Asus is set to reinvent the netbook market with a deluge of tablet devices ready to make a debut at CES 2011.
If you know your tech, you’ll know that Asus was the one that started the netbook craze with its line of Eee PCs and they had it pretty good for a few years until the Apple iPad came into the picture. The iPad came, the iPad saw and the iPad conquered. After that, people never looked at netbooks the same way again and as a result sales of netbooks bombed to the extent that the genre is now on the verge of extinction.
Well, Asus is not going to take Apple’s iPad onslaught lying down. Knowing the issues that are plaguing netbooks very well (read: performance, keyboard size, battery performance), Asus is coming out with a new range of hybrid tablet-netbook type of devices at CES that looks to put the once leading netbook manufacturer right back into the game.
Come CES 2011 in less than three days, Asus will be unveiling not one, not two but four tablet devices to shake things up.
As always details are still scarce, but Asus has released just enough info to get us very intrigued with what they have to offer. Join us after the jump to find out what Asus will be bringing into the tablet wars at CES 2011.
EeePad EP121
The cat’s definitely out of the bag for this one. There’s already a teaser-promo video revealing most of its specs. The EP121 is a 12-inch Windows 7 tablet with an Intel Core i5 processor complete with USB and HDMI connectivity. There is also an SD card reader, a webcam and a full HD display. In a video put out by Asus (and them promptly taken down), the EP121 may also feature a stylus/digitizer and a docking keyboard that turns the tablet into a notebook.. Also a very likely possibility, for the EP121 to have built-in 3G connectivity as well — nice.
A Windows 7 tablet running an i5 processor is something that we’re definitely looking forward to see. It’s an interesting concept but there are still questions left unanswered. How much will a 12-inch tablet weight? Will it be too much for the average user? What about battery performance? Running Intel i5 means it’ll need more juice, which means a bigger battery, which means more weight.
We’re sure Asus have looked into all this performance aspects and more, so expect all these questions to be answered when the final specs are revealed.
We’ve included here a very early look at the EP121. Pay no attention to the specs as the device feature is a very early prototype. But do still take a look at the video to have a picture of how the final version might look like. We have to say, even at the prototype stage the EP121 does look rather good.
EeePad EP102
Is a 10-inch tablet running on Android — most probably Honeycomb. No much is known about this device save for the indication that it will feature a slide-out keyboard. Our guess is that for it to be competitive Asus must have a Tegra 2 in there as well. So we’re expecting that to make it into the spec sheet of the EP102 as well.
EeePad EP101
This is a 10-inch convertible tablet featuring a fold-out keyboard a swivel screen along with a docking station. Word has it that the device will run Windows 7 (we’re not sure about the OS, as the teaser pic above shows an Android-ish touch buttons instead). No other hardware spec is available at the moment but take a look at this video of an early viewing of a prototype version of EP101, although no fold-out keyboard and swivel screen, some of the early specs on the proto might make it to final production — like SD card reader and 3G connectivity.
EeePad EP71
Virtually no details on this. Rumour has it that the EP71 is a 7-inch media player device running on Android with very simillar functionality as the iPad touch.
We’ve said once before and we’re going to say it again, 2011 will be the year of the tablets. Keep it locked on to SoyaCincau.com to get the latest.
