Laptops Arena

In May 2009 ASUS, a leading company in the new digital era, has announced to launch an 11.6 Eee PC in the series of its netbook production. It is a well-known fact that everything that is bigger than 10” is not representing a netbook, therefore no Atom processor will be incorporated to it. Even so, Asus predicts that releasing it on the market, with a right pricing it would constitute some threat to the traditional ultra-portables.
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Meanwhile the 11.6” netbook , the Eee PC Seashell 1101 HA is already on the market and the reviews of the product are pretty optimistic. Being a 11.6” device it is offering itself with a higher resolution display. Compared to 10” netbook, which has a somehow restricted resolution of a 1,024 x 600, the 1,366 x 768 resolution of Asus netbook enables a better screen real-estate to play with.

The Seashell nickname suggests a system based on a chassis resembling to Eee PC 1008HA. The color versions are white and black, and the white one seems to be more preferred because there is a nice contrast between the white body and the glossy black rim. What was there else to be noticed in the view of the appearance, it is the system on display which has imprinted the Asus brand on the lid instead of the Eee PC one. The only explanation would be that Asus preferred to write the its brand assuming that people already knew about Eee PC and didn’t know who was the “person” in charge!

As to the inside aspect, the 1101HA presents itself a little different than most netbooks do. Using the Intel GMA 500 graphics chipset allows the processing of HD video, excepting the case that you already have compatible software. This fact requires a CPU change, with the 1101HA predetermined to ship with an Intel Atom Z529, which is set at just 1.33 GHz. This is supported by the 160 GB hard drive and 1GB of RAM, and to complete the picture, there are other features that incorporate Draft-N Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1.

One may think that a larger chassis would mean an improved keyboard, but here it is not at all the case, since the existing one resembles to the 1008HA and this appears to be quite all right so long as the key action is wavy and responsive. On the right-hand side there is a small right-Shift key bearing no relevance at all.

Connectivity is rendered by hidden ports behind the flaps. On the left side there are the power inputs, a VGA out and a USB port, whereas on the right side, there are jacks for headphone and microphone, 2 more USB ports, a port for Ethernet connection and a memory card reader. Compared to its predecessor, 1101HA is powered by a battery that can be removed. Next to the device there is present a 4,440mAh capacity battery known to last for 8.5 hours.

There is still no answer whether the size 11.6” makes a PB be a netbook, but definitely Asus’s new Eee PC Seashell 1101 HA offers extra good features (the price included) compared to its previous model.

Next to MSI and LG, ASUS is one of my favorite hardware manufacturers. Just to crush all possible ideas, this is not a paid post, all right? Good, so I was just saying that ASUS is one of my favorites, but if we get deeper into the story, I can't claim all its products are perfect. In fact, I hate most ASUS optical drives just as much as I love the video cards and computer cases wearing the ASUS logo, but today we're not going to talk about any of them. Today, the time has come for the future!

The ASUS Eee family is getting larger with each day, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that ASUS has plans to start manufacturing some Eee hair dryers or various "Eee" kitchen tools. That would really be fun, and I am sure every serious ASUS fan would jump in the wagon ASAP - at least I know quite a few of them who would...

...but until we get to see any kitchen appliance from ASUS, we'll surely get the EeeBox PC B208, a great design delivering "high definition entertainment in a 1L-sized PC," as ASUS says.
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This little thing called EeeBox PC B208 will arrive in June, at least in the UK, and features extremely low power consumption(only 20 watts), also coming bundled with 10GB of online Eee Storage. It only can be heard, with only 26dB while operating, and allows you to connect to HDTVs and projectors via HDMI.

At last, you should know that the ASUS EeeBox PC B208 will be priced at about $500, and pack the dual-core Atom 330 processor and ATI Radeon HD 4530 discrete graphics solution. Not exactly a laptop, but a great multimedia computer to carry around, don't you agree?

Fortunately for me, I never had to face a theft. No, I am not living in another world, I've seen it happening a few times, but it never happened to me. Why? I am not lucky, that's a certain fact, I just try to do the right thing. When it comes to stolen laptops, some of my friends had to go through it, and the most painful part is losing your precious(and sometimes also VERY personal) data, so I am sure that hearing about the ASUS laptops and their new anti-theft technology will be useful to a lot of people.

The anti-theft technology implemented in several business class P-series notebooks uses an embedded security chip allowing you to simply send a remote "suicide" command to your stolen computer. Obviously, it won't blow up, but it will stop working, until you recover it and enter a pass phrase or recovery token.
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Even more, the P-series ASUS laptops feature a fingerprint reader used for "finger login" before the system boots up. At last, we have the AI Secure Delete feature, to make sure those personal documents you want gone are really gone.

If we look at what's remaining, there's nothing really out of ordinary for business laptops - Intel Core 2 Duo and Pentium Dual Core CPU options, ranging from 2.0GHz to 2.8GHz(Intel CULV processor for the P30), up to 4GB of memory, a 14-inch(13.3 for the P30) display with a native resolution of 1366X768 pixels, showing graphics sent by the NVIDIA GeForce 9300M with 512MB of VRAM card.

While the ASUS laptops with the new Intel anti-theft features are already available, the manufacturer hasn't come up with any pricing information yet.

I love the ASUS Eee PC. How many times did I say it so far? I guess a few times not enough, so let me say it again - I love the ASUS Eee PC! Don't get me wrong, I am not some ASUS fanboy - for example, most of their optical drives are really bad-bad-bad, but I hope they're not going to use some ASUS drive in the Eee PC 1004DN...

Yup, you got that right - soon, we'll get the first netbook from ASUS featuring the thing a lot of people were missing - the optical drive! Just think about the fact that even larger portables - like the MacBook Air - don't have an internal optical drive, and you'll get an idea about the great inspiration behind this move.
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I will be honest and I will confess that I have no idea about any other netbook to feature any kind of optical drive, but if you know anything about such a wonder, don't hesitate to drop a comment below. Now, here's what ASUS has to say about this - "The Eee PC™ 1004DN is the first in the Eee PC™ range to feature a Super-Multi optical disc drive, enabling users to read and write optical discs for convenient data back-ups."

That's pretty cool, and here you have the technical specifications:

Display 10” wide active matrix LED backlight TFT, WSVGA 1024x600 pixels, 252K colors max
Dimensions 277mm x 194mm x 27.4-34mm
Weight 1.45kg with HDD (with 6-cell battery and ODD)
Battery Li-Ion 57.72WHrs - 6 cells, 5200mAh
Processor Intel® N280 1.66GHz Processor with 512k L2 Cache
FSB 667MHz 2.5W TBP thermal
Chipset Intel GN40
ICH9Mb (Integrated GMA 4500M graphics core)
Main Memory 1 x SODIMM socket for expansion up to 2GB DDRII DRAM
Storage Up to 1.8” PATA 120GB, 4200 RPM
Communications Built-in Bluetooth® v2.1 module
802.11n, Support Antenna x 2
Camera 1.3 Megapixel Video Camera
Microphone Array Mic
Keyboard Keyboard: W:254mm chiclet type
Audio Hi-Definition Audio CODEC, Built-in high quality stereo speakers

Unfortunately, there's no word out about pricing and release date, but since ASUS released the specs and official photo into the wild, I guess you won't die waiting...

Remember the ASUS Eee PC 1008HA? I guess not, because only the geekiest geeks could remember such a name. A few days ago, when we talked about it, the 1008HA was thicker than it is now. Well, now we have new pictures, and - more than just Shell pictures, we also have confirmations about the new king of the hill when it comes to thin laptops!

First of all, the 1008HA - we'll call it ASUS Shell from now on, or simply "the Shell," because I don't want anyone to get a seizure because of that cryptic name everyone was using for it lately. What about it? Well, most of the hardware is going to be just as expected, apart from the fact we'll get a very nice MacBook Air-like design - 10-inch LED backlit display, 160GB hard drive, WiFi, Bluetooth, and some Intel Atom processor, of course.

Obviously and unfortunately, the onboard video will still belog to Intel, but the good part is that, according to various sources, battery life will be much better than that of the model used as a startup point for the Shell, the ASUS S101.

Availability of the model remains as previously stated, and so does the price. Anyway, the Shell won't be thinner than the Air, but...
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...the Dell Adamo is! With a pretty painful price of about $2,000, the Dell Adamo delivers a lot - backlit keyboard and 13.4-inch glass display, together with 2GB of RAM, 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor, WiFi, Bluetooth and an integrated Intel X4500 graphics under the hood.

These being said, now we have the Adamo as world's thinnest laptop, followed by the HP Voodoo Envy, and only in third place, the notorious MacBook Air.