Lightweight Windows 7 pre-Beta on Eee PC 1000H looks very promising

Sure, Windows 7 will run just fine on a thick slab of screaming desktop, but what everyone's really wondering is how it'll perform on laptops, or better yet, down-market netbooks. The very same stage that put Linux into the grubby hands of the Wal-mart consumer and forced Microsoft to extend the life of XP just to stay in the game. It's all pre-beta stuff for now mind you, but Laptop loaded up its early Windows 7 build onto an Eee PC 1000H (10-inch, 1.6GHz Atom, 1GB RAM) with decent results. For the most part, it ran "pretty well" with Laptop managing to get the netbook's features working from the XP drivers supplied by ASUS. And just as Microsoft demonstrated, the relatively lightweight Microsoft OS required just 485MB of RAM when Windows 7 was fully loaded, sans applications of course. Hot. There were some problems with graphics performance as demonstrated by jumpy, 720p video playback and video conferencing over Skype. Still, pre-beta is exactly that, pre-beta. Drop a gold-release Windows 7 OS onto an Eee PC convertible touchscreen and Microsoft and ASUS might be on to something come mid 2009.
Resource -Engadget

ASUS CEO: Windows 7 touchscreen Eee PCs in mid-2009, $250 model on the way

We heard the rumor now ASUS' CEO, Jerry Shen, confirms in an interview with Laptop that ASUS will slap a touchscreen and Windows 7 into a new Eee PC sometime in the second half of 2009. A statement likely to make a few project managers at Microsoft uncomfortable as that cuts into the official early 2010 padding built into their Win7 Gantt charts. The touch-enabled Eee PC model(s) could come in the form of a convertible tablet although Shen wouldn't specify -- he only promised more details in Q1, presumably at CES. Unsurprisingly, ASUS has no plans to put Vista onto Eee PCs at all. Also noteworthy is the introduction of "more exciting" Eee PC rigs in Q1 and Q2 in prices ranging from $250 (yes, $250) to $700. Steadily inching closer to that ellusive $199 Eee PC.

Other interesting points from the interview:

• Eee Top all-in-one PC will be released at the end of this month
• EeeStick (and compatible games) is to be released soon as both an Eee PC bundle and as a separate accessory (depending upon country) priced somewhere between $50 and $100
  
• Two new "Eee products" (not Eee PCs if we read this correctly) will be announced in January
  
• Eee PC devices will be limited to 10-inch, and smaller displays -- Shen describes the netbook as a platform to consume content whereas a laptop is for creating content
• ASUS is focused on improving battery life and startup times on future Eee PCs -- adding more power, like dual-core Atoms, is not a priority
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• Resource - Engadget