But I can’t hate on everything. Asus has built-in a couple custom WHS plug-ins that allow for more detailed back-up and restore options, along with an interface for an online storage locker that’s free for the first year.

Hardware wise, the TS Mini Server is on par with other offerings. A N280 1.66GHz Atom is at the core, paired with 2GB of RAM and up to a 2TB hard drive. It 6x USB ports, 2 eSATA ports, and, of course, Gigabit Ethernet. The server isn’t shipping yet, but Amazon has the 2TB version priced at $529 and available for pre-order.

SquareTrade, proprietors of extended warranties, just released a 3-year study that sheds some light on the reliability of laptops and netbooks. The main conclusion that 1 in 3 notebooks fail within three year should come as no surprise. After all, they are portable computers that get banged around. It’s the nature of the beast. However, the study does reveal some other interesting tid-bits, including a handy graph the shows the malfunction rate of the top nine laptop manufacturers.

Feel free to read the whole study here, but here are the main points.

• 31% of notebooks suffer a total failure rate before 3 years
• Netbooks fail 20% more often than laptops
• 5.8% of netbooks malfunction within the first 12 months
• Asus has the best 3-year malfunction rate at 15.6%
• HP has the worst 3-year malfunction rate at 25.6%
• You might want a warranty

Not that USB 3.0 will be useful anytime soon—how long did it take manufacturers to finally get behind USB 2.0?—but Asus’ U3S6 should be, provided it’s not cancelled, the world’s first USB 3.0 + SATA 6.0 PCI-E card. Better news: it’s only $30.

The card comes with two USB 3.0 ports and two SATA 6.0 ports. And if I’m doing my maths right, so long as you have a free PCI-E slot you’re good to go.

Like I said in the beginning, the card will mean little in the immediate future, given the lack of USB 3.0 products. That’s not to say I wouldn’t mind being able to sync my Zune HD using the zippy awesomeness of USB 3.0, but it’s going to be a little while before we see that. Never mind that that scenario would never happen, considering the Zune HD’s insides don’t know a darn thing about USB 3.0, but you know what I mean: a future media player that works with USB 3.0 would certainly be handy, especially as we move toward moving higher and higher resolution video to and from our various components.

It should be out “soon.” Nice and vague, yes.

This is a dramatic about face from what was stated previously, I wonder is Asus perhaps underestimated the demand for small, lightweight, Android based products when they made their previous statements. Mr. Shen also said that Asus R&D has been working quite hard, and we should expect to see quite a few new products from them in the next 6 months. Asustek’s first smartbook is expected to retail for about $180.

[via Shanzai]

Watch the full video demo above, and see the madness that is the new design decision. Controlling a cursor on screen by using a stylus on a differently-shaped touchscreen… seems a bit of a terrible idea to me.

[Via Netbook News]

Yum. Here’s the ASUS EeeBox PC EB1501. It’s a tiny “ballerina-inspired design” that features a dual-core Atom CPU, NVIDIA ION graphics, and — gasp!!! — an optical drive?

Yes, this could very easily make a dynamite HTPC that wouldn’t uglify your living room in the slightest.

Specs include the following:

• Windows 7 Home Premium
• Intel Atom N330 dual core CPU
• Two RAM slots for up to 4GB of memory
• 250GB SATA hard drive
• DVD burner
• NVIDIA ION graphics
• Gigabit Ethernet, b/g/n Wi-Fi
• HDMI and VGA out
• Weighs 2.65 pounds

Availability is slated for October 22nd in Europe for 399 Euro (about $580) — no word on whether or not we’ll see this thing in the US, but here’s hoping we do.

Product Page [ASUS via Gizmodo]

Well good morning, Interesting Netbook. You have caught my attention thanks to your inclusion of NVIDIA’s Ion chipset, 1366×768 display, 2GB of RAM, Windows 7 operating system, and longer-than-long battery life.

The ASUS Eee PC 1201N features the following:

• Atom N270 CPU at 1.6GHz
• 250GB SATA hard drive (5400 RPM)
• 12-inch LED-backlit display with 1366×768 resolution
• Six-cell battery good for up to 11 hours
• Windows 7
• NVIDIA Ion graphics

Now before you get all jibbly about this one, it’s only shown up on a Chinese website. It’s priced at the equivalent of $513, though, which is pretty good. Because of the inclusion of Windows 7, we’ll probably not officially hear about this one in the US until the end of October when Microsoft’s latest and greatest operating system becomes available to the public.

ASUS EeePC 1201N [Product Page (Translated from Chinese) via SlashGear]

Other niceties include a sizeable island keyboard, good touchpad, bright 13.3-inch HD screen, and a thickness of less than an inch.

Conversely, the four-pound weight seems a bit on the heavy side, the 0.3-megapixel webcam is an afterthought, and subpar 3D video abilities.

On the whole, though, the long battery life in spite of the relatively powerful dual-core CPU, along with the $799 price tag make the UL30A “a compelling value,” according to LAPTOP.

I’ll start the day of with a quick and easy CrunchDeal for y’all. It’s an Asus 23-inch widescreen monitor, with a 1920×1080 resolution, for $158 after some sort of rebate on Buy.com. I know $158 for a 23-inch monitor is nothing to freak out over, but most of the ones I found on Newegg didn’t quite reach that 1920×1080 mark. Being that it’s Asus, as Devin told us the other day, we know it’s not junk. That is all. (Don’t click “read more,” since there’s nothing more to read!)

(Not the real thing)

Asus spoke to the Sunday Times, and said that their contribution to the e-book reader dogpile will be full-color, touchable, and equipped with speakers, a mic, and a webcam. Okay, sounds ridiculous already, but according to the Sunday Times (though they credit no one), Asus is said to be aiming at a price point of around £100. That’s less than $200, people.

Think it’s impossible? So do I. But until last year I didn’t think people would buy $300 laptops. At any rate, Asus will be showing this thing at CES, so maybe we’ll get world’s-first-hands-on with it like I did with the Eee keyboard.

[via Wired] ]]> http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/08/asus-eee-book-reader-to-sport-dual-color-touchscreens-webcam/feed/ 16 http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/08/brushed-aluminum-ultraportables-coming-from-asus/ http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/08/brushed-aluminum-ultraportables-coming-from-asus/#comments Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:30:16 +0000 Doug Aamoth http://www.crunchgear.com/?p=111081 ASUS has officially announced its upcoming UL series of brushed-aluminum ultraportable notebooks based on Intel's new dual-core SU7300 ultra-low voltage CPUs. The UL stands for UnLimited -- and please notice ASUS' trendy use of capitalization there. The notebooks will come in a variety of sizes and weights and some models will feature switchable graphics systems allowing you to use an NVIDIA GeForce G 210M chipset for power-hungry stuff, while falling back on the Intel GS45 chipset for maximum battery life.]]>

ASUS has officially announced its upcoming UL series of brushed-aluminum ultraportable notebooks based on Intel’s new dual-core SU7300 ultra-low voltage CPUs. The UL stands for UnLimited — and please notice ASUS’ trendy use of capitalization there. The notebooks will come in a variety of sizes and weights and some models will feature switchable graphics systems allowing you to use an NVIDIA GeForce G 210M chipset for power-hungry stuff, while falling back on the Intel GS45 chipset for maximum battery life.

No word on pricing or availability for any of these systems but they’re all listed as coming with Windows Vista along with an included Windows 7 upgrade, so chances are pretty good that they’ll be available before the end of October when Windows 7 officially ships.

As far as the models go, they are as follows:

UL20A — 12.1-inch screen, 3.3 pounds

UL30A — 13.3-inch screen, 3.3 pounds

UL50A/UL50Ag/UL50Vg — 15.6-inch screen, 4.6 pounds

UL80Ag/UL80V — 14-inch screen, 4.4 pounds

Shared specs include: DVD burner (doesn’t say if it’s internal or external — I’d guess external, though), 1366×768 resolution, built-in 0.3-megapixel camera, up to 4GB of RAM, and various combinations of low-voltage processors (SU7300, SU3500, SU2300, SU9400). Battery life is rated by ASUS at up to 12 hours.

The 14-inch UL80V and 15.6-inch UL50Vg models will have the 512MB NVIDIA GeForce G 210M graphics alongside the Intel GS45 chipset. The other models all contain just Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics.

UnLimited Possibilities — Introducing ASUS UL Series Notebooks [ASUS.com]

If you’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for an LCD monitor that’s only 0.65 inches thin, your wait may soon be over. Otherwise, a standard monitor ought to do just fine. But if thin’s your thing, ASUS has just announced its line of “Designo” monitors that’ll be available in 20-, 22-, 23-, and 24-inch sizes.

In true ASUS form, there’s no pricing or availability information yet but you’ll be able to buy one of five monitors: 20-inch at 1600×900, 22-inch at 1680×1050, 21.5-inch at 1920×1080, 23-inch at 1920×1080, and 23.6-inch at 1920×1080.

After your hipster friends are done oohing and aahing, you can tell them that “The design concept behind the Designo MS Series is inspired by the binary state, incorporating a series of contrasting elements like the numbers 1 and 0, straight lines and circles, and black and white into an ultra-slim monitor with a 16.5mm profile.”

Very fancy, indeed. The ring stand allows for one-finger tilt adjustment, too.

ASUS Introduces the Designo MS Series LCD Monitors [ASUS.com via Engadget]

ASUS’ NVIDIA Ion-powered EeeBox PC has gotten sort of official. It’s on ASUS’ website now, at least, although there’s still not much in the way of pricing or availability. The specs look pretty nice, though, with a whisper-quiet setup thanks to a dual-core Atom N330 CPU, 2GB of RAM, 250GB SATA hard drive, 802.11b/g/n wireless, card reader, and, of course, the horsepower to push full 1080p video.

There’s HDMI and VGA output, along with three USB ports and an eSATA port for external upgrades. The system weighs 2.4 pounds and will be available in black or white. The OS is listed as Windows Vista Home Premium, which pretty much means that this little guy will be out before late October when Windows 7 gets released.

EeeBox PC EB1012 [Asus via Gizmodo]

Company CEO Jerry Shen told investors recently, “Currently, I still don’t see a clear market for smartbooks.” He’s referring to Qualcomm-powered 8- to 10-inch subnotebooks that run Android, promise all-day battery life, and would theoretically sell for around $200.

If any company’s in a good position to push smartbooks, it’s ASUS, seeing that it’s got plenty of experience with tiny notebooks. You’d think it’d be relatively straightforward to take one of the older 7- or 9-inch Eee designs, update the form factor slightly, and switch out the Intel chipset for a Qualcomm one. However, ASUS has some pretty big deals with both Intel and Microsoft, so it’d be interesting to know if the company’s getting pressured to stay away from competing platforms.

Whatever the case, ASUS has cited limited resources as the reason behind putting Android-based smartbook projects on hold. PC World does point out, however, that the company “could use some of the smartbooks made by contract manufacturer Pegatron, the company’s subsidiary.”

[via PC World]

Oh, nuvifone. How we loved you and forgot you. Now that almost every featurephone comes with GPS navigation, both of your models might finally launch on AT&T. Just think if you would have got your act together a year ago, you could have ruled the market before there was a market.

But now, depending on the price, you will likely be passed over for the iPhone. It’s not that you probably don’t do the navigation thing great, but that the iPhone and others does it well enough and offers so much more. Sorry, pal. Even Winmo 6.5 can’t save you. (If you even have Winmo 6.5)

After all, Asus’ best-selling products have been small, relatively simple machines, many with SSD storage, and lacking high-end, high-heat, newly-manufactured components. That’s not a bad thing, but I’d say it’s also fundamentally less likely to fail.

The study was based on service calls to Rescuecom, which then sorted the ailing computers by brand. Once again, the method is questionable, as Apple users are overwhelmingly going to call an Apple store or bring the offending device in. I’d say that the wide range of devices made by Lenovo combined with its low number of call-ins makes it the winner here.

And how about that HP/Compaq? Ouch. Better work on that, guys.

This little guy won’t win any benchmarking contests or even play Hulu all that well. But it will run a word processor, web browser and solitaire just fine. Plus it has a webcam so you can keep in touch with the ‘rents while you’re away at school. Neato!.

Not for any particularly interesting reasons.

God, thanks for clearing that up, Asus! I guess they don’t understand that even the most obscure technical reason would be interesting to the hardware geeks out there (and right here). I have no reason to believe this is the case, but I’d guess that Asus just decided they wanted to make something different, maybe roll out USB 3.0 in a range of products instead of just one enthusiast one.

Whatever the case, it’d still be a while before any devices came out that really even used 3.0, so it’s not like we’re losing out on much here.

[via Tom's Hardware, images from XFast forums]

The T91, it seems, is a compromise of a machine, stuck somewhat uncomfortably between small netbook (9″ screen) and tablet. Everything about it is compromised, but they’ve made the best of it and it functions as well as you can expect a tiny convertible netbook to. Unfortunately, it’s underpowered even for a small platform, and the resistive touchscreen is less than a joy to use. Still, if you need a paperback-sized tablet PC, this is really your best option.

Check out the full review over at Hot Hardware.