Review I honestly thought it would take the industry a lot longer to start producing Windows ultrabooks for under a grand that are this good. The Asus Zenbook is as flat and skinny and as light as a MacBook Air without trying to look like one, and is a darn sight better connected.
Smart notebook in size zero clothing: Asus Zenbook UX31E
The Zenbook comes in 11-inch and 13-inch versions: the UX31E tested here is the larger and more expensive of the two kitted out with a 128GB SSD, 4GB of RAM and sporting a 1.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i7-2677M CPU. Read the rest of this entry »
Review Billed as the year of the fondleslab, 2011 has so far failed to deliver on the hype. With sales of Motorola’s Xoom sluggish at best, the BlackBerry Playbook too idiosyncratic for most and the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 tantalisingly conspicuous by its absence, Asus looks to steal a march on the competition with its Eee Pad Transformer TF101.
Key feature: Asus’ Eee Pad Transformer TF101
Asus might just nibble at Apple‘s core, too, with the 16GB and 32GB versions of its dual-core, Wi-Fi-only tablet positioned at the iPad 2-busting prices of £379 and £429 respectively. But it’s the optional Eee Station keyboard which most distinguishes the Transformer from its competitors. And if you’re pondering on this, Asus helps galvanise the mind with a bundle price, which works out at around £50 more, instead of paying the £119 to buy the Eee Station separately later. Read the rest of this entry »
As a multi-media laptop the Asus NX90 is undoubtedly desirable but it’s as big as a barge, weighs a ton and costs an arm and a leg. However, now you can get the same Bang & Olufsen sound system, full HD screen and the latest Sandy Bridge i7 processor in the altogether more practical N73.
Sound prospect: Asus’ N73SV
After coughing up the best part of a grand you’ll expect your laptop to look and feel the part and the N73 doesn’t disappoint. To start with, the lid is made from brushed aluminium, which does away with most of the wobble that can all too often make even premium laptops feel flimsy. The keyboard deck is aluminium too and the speakers sit behind a rigid metal grille that occupies the space between the rear of the keyboard deck and the bottom of the smart, gloss black screen bezel. Read the rest of this entry »
Hands On Asus has been showcasing its Eee Pad Transformer Android 3.0 tablet this week, Transformer being the word the company uses to highlight this 10.1in, 1280 x 800 tablet’s hybrid design that will turn it into a netbook in the click of a dock.
Honeycomb centre
Only last week, Acer was showing off its own interpretation of the tab-book, which left many scratching their heads as to why you couldn’t close its W500 Windows tablet on top of the keyboard – it needs to be undocked first. At least Asus seems to have thought this one through. Slot the tablet into the clasp of the keyboard dock, lock it in place from a single latch and that’s it. The hinged dock holds the tablet neatly and the two halves close together without the need for any latching at the front, just like what you’d expect, really. Read the rest of this entry »
Review Intel launched its latest generation of netbook-centric Atom processors right at the end of 2009. While the following weeks saw plenty of announcements heralding new machines based on the chips, those PCs have only now started to arrive on shop shelves.
Asus is, of course, the genuine pioneer of the netbook arena, launching the very first machine in this class back in late 2007 – the Eee PC 701. Two and a bit years on, we have here the latest model: the 1005PE.
It’s essentially a revision of the 1005HA machine Asus launched in the summer of 2009 as the second netbook in its curvy Seashell series. The 1005HE followed the slimline 1008HA, losing the latter’s slimline, integrated lithium-polymer battery in favour of a more geek-friendly but bulky removable battery.
Give or take a few aesthetic tweaks, the 1005PE’s body matches that of the 1005HA. While it tapers sleekly to a thin front edge, the netbook‘s keyboard section has a chunky rear end, almost entirely due to the six-cell 4400mAh battery that clips into a space at the back. While it’s flush with the back of the netbook, the battery bulges out below it, forcing Asus to fit the 1005PE with a set of longer-than-usual feet so that the base doesn’t rest on the battery. Read the rest of this entry »
