Asus cuts Eee PC storage options

Asus plans to offer fewer storage options for users of its Eee PC netbook range, a company representative said on Monday.

The manufacturer's spokesperson told ZDNet UK that, while Eee PC models are currently available in each country with a choice of hard-disk drive (HDD) or solid-state drive (SSD), the company will from August offer only one version per model in any given country.

"We plan to make the product line a lot clearer for consumers," Asus's spokesperson said. "Currently you have a lot of choice of SSD and hard disk, but we plan to find the one consumers want the most and make the choice easier."

The spokesperson stressed that Asus would still manufacture HDD and SSD options for each model, but would choose which version to sell in each market.

Asked whether UK users would be offered HDD or SSD versions, the spokesperson said the decision would depend on the model in question, with "high-end" models generally coming with SSDs and "mainstream" models with HDDs.

SSDs are faster and more robust than HDDs, but are also significantly more expensive. As a larger memory capacity costs more to manufacture, SSD options in current netbooks tend to offer much less storage space than HDD options. However, Asus also bundles varying amounts of hosted online storage with many of its netbooks, independently of whether a particular model of Eee PC uses an SSD or an HDD.

Dell started to use a similar strategy in February for its Mini 10 netbook.