News Bits: Asus Eee PC 2, New Vigor Notebooks, Toshiba Announces New Hard Drives

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Asus to launch second-gen Eee PC in Spring 2008

Asustek Computer's goal in the next three years is to become one of the top five notebook manufacturers. The currently hold an eigth or ninth place rank. The company's brand business made up 36 percent of their overall sales in Q1 2007 - the Eee PC will become a focus of the brand business. Asustek plans to ship 200,000 - 300,000 Eee PCs by the end of  2007 and plans to ship 3 million or more next year.

Asustek is planning to introduce a second-generation Eee PC in April of 2008. It will feature Intel Merom processors, which will help to lower the power consumption from the current Eee PC's 11W TDP to 7W TDP. The fan may be removed to reduce noise and power usage.

Read More (DigiTimes.com)

Vigor announces new notebook PCs

Vigor Gaming Computer has announced a series of new notebook computers incluidng an entry-level model and a high-end desktop replacement gaming notebook. A total of five new models are being offered.

The top-of-the-line system is the 20-inch Atlantis PRO, which is powered by dual-core AMD Turion X2 processors and features up to two Nvidia GeForce Go7950GTX graphics cards. The notebook can have up to two 250GB hard drives and has a WSXGA+ resolution screen. The Atlantis PRO starts at $2,799 MSRP.

The Artorius PRO is built on the new Intel Santa Rosa computing platform. It features Nvidia GeForce 8700M-GT DirectX 10 graphics and a 17-inch WUXGA resolution screen.

The Ares PRO is a 15.4-inch desktop replacement featuring Intel Core 2 Duo desktop processors up to 2.93GHz. It has an MSRP of $1,899.

Finally, the Ares is the mainstream model. Starting at $1,299, it features a 15.4-inch widescreen display, Intel Core 2 Duo processors, a WXGA or WSXGA+ resolution screen, and an Nvidia 8600M-GT graphics card.

Vigor Gaming Website

Toshiba introduces 160GB 1.8-inch hard drive

Toshiba today announced two versions of its new 1.8-inch hard drive, the MK1626GCB (160GB) and the MK8022GAA (80GB). Both are designed to be used in portable devices such as media players. The 80GB drive is shipping while the 160GB drive is still being sampled. The 80GB drive is thinner and lighter than the 160GB version because it only has a single platter.

Toshiba has employed new technology in the drives, including an improved read-write head and a magnetic layer that increase storage density.

Read More (BusinessWire.com)

Acer focused on U.S. market

Acer currently holds a slipping rank in notebook sales in China, which has spurred speculation of mergers. Acer made a statement saying they are more focused on the U.S. and European markets at this point in time, and views China as a second key market that it will actively pursue once it establishes a strong foothold in the U.S./Europe. Acer says it is not giving up on China; they have a plan to spread globally for the best long-term growth. Acer plans that Gateway will secure its position in the U.S. market.

Read More (DigiTimes.com)

Toshiba puts 120GB on a single 1.8-inch platter

Toshiba announced that they have put 120GB on a single 1.8-inch platter using Discrete Track Recording (DTR). Toshiba is the first company to use the technology on a hard drive. Toshiba plans to start mass production of hard drives using the technology in 2009.

Currently, Toshiba's highest capacity 1.8-inch hard drive uses 80GB platters.

Read More (BusinessWire.com)

 

Peh, Asus has really dissapointed me with the EEE, lowering the specs (minimum now 256 instead of 512 megs of ram and 2 instead of 4gb of SSD storage) and raising the price, not good at all. I know I'm not the only one upset over it and where is the XG-Station?

They've really put a damper on my enthusiam for it.

 

VARPOURWARE!!!!!!! AHHH!!!!!!


Seriously, where's the Eee?

 

Ain't keen on the EEE's developments anymore but signs point to late September to October.

 

I'll probably buy a Thinkpad or Lenovo V200 now and wait for the second generation of the EEE in "April 2008 (although I suspect it will be delayed by a month or two." I agree, the wait for the EEE and the specs/for the price isn't worth it yet. Plus, there isn't any concrete specs or prices listed (well in Canada, at least).

 

Is that 570ru looking chassis what it those models actually look like?

 

Asus has been pretty bad with the the EEE and XG station, and I echo the sentiments of Coriolis and Rahulnirmal. At the $200 price point, the EEE would have been an impulsive purchase.

Oh well, yet another thing to wait for.

 

Hmm... anyone else notice that for the Ares (Which appears to be the IFL-90) Vigor has an SLI logo in there for their high end configuration...

 

Yeah, I'm more interested in the iPhone now. Would import one in a heartbeat if Ubuntu Mobile ran on it.

 

Yeah I noticed that too but when you actually get into the configuration menu, SLI is not an option.

 

What was the latest price given for the EEE?

 

I thought that was pretty funny to be honest that they put SLI in there. I know that is impossible.

 

Well, now Asus only have to sort out their battery problems, stop stealing from their customers, stop selling tablet pc's with design defects and sort out the most unprofessional and disgraceful CS staff in computing history (Hi Asus UK).

They are the only company I know who can make an expensive laptop out of cheap material and then laugh at their customers when it becomes faulty.

Do ya reckon they can make cheap laptop with good build quality when they cant make an expensive laptop with good build quality.

Signed : One of the many pissed off R1F tablet pc owners on the planet.

BTW : Before you flame this is all from personal experience.

 

The thing is... Asus makes great products. They make great laptops as well... just not the models that they sell themselves.

 

Some more news about Asus: Asus won the number one title for the Top 10 global brands in Taiwan. It has a total brand value of about 11.96 Billion USD, and has growin by 166% since 2003!

I think for them to become #5 they will have to begin lowering their prices. Although they make some awesome looking notebooks, they will need to drop their prices a ton to compete with HP, Dell, Lenovo and Acer.

 

You should look at the Neo1973 with OpenMoko then.

 

It is just SLI ready;]

 

I'd rather see the 1st gen EEE start to be sold before they even start talking about the 2nd gen. Hell, the way its going, the 2nd gen will come out a couple of weeks after the 1st gen. Asus is becoming an excellent vapourware company: first the XG station, then this, now the F8Sv and V2S, both of which have not started shipping STILL.

 

@rahulnirmal : I hope the delay is because they work on the XG station to output video back to the notebook screen .

 

Doubtful. The ExpressCard slot barely has enough bandwidth to send all that data from the processor and memory to the GPU, let alone then sending all that back through the same port to the computer.

 

Yeah, seriously. What is UP with talking about the next version of EEE when most people haven't seen a functional EEE yet!

 

The next gen card, supposedly in dev right now, isn't using ExpressCard, almost guaranteed. So thats not going to be a problem in the next gen. This gen, I think Asus has given up on ever releasing it, and will just take it as a concept to build on.