Posted 03/10/10 at 10:17:13 AM by Paul Lilly

Asus today announced the launch of its Cine5 PC speaker. According to Asus, it's the world's most compact five-channel speaker and serves up multi-directional surround sound.

"By integrating an array of speaker drivers into a single bar, the Cine5 PC speaker helps users save space in their study rooms," Asus said. "Additionally, installation is simplified by eliminating the need to set up multiple satellite speakers—users just need to place the Cine5 PC speaker below the computer monitor. No positional adjustment is necessary to get the sweet spot for audio recreation."

The Cine5 pumps out 25W max (15W RMS) and measures 373 x 100 x 100 mm with metal stands (373 x 100 x 80 mm with rubber stands). it comes with a 3.5mm jack for multi-channel inputs, headphone output, volume knob, and a 5.1 channel audio cable.

Asus also says you can expect a bit of punch with the Cine5, despite its compact size. By using a specially-designed bass reflex port, Asus claims the Cine5 provides 15dB more bass than speakers of similar size.

No word yet on price or availability.

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Posted 03/09/10 at 11:19:33 AM by Paul Lilly

Look out Asus, Gigabyte isn't just nipping at your heels anymore, the top-tier motherboard maker is pretty much standing side by side, market watchers say.

According to news and rumor site DigiTimes, Gigabyte looks to have shipped anywhere from 3.1 million to 3.3 million motherboards in the first two months of 2010, putting the company on par with Asus, who is estimated to have shipped 3.2 million to 3.3 million units.

Don't expect to Asus to concede its lead so easily, however. Channel vendors say Asus, in an attempt to stay out in front, might start slashing prices. If Asus were to do so, it could lead to a price war in the mobo market that could potentially spill over to include other vendors.

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Posted 03/09/10 at 08:53:38 AM by Paul Lilly

Asus was busy showing off its Eee PC 1005PR netbook during CeBIT, and has now gone official with its latest entry to the Eee PC line. So what's the big deal about this one?

When you flip the lid of the 1005PR, you'll find an LED backlit WXGA display with a 1366 x 768 resolution, making it the first 10-inch netbook in the Asus camp to sport a higher res display. But that's not all. Asus also crammed in a Broadcom BCM 70015 HD accelerator.

"The Eee PC 1005PR embedded HD Decoder Broadcom BCM 70015, which comes with ArcSoft Total Media Theater to smoothly play high definition quality video. Users can enjoy HD video entertainment on the unit's 10.1-inch high definition screen," Asus says.

The rest is mostly standard for a Pine Trail netbook, including Intel's Atom N450 processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive. Other features include Express Gate / Dual OS, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, three USB 2.0 ports, and a 0.3MP webcam.

No word yet on pricing or availability.

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Posted 02/26/10 at 09:56:40 AM by Paul Lilly

Asus today launched a pair of Radeon HD 5000 series videocards -- EAH5870 and EAH5850 -- the company claims will accommodate extreme levels of overclocking thanks to an "innovative thermal design."

Both cards come equipped with specially-flattened copper heatpipes Asus says helps dissipate heat up to 20 percent better while playing games, while also offering up to 35 percent quieter operation when idle.

Similar to what was so successful in Cooler Master's Hyper 212 Plus CPU cooler (see review here), Asus looks to have gone with a direct contact solution, squashing the 5.8-ounce heatpipes to at the base. Combined with the company's exclusive "Voltage Tweak" technology, which allows users to ramp up the GPU voltage through the included SmartDoctor application, Asus says users can expect up to a 50 percent performance gain (when overclocking).

No word yet on price or availability.

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Posted 02/25/10 at 03:09:50 PM by Bart Salisbury

Asus is preparing to bust out three new Eee PC netbooks at CeBit in March: the 1015P, 1016P, and the 1018P.

Each of the new models will sport a 10-inch screen, a chiclet keyboard, a webcam, a double array microphone, and a promised 14-hours of battery life for the 1015P and 1016P. Cases will be made of aluminum.

The 1018P will be slimmer than its compatriots, and will come with USB 3.0. Unfortunately, its battery will provide power for only ten hours.

Sadly, information on the guts of each machine is unknown. Full details will most likely emerge when they show themselves at CeBit.

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Posted 02/24/10 at 11:28:48 AM by Gordon Mah Ung

In a world where you can get a pretty decent $99.99 motherboard, a lot of consumers don’t understand why you would pay one-and-a-half times more for a board using the same chipset.

That’s because those same consumers don’t seem to understand the attitude and atmosphere you get with a high-end motherboard. It’s about the flair, and the Asus Maximus III Formula offers that in spades.

While some of the flair is extraneous, such as the garish case sticker, some can be truly handy. A set of stickers lets you label your SATA cables, for example. And then there’s the flair that we’ve come to expect of Asus: the ever-useful Q-connector for front-panel connections and the no-snag I/O shield and snag-free RAM slots we first saw on the P7P55D Deluxe. Audio is upgraded over baseline boards with the SupremeFX X-Fi module. The module and drivers give you X-Fi algorithms and the codecs are moved off the noisy motherboard. Since RAM configuration can affect system reliability, the board also includes a handy BIOS-based MemPerfect utility to validate your RAM settings.

Asus takes remote-control monitoring and overclocking to the next level with the MIIIF, too. You can now connect a laptop directly to the motherboard to monitor voltages, temperature, and fans; read POST codes; and even overclock the board. It’s neat, but we wish Asus would build in logging and graphing capabilities, as well.

Continue reading this review after the jump.

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Posted 02/24/10 at 08:11:20 AM by Paul Lilly

Up to this point, Acer has been able to sit on top of the netbook hill with a comfortable market lead over its competitors, and while Acer will probably maintain a shipment advantage throughout 2010, other vendors are quickly closing the gap, DigiTimes reports.

Acer managed to ship about 9 million netbooks last year, almost double that of its nearest competitor (Asus), who shipped 5.4 million. Meanwhile, HP and Samsung shipped 4.2 million and 2.9 million units respectively in 2009, posing no real threat to Acer's No. 1 spot. That's about to change.

Acer recently indicated it expects mostly flat performance on its netbook shipments in 2010, or slight growth in a best case scenario. That leaves the door open for Asus to close the gap, who reckons it will ship 8 million units this year. Samsung and HP also expect better performance in the coming months and hope to finish the year with 7-8 million and 6 million units, respectively.

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Posted 02/24/10 at 07:45:36 AM by Paul Lilly

Asus' Waveface concept is the thing sci-fi flicks are made of. It also has all the makings of vaporware, but let's give Asus the benefit of the doubt and see what they're trying to cook up.

First up is the Waveface Casa. This is essentially a widescreen display that covers up and taps into the cloud when you're not flipping through channels. It also recognizes gestures, allowing the user to bring up family photos and home videos by pointing and waving around.

Then there's the Waveface Light. This one assumes the tablet craze sweeping the tech sector will stick around, because that's exactly what it is, albeit flexible. It's also a netbook when you choose not to fold it flat.

And finally there's the Waveface Ultra. You'll wear the Ultra around your wrist like an oversized watch, and this too is gesture controlled. It also connects to the cloud. Asus describes it as a wearable smartphone that "finds, filters, and provides you with the right information at the right time."

It all sounds pretty groovy, if not probably overly ambitious, at least in the short-term.

YouTube Video Demo

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