It seems that Asus is upping the ante in the netbook market with news of its upcoming refresh to the EEE netbook line, most notably the fact that it boasts some very impressive battery life indeed.

Asus EEE line is very much one of the netbook grandaddies

Word comes from TomsHardware of the new EEE PC line, which will see some fairly interesting additions to Asus’ netbook offerings. Apparently, we can expect to see Asus unveil the upcoming devices officially at the upcoming CeBit 2010 in Germany. So far, we don’t know an awful lot about the devices other than the fact that they’ll boast the usual 10-inch display and, rumour has it, the latest addition to Intel’s Atom line, codenamed Pine Trail.

For those with an eye towards the ultra-slim line it should be welcome news to hear that Asus is, apparently, also working on its thinnest netbook to date, the EEE PC 1018p, which is only 18mm thick. According to the reports around it, the ultra-thin device will still boast a battery life of up to ten hours, which is fairly hard to fault. Moreover, it’s to feature USB 3.0, which is a very interesting addition indeed, and it’s nice to see it start to emerge in small, power-light devices.

Still, the real news here for many will likely be the EEE PC 1016P, which we’re told we can expect to see for business users. It boasts the same chiclet keys we’ve come to expect from the EEE line, but mounted in an aluminium case. The combination of the aluminium exterior and the 14 hour battery life will very likely lead to some fairly direct comparisons with Nokia’s Booklet 3G, though there’s no word yet on whether or not we can expect to see 3G connectivity with Asus upcoming netbooks.

If nothing else, we’ll be curious to see what else Asus talks about at CeBit this year…