ASUS’s new Eee PC S101 will be landing in the States on November 1st. Landing with a thud thanks to it’s hefty $699 price tag, not due to it’s weight. You’ll get a new super-slim enclosure that’s just 0.75-inches thick, but the specs are pretty standard.

It sports an Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM, matte 10.2-inch 1024 x 600 LED-backlit display, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, multi-card reader, multi-touch touchpad, VGA webcam, 5.4 hours of quoted battery life that you can believe when you see it and Windows XP. No Linux option in the States. It all weighs only 2.3 pounds. This expensive laptop comes in copper brown and graphite varieties. Are you impressed?

Looks like Asus has been working on an official handwriting recognition add-on for the Eee PC. Which is good news if you’ve been trying to mod your DS to do the job, but failing miserably. It was demoed at last weeks Computex show, and it accepts English and simplified Chinese characters via the Eee’s USB port.

The touch pad is just over 2-inches across, with the whole thing measuring 4.3 x 4.4 x 0.7 inches. If you’re big on handwriting, you’ll have to wait. How long we’re not sure. No launch date or price info yet.

If you’re a fan of the Asus Eee portable PC you’ll probably be happy to hear that Asus may have a desktop version of the popular notebook in the works. According to Asus president Jonathan Tseng, the new desktop Eee PC will launch in 2008 most likely running Linux and will come with no monitor and an affordable price since it will save by not paying fees for a pricey OS.

Digitimes