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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]
Asus U3 caught on film
Asus, a company that's pushing some pretty interesting and innovative products into the spotlight as of late, is stepping up to bat with another new entry, dubbed the U3. The 13.3-inch ultraportable rocks a Billy Joel-approved "piano black" exterior, with a smooth, sensual leather finish on the palm rests, making it stylistically quite distinctive. The U3 features the much-loved Santa Rosa chipset, and will likely utilize one of Intel's low voltage Core 2 Duo processors (the L7500, for instance), but that's just where the fun begins on this baby. The jam-packed specs include integrated GPS, HDMI and S-Video outs, eSATA, USB, and Firewire ports; SD and ExpressCard 54 slots; and an NVIDIA 8400M graphics chipset -- which can be switched off via hardware for power conservation. Asus reps say the system is due in September at a price point somewhere around $2,000.[Thanks, Coriolis]
Fujitsu-Siemens' Lifebook Q2010 poised for release
We're a little too excited to type straight right now, but you would be too if you'd just found out that the "world's most desirable laptop" will be available in a mere sixteen days. That's right, the $5,000 Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook Q2010 -- yes, the one with HSDPA and that snazzy piano black finish -- is a little over two weeks from seeing the light of day, according to a rather uninspired "teaser" site recently posted by the company. Besides the inclusion of wireless 3.5G networking and a fashionable exterior, however, it's still not clear what makes this machine so desirable; for our five grand, we're hoping to see something like AMD's "4 x 4" platform packing four GPUs and two dual-core processors into this hot little 2.2-pound ultraportable -- is that really asking too much?[Thanks, wolwol]
Seven from Sony: new BRAVIA flat-panel LCDs
Even though we've all gone out and bought HD-DVD players already (not really), Sony is trying to woo consumers over to the Blu-ray camp with a snazzy new line of BRAVIA-brand flat-panel LCD TVs, five of which sport the coveted XBR designation, and five of which offer 1080p resolution for maximum enjoyment of the BDP-S1 that Sony is hoping you'll pick up this summer. All of the XBR sets -- the 46-inch KDL-46XBR3 and KDL-46XBR2, 40-inch KDL-40XBR3 and KDL-40XBR2, and 32-inch KDL-V32XBR2 -- feature a built-in ATSC tuner plus one VGA, two HD component, and three HDMI inputs, along with the usual flurry of patented picture enhancement technologies, with the XBR3s sporting that shiny piano black bezel which is so popular nowadays that it's showing up at some of the finest bars along the Jersey shore. Rounding out the bunch are the 46-inch KDL-46V2500 and 40-inch KDL-40V2500, which also give you 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, but no digital tuner, one less HDMI input, and no option for interchangeable, multi-colored bezels as with their XBR2 counterparts. Prices for these models -- which will all be available in September -- range from $2,500 for the 32-incher up to $5,300 for the stylin' 46-inch XBR3 (pictured), and of course, whatever you end up paying for that Blu-ray player.
