the same low-cost netbook built last year. It completely deviates from the concept perceived as an affordable lightweight machine for basic tasks.