Asus promises touchscreen Eee in 2009

The next obvious step is the tablet netbook. Tablets have never really hit the mainstream at their price, but a cheap netbook tablet could be marketed as an affordable, digital Etch-A-Sketch, useful not just for idle MS Painting but also email and web browsing. It's a smart way to differentiate yet another netbook on the shelf.

And that's just what Asus seems to be planning. They've confirmed that they are intending on launching a touchscreen Eee PC in Q1 of 2009. Additionally, it looks like another iteration of the EeePC will be disgorged, this time in a sub $300 edition. And dual core Atoms coming soon!

As always, there's a reason to wait to buy a netbook.

Asus planning touch panel Eee PCs [Digitimes]