ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime: 10-inch Super IPS+ display, 12-hour battery and quad-core Tegra 3, ships in December for $499
For three weeks now, Android fans have been fidgeting impatiently. Specifically, ever since ASUS chairman Jonney Shih took the stage at last month’s AsiaD conference and teased the next-gen Transformer tablet. Though he only gave us a quick glimpse, he recited a laundry list of specs: a 10.1-inch display, 8.3mm-thick body, mini-HDMI output, microSD slot and an update to Ice Cream Sandwich by the end of the year, if not sooner. Not to mention, it’ll pack NVIDIA’s hot-off-the-presses Tegra 3 SoC, making it the first-ever quad-core tablet. We knew this: we’d learn more on November 9th. Read more 
ASUS outs UX21 ultrathin laptop with up to Core i7 CPU (video)
The thickest part of this new laptop is 17mm, its entire body is built from an aluminum alloy, and the CPUs can be specced as high as Core i7. Anything else you need to know before drooling all over yourself? ASUS projects the launch of its shiny new UX21 in September.
via ASUS outs UX21 ultrathin laptop with up to Core i7 CPU video hands-on! — Engadget.
ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Review
I’ve been on a bit of a tablet kick lately, so even if you have dinner with me—tablets are bound to come up (I only break out the SSD conversation for the truly patient). Last week I had the pleasure of having dinner with Tony Tamasi and Jim Black of NVIDIA, and of course—tablets came up.
I’ve been thinking about device synergy, something I brought up in our PlayBook review. The problem is as follows: if I’m on my desktop with half a dozen tabs open and perhaps a PDF as well, but I decide to switch over to a tablet—there’s no quick way that I can transition my reading environment between the devices. What I have to do is sit down on the couch, whip out my tablet, and manually navigate to each website and redownload/open the PDF. What I’d like to do is something along the lines of HP’s Touch to Share, but just on a larger scale.
The ASUS Eee Pad Transformer and Acer Iconia Tab A500 will get Honeycomb 3.1 in June
With the Motorola Xoom being the first tablet to get Honeycomb 3.1, where does this leave other tablets? We know the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 will ship with it pre-installed. ASUS and Acer have announced that they will be updating the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer and the Acer Iconia Tab A500 to Honeycomb 3.1 in June.
You can expect the update to be over-the-air and it will bring performance improvements, UI enhancements like stretchable widgets, a new task switcher, and support for USB peripherals.
LG said they will be updating as well, but would not commit to a date.
With the competition heating up in the tablet war, lets hope all the manufacturers recognize that they need to get these updates quicker rather than later.
via The ASUS Eee Pad Transformer and Acer Iconia Tab A500 will get Honeycomb 3.1 in June.
ASUS preparing Eee Slate B121 – business edition EP121
ASUS’ 12-inch Eee Slate EP121, with its combination of Windows 7 and Wacom active digitizer and IPS display has attracted a lot of attention especially in niche education and graphic design markets and no doubt business folks, so the company preparing a business version, the Eee Slate B121 seems like a natural progression. First spotted up on the ASUS driver pages and then mentioned during an interview with ZDnet by ASUS business operation manager Bernard Wen. No details out yet but it will have Windows 7 Professional.
Asus Eee Pad Android tablet might have a sliding keyboard
Those teaser pics of the Asus Eee Pad upcoming tablets with Windows and Android last week definitely had something going on about them. One of them clearly showed a keyboard attached to the tablet, and in another one two halves were present. Then we deduced that it is most likely a detachable keyboard shot at different angles, similar to the accessory for the Windows 7 Asus EP121 with the 12″ screen.
Taiwan’s Central News Agency has reported now that actually both scenarios are in place for Asus tablets, that are to be announced at CES as soon as tomorrow. The Android tablet is supposed to feature a slide-out keyboard, and the Windows slate will have a detachable keyboard as a separate accessory.
Sounds quite innovative already, and its Eee Pad tablets also sport slick design and high-end specs like USB 3.0 (for the Windows version). Well, we know Asus is aiming for double digit share of the non-iPad tablet market this year, and that will not be easy to achieve with anything less.
Asus is said to release six tablets in total this year, and they will most probably be shown at CES, where we will be scouring the floors, so stay tuned for more updates on this and other tablet surprises
ASUS teases Eee Pad and Eee Slate ahead of CES launch
Seems like all these CES vendors have wised up to the fact that announcing their new products amidst a maelstrom of new product announcements tends to be slightly counterproductive. So, naturally, they’re spending their December carefully teasing out little pre-release details. It’s ASUS’ turn today, who clearly isn’t content just telling us about its Eee Pad / Slate / Tablet / Chopping Board and has decided to dish out some candid hardware shots. What we see above is a USB 3.0 port embedded within a very slinky keyboard panel, which itself seems attached to a touchscreen display (with Android buttons!) up top. It’s looking more like a tablet PC (presumably with a pivoting screen) than a tablet, which is corroborated by other images at the source link. Two devices are included in this teaser picture set, with the other looking like it has a slider keyboard (see it after the break) — none of it is definitive just yet, but it makes for a good guessing game to fill the time until the big show kicks off in Vegas next week.
Asus Eee Note review
There’s no doubt that ebook readers have become a hit, especially the Amazon Kindle, but most of the ebook readers are fairly limited as to what you can use them for beyond what they’ve been designed to do. Enter the Asus Eee Note, not an ebook reader, not a tablet, not a PDA either for that matter, but something of a fusion of them all. The Eee Note has a fairly large 8-inch greyscale display with a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels and on top of the screen sits a Wacom digitiser. A digitiser is a type of touchscreen, but unlike your average touchscreen, a digitiser is pressure sensitive and requires the use of a special stylus.
The advantage of this over a capacitive or resistive touchscreen is that it’s far more accurate. Asus claims an accuracy of 0.4mm when holding the pen vertically, although it’s not quite as accurate at an angle. This brings us to the primary function of the Eee Note: it is a digital notepad. This might sound dull and somewhat out of touch with modern technology, but it can actually be rather quite handy. There are no less than 42 templates available ranging from college ruled paper, to advanced options such as pie charts and various calendars. It’s also possible to insert pictures into the notes and these can be taken by the built-in 2-megapixel camera.
ASUS Eee Tablet to be renamed, will head to market in early 2011
You remember that ASUS Eee Tablet that was unveiled back at Computex in June, right? Of course you do, it looked like a pretty great e-reader / note-taking gadget, but oddly we haven’t heard a peep about it since. Obviously, the “tablet” with its 2,450 dpi touchscreen sensitivity and quick 0.1 second page turns missed its September release date, however, according to ASUS it’s still kicking and is being renamed — we hear Digital Note and Eee Note are potential choices. So, when will you finally be able to take notes on its 8-inch 1024 x 768 pixel panel? ASUS tells us that it will be demoed at CES and officially launched in the first quarter of 2011 — although, it may be available in Europe slightly earlier depending on local content partnerships. No confirmation on that “under $599″ price we had heard whispers of, but here’s hoping we hear a bit more on this one before we touch down in Vegas.
