Will tablets suffer the same fate as netbooks?

Tuesday, October 25th, 2011

When did you see your first netbook? I spotted a fellow commuter pecking at the Asus Eee PC 701 not long after its October 2007 debut, and I was impressed: powerful enough for basic tasks and smaller than any laptop I’d ever seen, it seemed like a genuine innovation.

Fast forward, and I spot my first iPad: on the Tube, its user oblivious to the envious gawping of fellow travellers. For me, it had a similar effect, heralding the arrival of another exciting, innovative type of product.

That’s not the only parallel between netbooks and tablets but, as far as I can see, others aren’t nearly so positive. The netbook’s story has been a sad one: that initial flurry of excitement withered by staid products, precious little evolution and a stagnant market.

Look beneath the iPad – which is still a premium product – and the tablet market could suffer from many of the same problems. (more…)

Asus Zenbooks review: first look

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

With last night’s launch of its Zenbook range, Asus has unveiled its long-awaited take on Intel’s Ultrabook concept. One thing’s for sure – the Taiwanese giant clearly isn’t pulling any punches. With both its new models, the 11.6in UX21 and the 13.3in UX31,  positively oozing slimline sex appeal, Asus is deadly serious about taking the thin-and-light fight to Apple’s MacBook Air.

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Asus Eee Slate EP121 review: first look

Thursday, March 31st, 2011

Not wanting to let Android have all the fun with its new Transformer, Asus has also introduced a Windows-powered tablet: the Eee Slate EP121.

It’s a hefty piece of kit, with a massive 12.1in screen and a 17mm-thick chassis weighing 1.15kg – almost twice as heavy as the iPad 2. Still, that makes room for some impressive hardware, with an Intel Core i5-470UM running at 1.33GHz and bringing two cores, Turbo Boost technology and Intel’s latest integrated graphics within a TDP of just 18W.

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Asus Eee Pad Transformer review: first look

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

It seems like every reputable tech company – and some technologically challenged clothing chains – are leaping onto the tablet bandwagon, but at least Asus is trying something different with its latest addition.

It’s dubbed the Transformer, which should give some clue as to its function: while the bulk of the machine is a 10.1in Android 3.0 slate, it’s also available with a keyboard – attach the two together, and you’re able to fold the whole package up like a netbook.

As befits an Android 3.0 machine with an Nvidia Tegra 2 chip, the Transformer felt slick, with no hint of stuttering as we navigated its five homescreens, web browser and desktop widgets.

The hardware itself felt nice, too: the tablet is solid, its IPS panel – with a native resolution of 1,280 x 800 – appeared bright but not oversaturated, and the keyboard seemed responsive. Asus claims that, when docked, the Transformer will provide 16 hours of battery life. (more…)

How to dodge the Intel Sandy Bridge recall

Friday, February 4th, 2011

The past days have seen some of the world’s biggest component manufacturers scrambling to find solutions to Intel’s Sandy Bridge recall. The situation is becoming clearer, with most deciding to offer customers free swaps when the revised P67 and H67 boards begin appearing in April.

For now you can work around the issue by simply plugging all hard disks and optical drives into the unaffected SATA 6Gb/s ports on your motherboard. But Asus and Gigabyte are aware not everyone knows how to do that, so both have come up with ways to educate less tech-savvy consumers.

Gigabyte is offering its customers a small utility (left) to detect if a motherboard is faulty: simply download the Gigabyte 6 Series SATA Check tool and you’ll be told if you’re using the affected ports, with guidance as to which ports to use instead.

Asus has come up with a more basic solution, sending us the above close-up photo to illustrate exactly which ports could prove problematic. As you can see, Intel-controlled SATA 6Gb/s sockets are safe to use, as are the SATA 6Gb/s ports controlled by the third-party Marvell chip by which Asus adds more ports to its boards. Only the four SATA 3Gb/s ports are faulty.

Both are clear and simple methods of helping those who may be perplexed by all the talk of SATA 3Gb/s and SATA 6Gb/s. If you’re using a motherboard made by MSI, Intel or anyone else, these precise solutions won’t apply, but if you dig out your motherboard manual and use the photo above for guidance, you should be able to figure it out quite easily.

The best netbook OS: XP, Windows 7 or Ubuntu?

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

With the arrival last month of Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition, it’s time to revisit a familiar question: which operating system is best for a netbook? Linux-based systems may seem well-suited to lightweight devices (the original Asus Eee PC ran Xandros Linux), but there are advantages to the familiar interface and applications of Windows.

Indeed, if you buy a netbook today it will probably come with Windows 7 Starter, while older models are likely to be running Windows XP. Still, it’s easy to move from either to Ubuntu Netbook Edition, and of course it’s free. If you want to upgrade an older netbook to Windows 7 you’ll have to shell out £65 for the Home Premium edition, as Starter isn’t sold separately.

Each of these four operating systems has its attractions, but the key question is how each one performs on low-powered netbook hardware. To find the answer, I’ve spent the past few days installing them all – Windows XP Home, Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Premium and Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition, with all available updates – on an Asus Eee PC 1008HA, and timing a series of typical netbook tasks to discover which OS makes the most of lightweight hardware. (more…)

First look review: New Asus Republic of Gamers GPUs and motherboards

Friday, May 28th, 2010

Asus’ latest showcase highlighted a quartet of new products from its enthusiast-level Republic of Gamers range and, as usual, we didn’t come away disappointed – after all, the Taiwanese firm showed us the heaviest graphics card we’ve ever seen.

It’s called the Ares, is named after the Greek god of war and features two ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics chips strapped to one PCB. The choice of ATI graphics is certainly interesting: the last card in this range, the Mars, was named after the Roman god of war and included a pair of Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 cards. We’re assuming that the heat generated by Nvidia’s latest graphics cards is part of the reason for Asus’ switch of allegiances.

The list of specifications is mouth-watering. The combined GPUs boast 3,200 stream processors, each runs at 850MHz, and four gigabytes of GDDR5 memory is crammed onto the packed PCB. Asus’ own benchmarks, run in 3DMark Vantage, show a 25% increase in speed over a Radeon HD 5970.

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Asus Eee Keyboard review: first look at CeBIT

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

The much-anticipated Eee Keyboard – a PC, as you may have guessed, in a keyboard – will finally be shipping next month, according to Asus chairman Jonney Shih. He was contrite about the delays in a press conference here in Hannover: “We have to apologise a little bit… we’ll try to perfect it. We promise it won’t be further delayed – we think April time frame we’ll have mass production”

Despite not being fully finished, two demonstration units are running on Asus’ stand. We spent a while playing, in the company of a slightly nervous-looking Asus rep.
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First look: the Virgin Media Freedom netbook

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

While mobile broadband dongles are undoubtedly well-matched with netbooks, most mobile broadband firms offer third-party netbooks with their respective dongle deals: T-Mobile bundles its dongle with an Eee PC 904HD, Vodafone entices customers with a Samsung NC10 and Orange lets prospective buyers choose between HP, Asus, Samsung and Toshiba models.

Virgin Media, meanwhile, is the first mobile broadband company to release its own netbook and, while it’s undoubtedly very similar to Zoostorm’s offering – even sharing the same name, the ambitious “Freedom”, – it’s an interesting move and a good-looking product.

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Are netbooks really “better with Windows”?

Friday, May 29th, 2009

Asus – the company that started the netbook phenomenon with the Linux-based Eee PC 701 – has apparently decided that the open-source OS isn’t so spiffing after all.

The company has teamed up with Microsoft to create the rather prosaic It’s Better With Windows website.

“Windows helps you quickly and easily get online and connect to your devices and services – without dealing with an unfamiliar environment or major compatibility issues,” the site proclaims. It then shows a series of videos, with Eee PC-wielding people going about their lives in blissful harmony.

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