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Asus Eee PCs upgrade to Intel's Atom

However, a spokesperson for Asus told CNET.co.uk's sister site ZDNet.co.uk on Monday that all versions of the Eee 900 would have XP as an option. The spokesperson added that, although an XP version of the current Eee 701 model would go on sale in the UK in April, the first Eee 900 would only appear here around the end of Q2 or the beginning of Q3. This contradicts what was said by Asus at the CeBIT show in Germany last week, in which it was claimed that the Eee 900 would go on sale from April.

The Asus spokesperson also said that the entry-level Eee 900, which will have 8GB of storage, would cost "around the £250 mark" -- again, this contradicts last week's announcement that the Eee 900 would cost from €399 (£300). The Eee 900 will sport several upgrades over the 701, not least an 8.9-inch screen as opposed to the 701's 7-inch screen.

In his interview, Shen also indicated that Asus was "looking at an option to provide hard drives", although the earliest versions of the Eee 900 "will only support solid-state drives". Current storage limitations might also be overcome by a plan to bundle 10GB of Internet-based storage with the Eee, he added.

The Eee PC has suffered from supply problems in Europe and elsewhere. Acknowledging this as a "serious issue", Shen said the problems stemmed from "a huge shortage of batteries".

"The battery, unfortunately, will remain an issue but I think we can solve the battery issue by May," Shen said. "In Europe, if we can supply the batteries, the sales of the machines will go up to 300,000 or 400,000 per month."

Many manufacturers, including HP and Acer, are planning to launch Atom-based competitors to the Eee later this year, but Shen claimed in the interview that Asus would be able to keep up through "innovation in the style and the electronics".