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ASUS Bamboo Collection laptops: now with Taiwanese pricing, more bamboo (update)
ASUS has been attaching bamboo to its laptops for some time now, but it was only ever really for show -- though the wood itself was certainly biodegradable, adding veneer isn't exactly the greenest statement in the world. This year, however, the company's Bamboo Collection will be completely slightly more recyclable. With Core i5-450M processors, they should be reasonably good performers as well, and NVIDIA Optimus switchable graphics technology gives them a factory-estimated (read: unlikely) 11 hours of battery life. The panda fodder cases will be found in Taiwan for around $40,000 NTD (approximately $1,300) next month, though US availability is yet to be announced. Check out the gigantic ASUS PDF for additional specs while you wait, and feel free to blow Ma Earth kisses all the while. Update: Our friends at Engadget Chinese inform us the new U series laptops aren't 100 percent recyclable after all; they still have a sizable plastic substrate underneath those thicker bamboo panels. It seems ASUS still hasn't managed to shake its wooden façade. Get specs and first-hand pics from the event at our more coverage link.
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%
i-Station lets loose U43 do-it-all PMP
At this point, we're fairly certain i-Station will only use a number other than "43" in its product titles once it has exhausted the entire US alphabet, but since we're not quite to that point, we're forced to live with U43 this go 'round. As expected, this Korean PMP is packed to the brim with features, including a 4.3-inch WQVGA (480 x 272) display, WinCE 5.0, a T-DMB receiver, GPS, e-dictionary, 30GB / 60GB hard drive and support for a smorgasbord of file formats. Notably, some features will depend on which flavor you pick up -- Standard, DMB or NAVI -- but the whole lot plays nice with MPEG1/2/3/4, AC3, DivX, XviD, WMV, WMA, OGG, WAV, AAC, FLAC, APE, JPEG, BMP and PNG. 'Course, all this functionality won't run ya cheap, as word on the street pegs this bad boy at ???448,000 (or around $481).[Via AkihabaraNews]
