Hasta La Gadget!

We just witnessed quite the interview between ASUS chairman Jonney Shih and Walt Mossberg at AsiaD, and outside of revealing the Transformer Prime (and affirming that the impending Padfone would ship with Android 4.0), he also dropped a few other nuggets worth mention to the audience here in Hong Kong. For starters, he finally caved to Walt’s pestering about who his main competition was, specifically related to the new Zenbook. “The Mac[Book] Air,” he stated, chuckling slyly afterwards, but quickly continuing on to plug his own machine based on its own merits. Not surprisingly, he also expressed his confidence that Android tablets still had a lot of life left in the market, and he stated that ASUS is still on track to move its target — around two million — Android tablets this year. Moving onto the topic of netbooks, Shih noted that rather than being buried, netbooks are simply “evolving.” More importantly, however, was his subtle confirmation that a new ASUS netbook is en route: “You’ll see on our new netbook, it’ll be very thin.” In fact, he even suggested that the design may follow that of the Zenbook, but just… smaller.

When asked about his thoughts on people replacing laptops less frequently, and perhaps shifting disposable income to smartphones and tablets, Jonney maintained that all of those markets were key to ASUS’ success, and that none were taking a backseat. “We believe that this a very critical time, transitioning from the personal computing era to the ubiquitous cloud computing era.” Sounds a bit like another mantra we heard, truth be told, but ASUS has been riding the cloud bandwagon long before most other consumer companies even knew what it was. The original spate of Eee PCs had next to no internal storage; rather, they relied on accessing the web in order to deliver the bulk of their functionality. Jonney also noted that ASUS is attempting to tackle an interesting problem with its products, which is that few people can truly separate work and entertainment — in other words, you need products that adequately handle both worlds. We’re guessing a Padfone + Transformer Prime + Zenbook is his preferred trifecta to do just that.

ASUS’ Jonney Shih: Android 4.0 hitting tablets by year’s end, ultrathin netbook is coming originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We hadn’t heard all that much about Evolio until this summer, when the Romanian company caught our attention with the Neura, a device it happily deemed the “most powerful Android tablet.” The company has re-entered the scene with another bold claim, touting “the lightest notebook in the world.” The 11.6-inch U9 is certainly on the smaller side of things, weighing in at around 2.2 pounds. Inside you’ll find some rather netbooky specs, including a 1.6GHz Cedarview processor, 2GB of RAM and an SSD with either 64 or 128GB of storage. According to Evolio, the U9 is set for a December release.

Evolio’s 2.2-pound U9 to drop softly in December originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Oct 2011 18:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Gadget.ro (translated)  |  Evolio (translated)  | Email this | Comments

It’s compact, it’s cute and it’s weird. But it might be your perfect netbook. Google’s Chromebook family isn’t apt to ever be an end-all solution — particularly for those that aren’t married to the company’s suite of web-based products — and we’re pretty sure Samsung’s taking notes on how to make the eventual followup to the Series 5 even better. Battery life was stellar, and the matte display was a joy to look at, but we still found plenty of quibbles. Are you one of the early adopters who picked one of these guys up? If given the chance, how would you tweak the design / software / whatever else? Go on and get crafty in comments below!

How would you change Samsung’s Chromebook Series 5? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Oct 2011 22:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The future of Meego has become a little clearer this morning, now that the Linux Foundation has announced that it’ll be replaced with Tizen — a new Linux-based, open-source OS. Samsung and Intel have been tapped to lead the development of the platform, in collaboration with the LiMo Foundation — a consortium of companies including Panasonic Mobile Communications, NTT DoCoMo and SK Telecom, among others. According to its stewards, Tizen will support HTML5- and WAC-based apps and will be designed to run across a wide spectrum of devices, including smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, netbooks and in-car infotainment systems. The MeeGo project, for its part, already seems to be on board with the initiative, promising to “make sure that users of MeeGo can easily transition to Tizen,” while assisting MeeGo developers, as well. The new OS is slated for release during the first quarter of 2012, with the first Tizen-laced devices scheduled to hit the market around the middle of next year. For more details, hit up the source link below, or trek past the break for the full PR.

Continue reading MeeGo to be folded into Linux-based Tizen OS, slated to arrive in 2012

MeeGo to be folded into Linux-based Tizen OS, slated to arrive in 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 02:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve been waiting for ASUS to launch its Eee PC X101 for the better part of a year, and it looks like the wait is almost over. The slim, MeeGo-running netbook has popped up on two online retailers’ sites with price tags just above the company’s promised $199 positioning. Despite earlier rumors of a July launch, the ultraportable has managed to slip through the cracks of summer, and most likely will debut this fall — although, no official release has been mentioned. If you’re eager to get your pre-order on for this single-core 1.33GHz Atom N435 netbook, you can snag it at Amazon for $227, or CDW for a more attractive $210. Those holding out hope for its pricier, Windows 7 brother — the X101H — will just have to sit this one out.

[Thanks, Andrew]

ASUS Eee PC X101 now available for pre-order at CDW and Amazon originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Sep 2011 16:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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