AsusVivobookX202
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ASUS announces three budget-friendly laptops with touchscreens, the VivoBook Q200, S400 and S500 (update: eyes-on)
Remember when Ultrabook prices dropped to around $700 and everyone cheered? Well, get ready for some one-upping: here at a New York City press event, ASUS just announced a line of lightweight, touchscreen laptops, and let's just say the prices are pretty aggressive. The new family, which will carry the name VivoBook, includes 11-, 14- and 15-inch models, with the 11.6-inch Q200 (aka the X202) starting at $499 with a Core i3 processor. The 14-inch S400, meanwhile, will start at $599, while the 15-inch S500 will go for $649 and up. Across the board, there will be configurations with Core i5 and i7 processors, but again, i3 is the starting spec here. As you can see in the photo above, the design isn't all that different from the current-gen Zenbook Prime family, though they lack some of that line's higher-end features -- namely, 1080p screens and solid-state storage. ASUS so far hasn't said when these laptops will ship here in the US, but we'll be sure to follow up with more specifics as we learn them. Mat Smith contributed to this report.
ASUS TAICHI 21 and VivoBook X202 go up for US pre-orders, spoil the party a bit early (update: VivoTab RT, too)
Just because ASUS has planned a grand October 23rd event to outline its US Windows 8 lineup doesn't mean we can't get an advance peek. Pre-orders have officially kicked off for at least two touchscreen PCs that also give us a very good feeling for the hardware we'll see at our doors. The dual-screened TAICHI 21 is naturally the star of the show, but it will cost you: a base version of the 11.6-inch hybrid with a 1.7GHz Core i5, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD starts at $1,300, while an uprated model with a 1.9GHz Core i7 and a 256GB SSD will set early adopters back by $1,600. We'd say the VivoBook X202 is more likely to get some purchases sight-unseen at $600 for an entry laptop with an 11.6-inch touchscreen, a 1.8GHz Core i3, 4GB of RAM and a conventional 500GB hard drive. Both of the systems should arrive in tandem with Windows 8's October 26th launch and compound the traffic jams for couriers and retailers on what could be a very busy day. [Thanks, Donny] Update: As Computerworld noticed, Newegg also has a pre-order listing for the VivoTab RT, which costs $599 in its lone 32GB configuration. It ships the same day as its bigger cousins.
