Hasta La Gadget!

Asus, which set the netbooks market on fire with its Eee PCs, has some exciting new products coming up for release this year. Leaked slides of the company’s product roadmap for the U.S. show it is planning to introduce a new netbook with a 12-inch display and Nvidia’s Ion graphics chip and a tablet PC with multi-touch capability.

The new netbooks are expected to be priced from $300 to $500, says the Netbook News website.

Despite an overall slowdown in PC sales due to the weak economic environment, the netbook market has been going gangbusters. Sales of netbooks grew 40 percent in the second quarter, almost twice that of the growth rate of larger notebook PCs, says DisplaySearch, a research arm of the NPD Group.

Asus’ 1201N netbook is likely to have a 12-inch display, an Atom N270 processor, 2 GB RAM and 250 GB storage. It will also include Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capability and at $500 will be among the company’s premium products. The netbook is expected to be available in mid-October.

Around that time, Asus will also have a convertible tablet PC running Windows 7, says Netbook News. The $550 T91 convertible tablet is expected to come with a 32 GB solid state drive.

Check out a slide of the Asus Eee PC roadmap for details about upcoming netbook configurations and the company’s planned releases for the year.

[via Engadget]

Photo: Asus Eee PC (Axel Buhrmann/Flickr)

If two slides leaked to the Eeeuser.com forum are to be believed, ASUS has some pretty interesting — though not terrifically surprising — netbooks on the horizon. The slides, which are apparently the company’s roadmap for US products for the next two quarters, are chock full of refreshed product information. It looks like we’re going to be seeing a brand new Eee PC, the 12-inch 1201N, which will bring NVIDIA’s Ion platform to the line for the first time, with an Atom N270 CPU, 2GB RAM, a 250GB HDD, Bluetooth and 802.11n WiFi, running $499 for release in mid-October. Other than that, we can expect to see the 1005HA-P with the N280 processor and a 250GB HDD option running Windows 7 also arriving in October for $399, and the 1005HA-M with the N270 processor, a 250GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Starter Edition for $349. Finally, Netbook News is also reporting some new 1008HA models not listed on the slides, as well as a multitouch, Windows 7-running T91 convertible tablet with a 32GB SSD priced at $549. There’s no timeline mentioned for this one, but we’ll keep our ears to the ground expectantly. The other slide is after the break; hit the read link if you want the full details on each model.

[Via Netbook News]

Continue reading ASUS’ Eee PC roadmap leaks: Ion-boasting netbooks, multitouch T91 coming soon?

Filed under: Laptops

ASUS’ Eee PC roadmap leaks: Ion-boasting netbooks, multitouch T91 coming soon? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It was but a few months ago that we were lusting after a svelte little fanless Snapdragon Eee PC running Android and being demo’d at Computex. Now, ASUS is letting us all down softly, saying that project has been put on the shelf — presumably to make room for another string of cookie-cutter netbooks. CEO Jerry Shen says “I don’t see a clear market for smartbooks,” which is true enough, but we’re guessing the big laptop players didn’t see a clear market for netbooks at first, either. So, not exactly great news for those looking for even cheaper and even more portable portables, but don’t lose all hope: it wasn’t that long ago that Western Digital said the SSD market didn’t exist, and now look at ’em.

Filed under: Laptops

ASUS puts Snapdragon smartbook on hold, breaks hearts of Androids everywhere originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Aug 2009 07:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How about a minor spy story to kick-start your weekend? According to our man Sascha at netbooknews.de, a “safe source” who shall remain nameless but who most certainly has ties to Stasi (or, at the very least, owns a trench coat) has divulged some choice nuggets: The first Eee PC pre-installed with the open source OS will hit the market in October, and the company is currently considering the possibility of making this an option for all its notebooks at some point in the near future. And if that weren’t enough to stoke your dreams of an Operating System Renaissance, the company is also reportedly working “closely together” with Google to deploy the Chrome OS on its machines at some point in the not-too-distant future. All rumors and innuendo, sure, but interesting — and, as we’ve seen the company play with Moblin in the past, certainly not a shocker. As always, we’ll keep our ears to the ground, and we’ll keep you posted.

Filed under: Laptops

Eee PCs rumored to ship with Moblin in October, Chrome OS on the horizon originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The ASUS Eee Keyboard is thin, sleek, and has a touchscreen pad. This do-it-yourself is bulky, uses a green backlight, and has instead a wireless mouse and numpad. Still, there’s something magical and all kinds of wonderful about this home project, essentially an Eee PC 900 shoved into a Sven Multimedia EL 4002 keyboard. All you need is a VGA cable hooked up to a monitor and you’re officially good to go. Itching to recreate this beaut for yourself? Hit up the read link for a plethora of in-process screenshots and some commentary from its maker.

[Via Liliputing]

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

DIY Eee Keyboard is big, beautiful, and highly coveted originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Aug 2009 06:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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