asus

When is a netbook not a netbook? We've previously mentioned the upcoming Asus N10, the more-expensive cousin to the low-priced Eee PC line, which adds discrete graphics options, bigger hard drives, Windows Vista (with an XP downgrade option), an ExpressCard slot, and 802.11n Wi-Fi.

We just got a chance to take a brief up-close look at the N10, which is currently available for pre-order from a handful on online vendors.

The 10.2-inch N10 feels more like an ultraportable laptop than a netbook, thanks to its nearly full-size keyboard and less-plasticy design. Also notable -- a hybrid video … Read more

Whether it's the BlackBerry, the Internet, CNET TV, or hilarious jokes about the Large Hadron Collider, it's a good bet that someone either on or in today's show invented it. Probably Molly. Also in the news today, Nintendo is super rich, the first Android phone is getting a Steve-note (sans Steve) on September 23, and some celebrity Internet gossip.

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I am a comic genius! Daily Show thinks so, too! http://themolly.com/blog/?p=86

Official: First Android phone on September 23 http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/09/official-first.html … Read more

This week, your Intrepid Editor returns from vacation, just in time to catch a Hewlett-Packard laptop-news trifecta. First, the company announced that it had achieved a mobile-computing milestone by getting the HP EliteBook 6930p to operate continuously for 24 hours on a single battery charge. Then came word that the Voodoo Envy 133 laptop, introduced in June, started shipping to customers. And finally, the company brought a bit of geekiness to New York's Fashion Week when a Vivienne Tam-designed HP mininote hit the runways.

Sony also initiated a multipronged attack on the headlines this week, first with its 18.… Read more

Is the biggest PC vendor in the world looking to give customers an option besides Windows?

An article appearing in BusinessWeek this week cites anonymous sources who say Hewlett-Packard is at least looking into it. "Sources say employees in HP's PC division are exploring the possibility of building a mass-market operating system," the article states.

The operating system would reportedly be Linux-based, but would be tweaked to be more accessible to mainstream users. Those same sources say it's part of an HP plan to become less dependent on Windows, and to compete better with Apple for … Read more

At what point does a Netbook become a regular old laptop? The upcoming Asus N10 has all the features we'd expect to see in a low-cost, low-power Netbook-style system, including a 10-inch screen and power-saving Intel Atom CPU.

The only catch is that electronics retailers are now listing the system as "coming soon," for a whopping $849. For that you get 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, Windows Vista, and even a GeForce 9300M graphics chip, which is a pretty nice setup, but that's a far cry from the predicted $486 to $630 range we heard about … Read more

Mobile gamers, take note: Asus today released the G50V, a 15-inch gaming laptop that appears to be a high-powered, low-priced affair.

The majority of gaming laptops use a 17-inch chassis and weigh 8 pounds or more. The Asus G50V packs many of the same features inside a 15-inch chassis that weighs a relatively svelte 6.2 pounds. Inside, the laptop supplies a high-end 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 processor, 4GB of fast 800MHz DDR2 memory, and an Nvidia GeForce 9700M GT graphics card with 512MB of DDR3 memory. Two hard drives are on board for a combined 500GB … Read more

Given the Democratic and Republican conventions and the Labor Day holiday stealing everyone's attention, I expected this week to be a quiet one when it came to product announcements. But those distractions really only apply to folks in the States, and overseas manufacturers pushed out plenty of new laptop models to keep us busy.

Samsung threw down a challenge to the MacBook Air by announcing the 13-inch, 2.8-pound Samsung X360. MSI came out with three new laptop models, the 14-inch VR440 and GX400, and the 17-inch GX720. Asus announced the G50V and G71V, gaming systems built on Core … Read more

Solid-state drives, if not yet ubiquitous, have arrived. You can find them in laptops big and small and as a high-octane storage option for gaming PCs.

SSDs made their mark by appearing in the trendiest ultraportables like the Apple MacBook Air and Asus Eee PC--typically as stratospherically priced options, fashion statements rarely seen in the real world.

These drives are now coming off their rarefied shelf space and appearing across a wider range of laptops and ultraportable computers.

Any new, lightweight enterprise laptop worth its salt comes with a large-capacity solid-state drive option now. Hewlett-Packard recently introduced the 3-pound EliteBook … Read more

A high-end luxury Netbook? Seems like an oxymoron, since Netbooks are supposed to be simple, stripped-down, low-cost laptops. (If this is all news to you, check out our Building the Perfect Netbook feature for a primer.)

Asus, the company that single-handedly built the Netbook category with its Eee PC, is reportedly aiming at more upscale consumers with a fancier version of the popular Netbook. The newest version, with a 10.2-inch screen, has some high-end features, including a fingerprint reader, HDMI output, Altec Lansing speakers, and, at least in a few leaked shots, an Express Card slot.

The catch is … Read more