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ASUS and Amazon team up to pre-install Kindle for PC on netbooks and laptops
ASUS sells tons of laptops through Amazon.com. Amazon happens to offer a Kindle for PC application. Heck, why not team up and pre-install the app on the ASUS netbooks and laptops that are sold through the online e-tailer? Sure makes a lot of sense to us, and apparently it did to both Amazon and ASUS. Starting today, select laptops -- including the Eee PC 1005PE and UL30 -- will be sold with the e-book app loaded up. Frankly, we're not the biggest fans of pre-installed software cluttering up fresh screens, but this sort of partnership surely makes sense with certain devices -- in particular, convertible tablets that you'd use to read. You know what would also make sense? ASUS preloading some sort of Amazon application on its Eee Pad. That's just us playing make believe, but it seems like the two companies are certainly talking. We're set on getting our fill of ASUS tablet news at Computex next week, but in the meantime hit the break for the full Amazon / ASUS PR.
Gigantic ASUS periodical reveals and specs numerous new laptops
Curious what's inside a new ASUS laptop? Then Notebook Review has the treat for you -- earlier this month, forumite David took the time to download the company's massive 108MB ASUS World Magazine PDF and laid out the spec sheets for not one, not two, but a veritable smörgåsbord of potent portables. There's 36 in all; we've told you about some of them before, to be sure -- but others are getting solid specs for the first time, and there are even a few diamonds in the rough. Enough chit-chat, on with the show! U-series: Otherwise known as ASUS' Bamboo Collection, the U-series laptops were highlighted at CES, where we discovered they would have Core i5 CPUs and USB 3.0 support. Well, that's not the whole story. They've also all got NVIDIA Optimus auto-switching graphics between an onboard Intel GMA HD and the GeForce 310M 1GB. Oh, and forget Core i5 -- these machines support processors all the way up to the 2.66GHz Core i7-620M. Highlight: The U30JC, with a combo Blu-ray drive and a chiclet keyboard that won a iF Product Design Award. UL-series: ASUS for "UnLimited," you can read UL as "ultra low," as in Intel's ultra low voltage (ULV) processors that provide 8+ hours of battery life and let these notebooks stay cool despite being under an inch thin. We saw the UL80JT sport NVIDIA Optimus at CES and got hands-on with the Optimus-equipped UL50VF; now, the UL30JT now has it as well. Highlight: That same UL50VF, with an estimated 12+ hours of battery life. More after the break -- save pricing and availability, unfortunately -- or feel free to hit up the source link to download the entire electronic magazine for yourself. %Gallery-89273%
ASUS's UL30Vt announced, somehow finds room for discrete graphics
ASUS impressed the world with its lightweight, inexpensive 13.3-inch UL30 over the summer, and just last week impressed us with its switchable-graphics packing bigger cousin, the UL80Vt. Now the 30 is getting the discrete treatment, enabling users to choose from molasses rendering and "all-day computing" battery life or slightly more robust graphics and slightly (about an hour) shorter longevity. The system also packs DDR3 memory, a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor (able to be overclocked), and that "stylishly robust" aluminum lid. No word on release or price, but the earlier Vt models didn't come with a massive leap in MSRP, so we'd expect this one not to fall too far from UL30's $749 street price. [Thanks, Neti_Neti]
ASUS 13.3-inch UL30 gets reviewed, called a cutie pie
We've already witnessed the unveiling of ASUS' largest two UL series laptops, so it's only fair to pass along an in-depth look at the midget of the bunch. The UL30A was recently taken for a ride over at HotHardware, and while we've had our suspicions as to whether Intel's CULV platform really would provide an incentive for to-be netbook buyers to spend a bit more, it seems as if this ultraportable definitely is worth the extra scratch. Unlike your average Atom-powered netbook, the UL30 could actually handle 720p video like a champ (though 1080p brought it to its knees), and even with Vista taking a toll on its resources, day to day work was found to be surprisingly snappy. At $749 and up, the seductively silver UL30 was found to be a solid buy in its category, but we're not asking you to take our word for it. Hit that read link for the full writeup, benchmarks and all.
