Asus has an interesting notice on their CES 2008 page. The notice is titled “WiMAX Today. WiMAX Tomorrow.” and says the following:

“Join ASUS, Intel and Sprint to learn about the state of WiMAX technology, preview next-generation mobile solutions (including the next generation EeePC) and immerse yourself in tomorrow’s wireless protocol. “

It seems clear that Asus and Sprint plan to build WiMAX, a long-range wireless data transfer technology, into the Eee PC. An Eee PC that includes a wireless connection to the internet anywhere would be cool, but this poses a few issues. First, WiMAX is not even rolled out yet. Sprint plans to roll it out in some major cities in 2008, but if you don’t happen to live in one of these cities, the WiMAX would be useless until Sprint rolls out more cities. Second, one of the main appeals of the Eee PC is the low price point. Similar services with current cellular technologies cost around $50-$60, which sort of ruins the point of an inexpensive laptop. Asus and Sprint could go for a Kindle-like approach where there is no monthly service and the cost is built into the cost of the hardware. Again, though, that would put the Eee PC at a much higher price point. Since I am sure Asus has considered this issue, they may surprise us with a much better solution than anything I have mentioned here.

The launch event is set for January 7th, so the details should be clear soon enough, although I dobut that there will be a real product avaliable for several months if not a year or more. Still, when the product finally comes out, it could be one of the coolest laptops ever.

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