CES 2009 - ASUS Expands the Eee Family
by Jarred Walton on January 7, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
ASUS showed off the S121 notebook. Based on Intel’s Atom, the S121 isn’t exactly fast but it is portable. The S121 carries a much more conventional notebook form factor, measuring 11.7” x 8.3” with a thickness of 0.9” - 1.0”.
The most unique feature of the S121 (just being thin, light and running Atom isn’t enough anymore) is its 512GB SSD. It sounds like ASUS assembled its own drive in the machine, unfortunately utilizing a JMicron SATA-to-Flash controller - although I didn’t get confirmation on which model in particular it used.
ASUS will certainly have plenty of other products, the last item we wanted to mention for now was a demonstration of a new N20 laptop. This is sort of based on the N10JC that recently received our Gold Editors' Choice Award, only in a larger 12.1" chassis. New additions include a touch sensitive display, an optical drive, and a Core 2 Duo processor. Hopefully they can still keep the good battery life that we witnessed with the N10JC, although with all the upgrades that might be pushing things a little. We're still interested in seeing an N10 or Eee PC netbook with a dual-core Intel Atom processor; a less expensive N20 laptop with such a CPU would also be a nice option.
Today is full of press conferences so we're off to see what else is new at CES 2009. Stay tuned.
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MamiyaOtaru - Thursday, January 8, 2009 - link
I hate glossy bodied laptops bad enough, but glossy screened too == auto avoidmathew7 - Thursday, January 8, 2009 - link
I like the N10Jc very much and I intend(ed) to buy one, but if they bring it in a 12" package, that is a "must buy" for me. So N10 will have to wait.Jynx980 - Thursday, January 8, 2009 - link
I don't know about you, but when I saw the pics of the origami inspired notebook, first thing I thought was: "You sunk my battleship!"zshift - Thursday, January 8, 2009 - link
wow, that's quite the assortment of new products there. I have to say, I definitely love the laptop with an LCD touch pad, being able to watch videos and such for 12hrs. and the Eee keyboard is amazing, so long as battery life would be ok.All in all, Asus is about to make a crap load more money in the coming years, especially if they can keep the prices down on their products. Also, did anyone else notice their huge focus on "touch" technology? with this and the new BFG phobos desktop, seems like ever since the iPhone came out people are raving about touch technology. w00t for new tech!
Devo2007 - Wednesday, January 7, 2009 - link
I see ASUS still hasn't figured out where the right SHIFT key goes on the T91 - that one is a deal-breaker for me sadly.chrnochime - Wednesday, January 7, 2009 - link
Being a left-handed person their odd location of right shift key does not bother me at all. I just use the left shift key most of the time anyway.I guess that's one plus for being a lefty, amongst the tons of negatives(e.g., virtually no lefty desk in college lecture halls)
ssj4Gogeta - Wednesday, January 7, 2009 - link
I like the concept of that "origami inspired" laptop.Zak - Wednesday, January 7, 2009 - link
So... maybe now Asus can afford better web hosting? Or maybe even have a server in USA??? So it would be actually possible to download drivers in some reasonable time. I might consider then buying their products again.Z.
Penti - Sunday, January 11, 2009 - link
You just end up downloading the drivers directly from the manufacturer of each respective device or chip any way. Since they can't offer any support maybe they should just pay the manufacturers to directly support their hardware and link to them instead. That way at least one would get the latest drivers. Most OEMs (or system builders) are extremely bad too, I don't get it why they just don't package and auto-update the drivers properly instead.JarredWalton - Wednesday, January 7, 2009 - link
I've had issues with ASUS' web pages in the past, but not recently. For at least a couple years, the pages generally load fast and without issue. I'm pretty sure http://usa.asus.com/index.aspx">http://usa.asus.com/index.aspx is located in the US, although the download pages (http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLa...">http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLa... might still be on a Taiwan server. Anyway, give it a shot and see if it's better that last you checked before making too many assumptions.