Asus announces new netbooks at CES, including Eee PC T91 tablet

The Asus CES 2009 keynote just wrapped up and Asus chairman Jonny Shi announced a bunch of new products for 2009. Netbooks featured prominently – particularly the new Eee PC T91 tablet and S121 netbooks – but there’s also a new Eee ‘netbook in a keyboard’ and laptops with multi-touch displays. Lots of photos and a T91 hands-on video after the cut.

The Eee PC T91 has the usual netbook specification (but with an Intel Atom Z520 ‘Silverthorne’ processor rather than the Eee PC's usual N270 ‘Diamondville’ chip), but the 8.9in touch-sensitive screen is mounted on a pivoting hinge that allows it to fold back, display-up, over the keyboard.

Display aside, the T91 is quite a break from Asus’ existing Eee PC design, but that's a good thing – the redesigned keyboard with broad, flat keys makes good use of the limited space and it’s a very sleek, slim portable. We’re not quite sure why Asus opted to include a built-in TV tuner, though…

There’s no official word on pricing or availability yet, but one source suggested that the Eee PC T91 will be available in the UK in March with a price similar to that of the current Eee PC 100 – around £330, in other words.

News of the new Asus S121 leaked onto the internet a few weeks ago and all of the information we’ve seen so far seems to be accurate. It’s essentially a scaled-up version of the super-slim Eee PC S101 – it has the same general design, with a few elements from Asus’ U-Series laptops thrown in.

The S121 has a 12.in screen and an Intel Atom Z520 processor, but it can’t really be called a netbook. The provision of a whopping 512Gb SSD cranks the price sky high and while Asus wouldn’t quote an exact price, but you can expect to pay a MacBook Air-like price for the top-end model when it goes on sale at the end of January.

Microsoft also stepped in to give a couple of demos of new display technology that we can expect to see on Asus laptops later this year. First up was an Asus N20 with a multi-touch display that supports a similar set of two-finger gestures as the iPhone and new Apple MacBooks . Apart from a few demo gremlins, the technology seems to work well – as you can see from the video below.

Also on show was an Asus M50 laptop with a 4.3in colour LCD touch-screen instead of a touchpad. This is powered by a separate processor and runs its own copy of Windows, which means it can be booted separately from (and much more quickly than) the main operating system. It displays a carousel of widgets rather than a Windows Desktop, but these provide a wide range of functions, from the usual inconsequential weather updates to an email client.

The touchpad display can also drive the main display for, for example, video playback. The key is that this computer-within-a-computer is still powered by the laptop’s main battery, but its frugal operation leads to longer battery life – Microsoft reckons it’s good for up to 12 hours. You can see a video of the Asus N50 demo below.

Last but in no way least is the Asus Eee Keyboard. This isn’t quite what you may think – it’s actually a full netbook crammed inside a full-size Qwerty keyboard, complete with a 5in colour screen instead of a numeric keyboard. It runs a full version of Windows and can be used like any netbook (albeit only if you squint), but the intention is that it can stand in for a media centre PC – it has both HDMI and D-Sub video ports, along with support for wireless HDMI.

The Eee Keyboard is only at the prototype stage at the moment and the hour or so battery life makes it a less than useful portable device, but this will hopefully improve if/when Asus get to a full launch. Even so, it’s an odd product to bear the Eee brand and seems to be Asus’ answer to a question no one is asking – but maybe we’re just missing something...

Interestingly, all of the netbooks and laptops were running Windows 7 rather, though Asus wouldn’t be drawn on whether or not it will be abandoning Windows XP on netbooks this year. We suspect Windows XP will continue to be at least an option, not least since Windows 7 so far doesn’t seem to be any less demanding than Windows Vista.

Source : http://www.mobilecomputermag.co.uk/

CES 2009: Asus shows touchscreen EeePC and Keyboard PC

Las Vegas (NV) - Asus took advantage of the crowd present at the first major press conference at CES 2009 and showed off next-generation of EeePC netbooks, Windows 7 on netbooks, a multitouch EeePC as well as a 4.3” screen PC that runs inside a regular notebook.

Netbooks and touchscreen products shape up to become two major stories at this year’s CES. Asus pioneered the segment two years ago and seems to have an edge over its competitors once again. The upcoming 8.9” EeePc T91 and the 10” EeePC T101H are the first netbooks with a swivel screen - much like what we have seen with tablet PCs in the past. Tablet PCs were first shown at Comdex 2001 and never achieved the initially set goal to grow into a major product category.

EeePC T100H

 

That may be different with the new EeePCs which should be much cheaper than tablet PCs. The devices shown at CES integrate a touchscreen and run Windows XP with a modified GUI (that actually looks much more like Linux than Windows). Microsoft was also on stage and touted its cooperation with Asus to make sure its software will run on future netbooks. To proof its point, the company showed an Asus EeePC netbook running its communications software as well as Windows 7 Ultimate.

The T91 comes with an Intel Atom Z520 processor (Silverthorne core), while the 10” T101H will get the N270 chip with Diamondville core.

A bit further out is the EeePC N20, Asus’ first multitouch netbook. It comes with its own interface and multitouch application, which kept crashing during the presentation and did not reveal much of its potential.

Asus EeePC N20

Much more interesting were two small PC products: The first was the Eee Keyboard, a compact keyboard with a 5” touchpad on the right side of the device and a fully functional PC inside. This “first wireless media center with integrated ultra-wideband HDMI” will be able to connect to any existing displays, including TVs - making it one of the most compact computers we have seen to date.

 

Asus also demonstrated a future notebook with a 4.3” touchscreen where you usually would expect a touchpad. While it can function as a touchpad, the device is driven by its own computing device to run display features such as email or even decode videos that can be projected on the larger screen. Asus claims the technology can extend the battery life of the notebook to up to 12 hours (if you spend a significant amount of time on the 4.3” device.)

Asus concluded its press conference with a concept PC: The company envisions mobile computers to become much more compact. In a brief video, the company revealed its “fold” notebook, a device that can fold into three different form factors and “slide” into other fold notebooks to enable screen sharing.  

There was no information on pricing and availability.

Source : http://www.tgdaily.com/

Asus reads beyond netbook at CES

AsusTek Computer Inc. rolled out a line of new notebooks, netbooks and consumer appliances at the Consumer Electronics Show in the wake of its success establishing the netbook concept with its EeePC. The company is expected to debut an Eee-branded phone using the Google Android software, probably at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona.

Following the lead of Apple, Inc., the Taiwan motherboard powerhouse is expanding its software engineering teams in Taiwan and especially in China. The company showed a handful of new consumer user interfaces it is developing for a range of touch-screen products.

"Asus has remained a very engineering oriented company since its founding in a caf some 15 years ago," said Jonney Shih, chairman of Asus in a presentation here.

"Today we have more and more software engineers," Shih said. "Previously Asus was more of a hardware company, but we now have a big software team including a big team in China to drive this kind of touch-based software," he said.

"Apple is our model. We have a lot of intensive study on [the iPhone]," he added.

Shih did not disclose any details of the Android phone Asus is expected to release shortly. However, he did say the company is planning to extend its Eee band for netbooks to consumer appliances and phones.

For the digital home, Asus showed a keyboard with a built in PC that could link to PC monitors or TV displays via a built in ultrawideband chip from Taiwan's RealTek supporting wireless HDMI. The device weighs less than two pounds, has a built in five-inch display, microphone and speaker and supports Wi-Fi. The company also showed a tabletop PC for consumers that sported a touch screen and an Opera browser geared for a touch interface.

Asus also showed a notebook that used a 4.3-inch touch-screen display in place of a mouse pad. An ARM processor ran software widgets on the touch display driving a variety of functions such as checking email or playing a movie on the laptop's main display.

Using the ARM processor, the system could get as much as 12 hours of battery life. That compares to about eight hours when using the built in x86/Windows electronics.

Shih would not say whether the company plans to sell systems using ARM processors and Linux. Freescale recently launched an ARM Cortex A8 processor geared for $199 netbooks running Linux.

"To drive costs to extremes that approach is an important alternative," Shih said. "In the lab we try to do everything."

Asus did show a new netbook with a convertible screen that could be turned into a tablet PC, portable TV player, global positioning system or digital picture frame. The EeePC T91 sports an 8.9-inch touch screen display and uses an Intel Atom Z520 processor, TV tuner and GPS chip.

At the high end, the company demonstrated its S121, a full notebook but measuring just 11.7x8.3.0.9 inches and weighing three pounds. It comes standard with a 512 Gbyte solid state drive using a controller developed by Asus which it claims doubles performance of existing drives.

The Atom based system is expected to sell for a whopping $1649, in part due to the cost of the flash drive.

International Data Corp. now ranks Asus as the world's fifth largest portable computer maker, in part due to its success in netbooks. The company got its start as a motherboard maker and shipped a whopping 60 million motherboards in 2007, Shih said.

Source : http://www.eetimes.com/

AMD Poised to Lose another Race with Intel

With Phenom II hitting the streets this week, AMD needs to learn a few simple rules about how to challenge a market leader like Intel in the performance arena.

Image this: you’re sitting in the staging lane in your shiny new Ford F150 pickup truck ready to drag race. You’re feeling pretty good and confident until the 10-cylinder Dodge Viper pulls along side. Perhaps implying that you’re the fastest one around was not such a good idea after all?

This is exactly what AMD is doing with its new Phenom II CPU, the company’s next generation 45-nanometer processor. It’s bringing a real workhorse of a processor to market, but it’s lining up to challenge a racing sports car in speed performance in Intel’s Naleham processor.

AMD can’t help but be compared to Nehalem, Intel’s desktop performance powerhouse, but AMD has done little to avoid that comparison by surrounding the Phenom II with a shroud of mystery and then implying that with overclocking the Phenom II will make it a speed king.
 
AMD knew that the inevitable comparisons would be made and that the Phenom II could never outpace Nehalem, yet it still positioned the Phenom II as the latest and greatest thing in desktop performance, building up a groundswell of expectations.

Once the test results are made public, it will be easy to see how the AMD Phenom II really measures up to the Nehalem, and many AMD fans are sure to be disappointed. This won’t make Phenom II worthless. Just as a pickup with extra horsepower is a powerful tool, we expect the same of Phenom II. But that doesn’t make it the same as Intel’s race car.

When one considers the price-verses-performance argument, Phenom II will likely cost significantly less money than anything Nehalem, including CPU, memory and motherboard. To make sure that the Phenom II is taken seriously, AMD needs to highlight the costs involved in building systems with the new CPU, the CPUs performance per watt characteristics and the savings that can be realized by using a Phenom II over a Nehalem.

In the grand scheme of things, most desktop users aren’t looking to be speed kings (save for the video editor or autocad engineer). They want an affordable system that can meet their day-to-day chores reliably and with little fuss or muss. That’s where AMD can succeed over Intel and perhaps win at least one race.

Source : http://www.channelinsider.com/

AMD Launches Yukon Platform For Ultra-Thin Laptops

Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) on Tuesday launched a platform for lightweight, ultra-thin laptops that offer solid entertainment capabilities.

Formerly code-named Yukon, the platform will make its debut this week at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ)'s new Pavilion dv2 notebook, which measures less than an inch thick, weighs less than four pounds, and sports a 12-inch light-emitting diode display.

AMD's platform is comprised of an Athlon Neo processor, ATI Radeon X1250 integrated graphics, and an optional ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3410 discrete graphics card. AMD claims the technology supports "true high-definition entertainment," and makes it possible for computer manufacturers to offer ultra-thin laptops with solid graphics performance at a lower price than in the past. The price of the HP system, which is expected to be available in April, was not disclosed.

"In introducing the AMD ultrathin notebook platform, AMD enables balanced PC performance, including the option of advanced graphics and video for true HD entertainment, all in an affordable, ultra-thin notebook, bringing consumers uncompromised mobility," Chris Cloran, corporate VP of AMD's client division, said in a statement.

The ultra-portable laptop category, which includes such systems as Apple's MacBook Air, Dell (Dell)'s Latitude E4300, and the Fujitsu LifeBook P8020, sit between mini-notebooks, which are 10 inches or smaller and have undersized keyboards, and standard laptops, which typically have displays of 15 inches or more.

The ultra-portables are typically lighter than four pounds and offer standard-size keyboards. The extra-portability, however, usually adds to the price and the systems are generally more expensive than the other two categories.

The AMD platform supports 1080p HD playback and can handle casual gaming that makes use of 3-D graphics, according to the vendor. The technology also provides for HDMI and DVI digital outputs for connecting laptops to digital televisions.

AMD's Yukon has a total power consumption of less than 25 watts, which makes it too power hungry for mini-notebooks, a hot segment of the PC market where Intel (NSDQ: INTC) has been gaining traction with its Atom processor.

Source : http://www.informationweek.com/

AMD plant clears another hurdle

The computer chip plant proposed for Saratoga County cleared a major hurdle today.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States approved of the creation of 'The Foundry Company.'

The 'Foundry Company' is a newly created joint venture between Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and 'Advanced Technology Investment Company' based in Abu Dhabi, the Capital of the United Arab Emirates.

The Foundry Company will build and operate the plant which has been proposed for the Luther Forest Tech campus.

Source : http://wnyt.com/

AMD chipmaking spinoff gets OK from U.S.

Advanced Micro Devices' manufacturing spinoff got an all-clear from the U.S. government on Tuesday.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), part of the U.S. Treasury Department, gave the green light to AMD and the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) to create The Foundry Company, the manufacturing operations that AMD spun off back in October.

CFIUS has also determined that "the proposed additional investment in AMD by Mubadala is not a covered transaction subject to CFIUS review," according to AMD.

ATIC will own 65.8 percent of The Foundry Company and AMD 34.2 percent, according to a revised statement from AMD in December.

ATIC is a technology investment company wholly owned by the Government of Abu Dhabi. The Foundry Company will be a U.S.-headquartered chip manufacturing company with manufacturing facilities in Dresden, Germany. Future plans call for manufacturing facilities in Saratoga County, New York.

Source : http://news.cnet.com/

Government gives OK to AMD partnership

The federal government today gave the OK for Advanced Micro Devices to partner with the foreign-based Advanced Technology Investment Company, a key step in the creation of a $4.6 billion computer chip factory in Malta.

The partnership was to form what they are calling The Foundry Co., which was subject to approval by the Committee on Foreign Investment, an arm of the U.S. Treasury Department. That committee reviews national security implications and risks from foreign deals. The creation of The Foundry Co. was subject to such a review since ATIC, AMD’s new partner, is based in Abu Dhabi.

The arrival of the computer chip plant in Malta’s Luther Forest Technology Campus, which will be overseen by The Foundry Co., is expected to bring about 1,400 jobs to the region.

The chip plant’s arrival still hinges on shareholder approval, which officials say could come soon.

Source : http://www.poststar.com/

AMD deal gets federal approval

The federal government has ruled there are no national security concerns with a $7 billion investment deal between Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The clearance, received by letter by AMD on Tuesday, helps to pave the way for a $4.6 billion computer chip factory planned for Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta.

AMD, which first unveiled plans for the factory more than two years ago, is spinning off its manufacturing operations to a joint venture, The Foundry Co., that also will be owned by Abu Dhabi.

The Persian Gulf city-state, a part of the United Arab Emirates, also will increase its stake in AMD, which will continue to design chips.

Both transactions received clearance from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an arcane board chaired by the secretary of the treasury. The committee, commonly called CFIUS, can refer problematic transactions to the president for veto. That did not happen in this case.

Under federal law, CFIUS has 30 days to conduct an initial review.

Company spokesman Travis Bullard said he did not know how long it took CFIUS to conduct its official review. CFIUS keeps the process secret.

AMD also needs the European Union to reconfirm previously approved government incentives for upgrades at its fabs in Dresden, Germany, that will be owned by Foundry Co. And AMD must get shareholder approval for the deal with Abu Dhabi. No date has been set yet for that vote.

Completion of the deal is planned by March, when tree clearing at Luther Forest may begin.

Source : http://timesunion.com/