701-tablet

The Asus Eee PC 701 may be the mini-laptop that helped spark the netbook revolution, but with its 7 inch display, smally keyboard, and tiny amount of storage space, the netbook might not be as attractive as newer clamshell devies with 9 and 10 inch screens. But you know what the Eee PC 701 still is? Cheap. You can pick one up for just over $200 if you shop around. And that makes the Eee PC 701 a great toy for hackers looking to build interesting things like cheap carputers or tablets.

We’ve already seen one attempt to not only build a tablet PC out of Eee PC 701 parts, but to market a retail netbook-to-tablet conversion kit. Now it looks like there may be a new kid in town. A member of the Mobile01forums has posted some pictures of a homemade tablet. And it looks pretty slick.It apears to have decent ventilation, spare for the speakers to hang out, and a series of buttons on the side of the device for launching applications or controlling a cursor, two things that can come in handy when you remove the keyboard.

The finished product is also a bit lighter than the original netbook. Right now this is just a prototype, but the developer is thinking about selling kits.

via Portable Monkey

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,544 other subscribers

8 replies on “Another way to turn an Eee PC 701 into a tablet”

  1. Turning a netbook into a tablet is just one part of the story. What lacks is a proper operating system like the iPhone OS or Android for mobile devices with a touch screen. Running Windows on a tablet is just horrible.

    However, I respect all the hackers out there who share their experiences. Now the big manufacturers have to come up with a good touchscreen OS.

  2. Now if you could turn that Dell into a tablet you would solve the horrible keyboard issue. If you want to make a tablet, the 701 is not a bad deal because there are kits available. Until someone makes a kit for other units (have not heard about any) this will breathe more life into an older model.

  3. Following a lead posted not long ago I got a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 for under $200. Even without the cited coupon refurbs started “just over $200”. That makes an Eee 701 “for just over $200” sound like a horrible deal 🙂 (Thanks again for the hint.)

Comments are closed.