It seems that Asus has decided to drop prices in the midst of increased competition.

With Dell announcing their new Mini 9 this week, it seems the netbook craze has reached a fever pitch.  Perhaps as a result of the increased competition at the low-end, Asus is trying to expand into more expensive (and profitable) market niches.  Remember Asus was the company that created the netbook market with the Eee PC.  After the jump, see why the N10 has dropped the Eee name and grown into a real notebook.

Around a year ago, Asus created the soon to be dubbed “netbook” market with its diminutive Eee PC.  The Eee was a surprise hit and spawned many imitators.  Pretty soon, it seemed like everyone and their mother had a subnotebook device in their product pipeline.  Some of those products have been hits, while others have been misses.  With all these new models from the likes of HP, MSI, Acer and soon to be joined by Dell and Lenovo, is there really a market for all these devices?  Or is this …