Asus U3 laptop gets official

The Asus U3, which we told you about back in the hot and humid days of July, has gotten its official announcement from the company -- and it looks pretty sweet. The Santa Rosa-based, 13.3-inch laptop still rocks a Core 2 Duo processor (in T7500, T7300, T7100, T5450, T5250, CM540), a Nvidia GeForce G8400M G External graphics chipset, up to 2.5GB of RAM, and a 160GB SATA hard drive. In the communications department, the U3 packs 802.11a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.0, but apparently the GPS we mentioned will be offered as an option along with 3G connectivity and turbo memory. The system also includes a slew of ports, like eSATA, HDMI, GPS RF in, USB, Firewire, VGA/D-Sub, and TV out, plus rocks a built-in 1.3 megapixel webcam and fingerprint reader. Luckily for you fashion plates, Asus has stuck with the leather-bound hand rests and "piano black" exterior, all wrapped up in a magnesium aluminum alloy, which the company thinks is perfect for "metropolitan professionals." The laptop is rumored to be available in September for around $2000.

[Via Laptoping]

[Mark @ Aug 8th 2007 12:11PM]

If that leather were on a macbook pro it would melt right off.

[Alvin @ Aug 8th 2007 2:24PM]

I wonder if the leather will impact the internal temp much. Isn't leather pretty good at keeping heat in?

On a completely unrelated note, I bet this laptop smells good...

[Dahk @ Aug 8th 2007 1:06PM]

That is one sexy beast.

[Arnie @ Aug 8th 2007 1:14PM]

Actually this laptop is missing the disc drive and for 2000$ the M1330 can be configured similarly. Seriously I can understand them not putting it in the laptop but the drive has to be bundled with the laptop. The M1330 has all of this + slot loading drive -leather and magnesium alloy case.

[Mark @ Aug 13th 2007 6:23AM]

I was also tired of Dells b*lls*it so that's what I'm doing
the ASUS vs M1330
- same (or similar) screen
- same ExpressCard/54 port
- same card reader
- same bluetooth
- same draft N wireless card
- same USB 2.0
as well as that, the the U3 has
- HDMI as well as SVID and VGA outputs (covers all TV's/screens I own)
- ESata port (great for backup at 3.0Gbs)
- firewire (great for vid import)
- GPS option (awesome for photographic work on the road!)
- Turbo Load
- Better Security
- weighs less

The U3 does not have
- problematic red paint option
- an optical drive.

I initially thought the lack of an optical drive would be a bummer, then I thought about it a bit and, y'know, if I'm on a flight and want to watch a movie, I just rip it onto the HDD anyway before I leave so I don't have to juggle media on the fly. Sure you have one in the bag (or in luggage etc) so hey, it's not as big an issue as I thought.

Bring on the ASUS U3, it will probebly be available before the last "update" from Dell on my M1130 shipping date ;-)

Don't let us Down ASUS .... learn from Dells mistakes !!!

CHeers...
Shoe