Today, on the first day of the yearly Computex Taipei exhibition in Taiwan, Asus took the wraps off the Android tablet/phone combo it teased last week. Dubbed Padfone, Asus is relatively mum on details (specs, pricing, availability) at this point. → Read More
The Transformer runs the modest 1GHz Tegra 2 platform, but that clearly isn’t enough. More power, right, Clarkson? Some clever folks over at XDA recently outed a custom kernel that bumps the clockspeed to 1.4GHz. It’s just too bad that this particular kernel with its super-speed chip leaves the Transformer unstable and therefore a bit useless for most. However, for those out there that actually want to use their tablets, there’s another custom kernel that increases the clock speed by 20% to a stable 1.2GHz. [XDA via Liliputing] → Read More
It’s a trap! A PR trap. I’ll bite. Asus just posted a teaser images on its official Facebook page of some unknown device. The trick here is that while it’s clearly a slate device, the company is purposely not saying if it’s a phone or tablet. In fact that’s seemingly the point of the Facebook page in that it asks that exact question. “Break The Rules: Pad Or Phone? → Read More
The Asus Transformer might be the queen of the Honeycomb hive — if Asus had made enough of them. As it sits right now the tablet is still on the hard-to-find list, but production is reportedly set to increase by June. That might not be a good thing for eager fans here in the states as Asus is set to unleash the hot tablet on the awaiting Japanese marketplace sometime next month as well. → Read More
Gartner found that Apple is number five in European PC sales, just below Acer, Dell, and Asus. They sold 966,000 units in 1Q11, 292,000 less than the fourth place winner. But wait… there’s more! → Read More
It’s nearly impossible to get an Asus Transformer right now and it’s not because the tablet saw an iPad-ish firesale. No, the shortage was reportedly caused by low supply levels. Asus simply didn’t expect docking tablet to be in high demand. → Read More
Hope your radiation insurance is up to date. Asus is reportedly working on a tablet powered by the Nvidia Tegra 3, a quad-core platform that aims to kill frame rates and sperm counts at equal rates. Digitimes makes mention of the upcoming super tablet but fails when it comes to the details. In fact the report is silly light on specifics. Simply saying that Asus will launch a tablet with Nvidia’s next-gen platform is like saying Apple will launch the iPad 3 or that the sun will burn out. Yes, things we all know. In fact there are probably a few manufacturers working on a Tegra 3 tablet right now. The report also mentions that Asus will sell another tablet powered by an Intel chip. Again, anyone surprised? → Read More
We hear by way of our good friend Sascha Pallenberg that a component shortage is to blame for the low initial volumes of the Asus Transformer. Apparently Asus is running well below of its capacity and only outing about 10k units per month, rather than 300k. The shortage is reportedly expected to remain until mid-June. No word on exactly which component is to blame here, but it doesn’t really matter as the damage has been done. The Transformer is just the latest sob story for Android fanboys everywhere. → Read More
Asus has a whole host of accessories on tap for the hot Transformer tablet/netbook. The keyboard dock was just the beginning. There’s a desktop dock, HDMI-VGA adapter, a very iPad-ish looking folio case, and an adapter to plug in a USB flash drive. Asus has yet to make these official so no word on pricing or availability. They appeared on Asus’ Italian Facebook page about four hours ago. The only thing missing now are the actual Transformers. They’re sold out everywhere and backordered out to nearly irrelevance. Well, there’s always the Xoom. There are plenty of those available along with their entire range of accessories. → Read More
Here we have the first parturition of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer from its retail container. As you’ll see, the Transformer looks respectably thin and durable. And that’s about all you can see in this unboxing video — the guy only manages to turn on the tablet for a few seconds. Needless to say, we want to see more. → Read More
The Asus Eee Pad Transformer is nearing a US release — at least that’s what Fandroids hope. The Transformer hit Taiwanese retailers late last month and it’s been showing up randomly in retailer’s websites. Asus just launched the official product page that details the convertible tablet down to each spec. The only thing missing at this point is the US release date and pricing even though a prematurely launched Best Buy product page pegs the 16GB flavor at $400, the 32GB at $500 and the optional dock for $150. → Read More
Crytek went to great pains throughout the development of Crysis 2 to stress that it wasn’t going to be a repeat of the first game. You weren’t going to need a monstrous machine merely to get 20 frames per second. No, Crytek said, we’ve managed to get the game running on the Xbox 360! And if the 360 can run it, what can’t run it? Not the Asus Eee 1215B, that’s for sure. → Read More
Asus has made its Eee Pad Transformer official. Never heard of the device? It’s been floating around for a few months now, including making a secretive appearance back at CES in January. To quickly describe it, it’s part tablet, part netbook. And here I thought tablets had replaced netbooks. → Read More
The netbook market has more or less dried up; the little things might still be useful for light computing, but they’ve been clobbered by tablets as the go-to device for quick email and web browsing. Could it be that they’re just not cheap enough? Asustek might be looking to fix that. → Read More
Looks like Intel “le falta un tornillo.” You’re surely aware of the problem with its Series 6 (“Cougar Point”) support chipset, which has caused the company to stop production of its Sandy Bridge processors. It’s a nightmare, and not only for Intel. Take Asus: a fine company that produces a number motherboards and laptops that are afflicted with the rotten chipset. What to do? → Read More
Fast hard drives are a dime-a-dozen these days, but this hard drive is the fastest. Why? Because ASUS gave it the Lamborghini logo and added USB 3.0 and 7500 RPM drives, silly! The Lambo-drives come in 500 and 750GB versions and should cost a little over $140 and $190, respectively, once pricing is announced. Until then, just feast your eyes on the clean lines and sassy bolting bull badge and dream of a better place. → Read More
Rescuecom, the computer repair service, says that, based on the number of “rescue” calls it has received, HP is the most reliable computer maker out there. HP scored better than traditionally reliable companies like Apple and Asus. Is the end of the road for mighty Apple?
Of course not, no. That would be silly. → Read More
Remember when we went to Asus’s CES press conference, and they showed us several nice-looking tablets, all of which we were told would run Android 3.0? I sure remember, because I was there. As it turns out, that might have been — there’s no polite way of putting it — a straight-up lie. → Read More
Windows faithful? Amazon has your back. The online retailer behimoth just put Asus’ supertablet — the EP121 — up for preorder. This is the tablet that the company calls the most powerful in world thanks to an Intel Core i5-470UM paired with 4GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD all ran by a 12.1-inch display. The most powerful in the world label might not be true, but that Core i5 chipset kicks the proverbial underpowered specs of the iPad right out the door. Hell, it’s more powerful than MacBooks and the 12-inch MacBook Pro. → Read More
