ASUS EEE PC Seashell Range noticed with Windows 7 in Italy’s Online Stores

Looks like very soon ASUS is going to announce Windows 7-based Seashell netbooks. Current Seashell models (1005HA (299 Euros), 1008HA (399 Euros) and 1101HA (399 Euros) ) are being spotted in some online stores.

The EEE 1101HA is complemented with Windows 7 Home Premium instead of Starter Edition like the 1005HA and 1008HA. Reason being the fact that in most of the countries, it is being sold with Windows Vista Home Premium. Also, looks like all of them will be undergoing HDD upgrades too. 160 GB are things of the past now and 250GB HDD will be used as new standard. Also 2GB RAM will come as default instead of 1GB.

Commentary: ASUS Eee PC currently comes with Windows XP and it is nice that ASUS is on toes in rolling out Windows 7 based netbooks. The Seashell netbooks, especially EEE 1008HA and EEE 1005HA, both have enjoyed enormous success and Windows 7 will make things only better.

Also read: EEE 1008HA review

ASUS to offer FREE Windows 7 upgrade for EEE 1101HA and EEE 1005HA

ASUS has finally made their upgrade policy for the Microsoft’s upcoming OS official. To qualify for free upgrade, you must buy an ASUS laptop or netbook between June 26, 2009 and January 31, 2010 that runs Windows Vista Business, Vista Home Premium or Vista Ultimate.

Call it fortunate or unfortunate, but most of the netbooks come with Windows XP OS. That said, there are two models that do become eligible to the upgrade: EEE 1101HA (with Vista Home Premium) and EEE 1005HA (with Vista Business)

[Check if you ASUS model is eligible for an upgrade]

Windows 7 to cost less than Windows Vista; upgrade details inside

Today, the Microsoft has finally announced the retail and upgrade prices of Windows 7. The differences in price are much more notable when you compare them to the prices of Windows Vista. The Home Premium upgrade version has dropped $40 and the Ultimate upgrade version has dropped $40. 

However, if you preorder Windows 7 upgrade, you can get it at a really low price if you are living in US, Canada, UK, Japan, France or Germany.

Get it from Microsoft Store

Fujitsu To offer Windows 7 upgrades, but will cost you money

Unlike Apple, most of the companies that sell Windows-based laptops do charge a little amount for the upgrades. Fujitsu has announced that it will also provide Windows 7 upgrade for most of its models, but upgrades won’t be made available for free.

Atom N270 and N280 processors will not be offered upgrades to Windows 7

Most of the Netbook vendors have decided that they won’t be offering upgrades to Windows 7 to the netbooks running Windows 7. Currently, the netbook vendors have to pay just $25 for each XP license. And there are reasons why Windows 7 won’t be offered to N270 netbook users. Microsoft will be charging $45 per license for Windows 7 and thus, vendors will be forced to increase the cost of the netbook. If they keep the prices same, it may hurt the profits.

Right now, plans are to introduce Windows 7 to the netbooks that will be equipped with Atom N450 processor, which will be introduced in the month of October this year.

Although, I’m sure that there are many of us who are just not bothered whether our netbook vendors give us the option to upgrade to Windows 7 till we are able to get everything working ourselves.