asus

The wily Asus Padfone set for MWC release?

Many a gadget hunter has searched for the mythical beast known as the Asus Padfone, but new reports suggest it could officially arrive at Mobile World Congress next month.

From the Motorola Atrix phones to the Samsung Galaxy Note, convertible or hybrid mobile computing products are a new trend to watch. Asus also made waves with the Transformer Prime, a tablet that connects to an external keyboard letting it morph into a laptop.

Now another of the company's fabled gizmos, the Padfone, is likely to become reality at the MWC show in Barcelona, Spain. Android site Android Central reports that Asus sent out press event invites all but confirming a genuine and imminent Padfone launch.

What makes this device so interesting is that instead of using a laptop dock to change it into a netbook-style computer, users can place the Padfone in an accessory that gives the phone tablet capabilities.… Read more

Ice Cream Sandwich on the Transformer Prime: Our definitive verdict

When the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime launched in late 2011, the hope was that it would be the first tablet to have and hold Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), the latest version of the Android OS. While the tablet eventually launched with Honeycomb, no other tablet has yet to be released running ICS (although, the Xoom has received an update for it by now), so as of this month, it actually is the first.

A couple of weeks back, Asus began rolling out over-the-air updates of ICS to Transformer Prime owners in the U.S. We at CNET finally got our Prime unit updated and spent all day poring through the sweet deliciousness that is ICS.

The thing about ICS for tablets, though, is that while smartphones previously topped out at Android 2.3, Honeycomb (version 3) has been on tablets for nearly a year now and going from 3.0 to 4.0 just isn't as huge of a jump. Still, although the changes are minor, they are noticeable.

Check out the full Transformer Prime review, and skip to the Ice Cream Sandwich section if updates and changes are all you're interested in.… Read more

Why my iPad can't replace my laptop: It's the trackpad

I'll let you in on a little secret: I haven't been thrilled with any iPad keyboard case solution, despite testing and reviewing about half a dozen of them.

Sure, some of them are excellent products. Still, I don't find them essential. This is why I don't use my iPad during mission-critical trips to trade shows and live-blogged events. This is why I don't use my iPad as a laptop replacement. Not entirely. Not yet.

I agree with a lot of what Harry McCracken refers to in his experience with his iPad and the ZaggFolio keyboard case. Ideally, having such an ultraportable, flexible device with a long battery life would be a perfect travel tool. For me, however, that perfect tool hasn't materialized yet.

I'd love to have some sort of evolved hybrid of an iPad and a MacBook Air. I've been dreaming of it for a while, actually. Apple's clearly leaning toward a fusion of sorts between iOS and Mac OS X. Lion was the first step. iOS gets a bit more advanced every year, taking baby steps toward being a true operating system for hard-core computing tasks.

There are several reasons it won't work right now, and the biggest by far is the good old-fashioned trackpad--or lack of it.… Read more

Ice Cream Sandwich update failing on some Transformer Primes

The update to Ice Cream Sandwich is apparently leaving some owners of the new Asus Transformer Prime out in the cold.

Released by Asus last Tuesday, ahead of schedule to users in the United States and Taiwan, the tablet was supposed to receive the Android 4.0 update over the air. But instead, several owners of the Prime are complaining that their tablets are displaying a serial number error, preventing the update from installing, according to posts on the XDA Developers forum.

Asus is aware of the issue and is close to a fix, according to a message posted Sunday … Read more

Ice Cream Sandwich update dripping out to Motorola Xoom

Ice Cream Sandwich is finally providing some flavor to Motorola Xoom tablets.

A Motorola representative confirmed to CNET today that the company has deployed the Ice Cream Sandwich update, aka Android 4.0, to a small number of Xoom users for testing. The company has promised to confirm additional details when the upgrade is more broadly available, added the rep.

Motorola initially seems to have teased the update, without specifically mentioning ICS, in the following e-mail sent to select Xoom owners yesterday, according to tech blogging site AndroidCentral:

Thanks for your patience as we've waited for this project to … Read more

Android Atlas Weekly 80: It's a camera, it's a phone, it's a tablet! (Podcast)

Motorola has Droid RAZR deja vu (twice!) and Samsung's Ryan Bidan stops by to show off the Galaxy Note and explain why we should be excited about an Android-powered refrigerator.

NEWS

-Polaroid SC1630 Android HD smart camera hands-on, is it a cameraphone or a phonecamera?

-Motorola’s Droid 4 is the greatest Android keyboard slider yet

-Sprint confirms switch to LTE with Galaxy Nexus, LG Viper

-Droid Razr Maxx

-Excite X10: Best of CES Finalist

-Asus Memo 370T: Best of CES Finalist… Read more

Asus rocks the tablet boat

Intel is making a big push into smartphones and tablets, Polaroid has the first Android phone, and Asus hands out four cores for the price of two with the game-changing Asus Memo 370T.

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded, from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas:

Four cores for the price of two? Intel goes inside smartphones Polaroid's Android camera Box-less DVR with DirecTV and Samsung Buzzing about the Dell XPS 13 and the Inhon. Subscribe: iTunes (MP3) | iTunes (320x180) | iTunes (HD) | RSS (MP3) | RSS (320x180) | RSS HD

Asus Memo 370T changes the game by offering four cores for the price of two

LAS VEGAS--On Monday, Nvidia and Asus teased a product that may change everything. At the Nvidia press conference the companies flashed that a quad-core, Tegra 3-based 7-inch tablet would soon be released for only $250.

The tablet in question actually turned out to be the Asus Memo 370T. An upgraded version of the 7-inch stylus-supported Memo tablet Asus debuted at CES 2011.

While the previous version ran on Honeycomb and utilized a dual-core Qualcomm 8260-1.2Ghz CPU, the 370T will ship with Ice Cream Sandwich and houses a quad-core Tegra 3. No word yet on the actual speed of the … Read more

ARM's secret to success: Not doing things the Intel way

LAS VEGAS--ARM believes that its success is tied to doing things very differently from Intel. And you can't argue with its success.

I spoke to Ian Drew, executive vice president of strategy at chip design firm ARM, on the CES show floor here on Tuesday.

Q: You've seen tremendous success over the last few years. ARM chips are in virtually every smartphone and tablet out there. Can you comment? Drew: We shipped 8 billion (processor) cores last year. Look at the growth of smartphones. The diversity of our product lines. Look at how this business has changed over … Read more

The Asus ET2700 all-in-one joins growing roster of 27-inch all-in-ones

LAS VEGAS--Now I'm starting to wonder what it means for the vendors that have not announced a 27-inch all-in-one.

Asus joins HP, Vizio, and Lenovo in introducing a Windows all-in-one with a new large-screen display at CES. The ET2700 will appear this month at Best Buy with a 27-inch, 1,920x1,080-pixel-resolution display built in. Like HP's Omni 27, also available now, the Asus model doesn't have a touch screen. Asus reps told me at the company's booth that it will add touch in a midyear update. I've asked for pricing information, and will update when I have it.

The screen size is really the only significant news for this system. The Core i5 CPU and GeForce 540M graphics chip should come as no surprise, and the array of ports--USB 3.0, HDMI in, eSATA--is in keeping with its competition.

I'd only note that the design of the ET2700, with its edge-to-edge glass and pedal-style support foot, joins Lenovo in borrowing liberally from Apple's iMac design language. A vendor copying Apple is also not especially newsworthy, but at least the trend remains healthy.… Read more