Computex Taipei 2007 - Part 5
In this update of Computex Taipei 2007, we bring you the lifestyle side of ASUS with their notebooks, handheld and entertainment devices. We also cover Casetech, Global WIN, Hitachi, Transcend, Thermaltake, Lobos, CMC, Prodisc, Optodisc, Promise, SuperMicro and Point of View, so click on.
ASUS Notebooks
You've seen desktop replacements before from, but none like the new ASUS C90 prototype. This notebook actually looks like a notebook with a 15.4-inch WSXGA+ screen, but we'll clue you in on a little secret. The extra bulge at the back is not a high capacity battery, but a cooling unit.
The C90 is supposed to be a performance hog running on a full desktop Core 2 Extreme that is overclockable from 2.66GHz to 2.93GHz. The notebook also makes use of a GeForce 8600M GT GPU, and can be upgraded easily through its PCIe MXM module to any future GPU. You will be able to configure it fully like any desktop with Blu-ray, HD DVD, HDMI, e-SATA, TV Tuner, 2.0MP webcam, 802.11a/b/g/n wireless and Bluetooth 2.0.
Jump into Intel's latest Santa Rosa platform with the ASUS F3S, a 15.4-inch notebook running on an Intel Core 2 Duo T7700, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 with 512MB external RAM and configurable with a Blu-ray or HD DVD drive.
The W2W is ASUS' flagship entertainment notebook based on the Santa Rosa platform. Not only does it have a 17-inch widescreen LCD, it has great video, powerful audio capabilities, built-in subwoofer, and a DVB-T tuner as well. One thing that sticks out like a sore thumb though is its limited RAM capacity of only 2GB.
Both the ASUS G1 and G2 Santa Rosa updates are also on display here at Computex. Being their flagship gaming series, we weren't surprised.
One of the few AMD Turion 64 based notebooks in ASUS' arsenal, the A8Dc can be both a powerful business notebook as well as a strong media player with a 14.1-inch widescreen display, discreet 128MB GeForce 8600M G graphics.
ASUS goes head to head against VIA and FIC with their new Eee PC 701. Just like the FIC CE260, the Eee PC 701 weighs in under 1KG for a full fledged system. However, the ASUS notebook runs on an Intel platform instead. It has a 7-inch display, uses solid state drives as storage and is compatible with Linux or Windows XP. Rich media capabilities, networking and wireless, the Eee PC 701 is designed for true on-the-go computing.
ASUS is also working on a larger 10-inch model of the Eee PC, which is still under qualification at the moment though.
ASUS Phones
The ASUS A696 is an ultra slim PDA with GPS capabilities running on a PXA270 416MHz processor, 256MB ROM/64MB RAM and Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0. ASUS claims that they will offer free upgrades to Windows Mobile 6 where available. The PDA has a great stainless steel body, no protruding antennas and only 1.57cm thin.
ASUS must be having their design team on overtime with the J502 as this stylish tri-band/GPRS phone comes with a 3MP camera, TV out support and Skype VoIP capabilities. If it means anything to you, the phone also has an 80,000 word dictionary built-in.
The M530w is ASUS' very first Windows Mobile 6 smartphone featuring a 416MHz PXA270 processor, 256MB+64M memory, 2.4-inch 65k TFT screen and a 2MP camera. Standard features include 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a QWERTY keypad, Microsoft and Blackberry push email clients and business card recognition.
Another Windows Mobile 6 phone from ASUS. The P526 is a quad-band phone, runs on a 200MHz OMAP 850 processor, has a 2.6-inch touchscreen, GPS navigation and looks to kill.
Designed for the fashionistas, the ASUS Z802i is a luxury phone with a sapphire sub display and leather appearance. Otherwise, the Z802i supports GSM900/1800/1900, GPRS and UMTS 2100.
The S102 is a direct GPS device from ASUS that also has handwriting recognition and can handle MP3 playback.
More ASUS Products
ASUS goes classical with their ASUS Internet-Radio (AIR) designs. The AIR 1 and 2 are more or less standalone radios that will work as long as you have a direct connection to the internet either through LAN or WiFi.
With the AIR 3, ASUS changes to a more modern look as this particular model also has an iPod dock.
ASUS updates their home entertainment center this year with the DAV Center A33. One of the biggest difference is that last year's A22 was based on an Intel Viiv platform and the A33 now seems to be on AMD Live!. Nevertheless, the A33 offers and embedded 5.1 channel audio amplifier, full 1080p support, dual channel recording and 802.11n wireless network support. The DAV A33 is also leaps ahead of the older A22 in terms of looks as a living room entertainment center.
Remember last year when ASUS launched the PG191 19-inch monitor with its funky power bass speakers in the rear? Well this year sees an upgrade to 22-inch, widescreen, 16.7M colors, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 2ms GTG response time, HDCP, S-Video/Composite/Component video input, and a mini display.
Not content with their new range of LCD monitors, ASUS is also venturing into the LCD TV world with their Splendid TV displays. At the moment, the top model is a 42-inch TV with full 1080p resolution, 2000:1 contrast ratio, a speedy response time and comes with two HDMI inputs.
Casetech's Booth
Casetech's booth showing off a few of their concept chassis designs.
The Gemini Lite seems to be their most interesting desktop chassis there. Though not a full tower, it has seven drive bays, two 220mm fans on each side and a proprietary air flow filter behind the motherboard.
While the Gemini is the bigger brother to the Gemini Lite, additional drive bays are removed in favor of more fans.
The Harmony chassis is designed for the minimalist, but not small form factor lovers. It is equally as large as its Gemini cousins, though don't let the metal polish fool you. The front cover is made of plastic.
Global WIN's Booth
Unlike other consumer based vendors, Global WIN is usually all business at Computex, showing their technology breakthroughs instead.
This year, Global WIN displays their new 'Green Fan', which makes use of a brand new motor core made out of a soft magnetic composite material, which costs less and has 100% yield with no waste during manufacturing. They are also able to shrink the normal fan core diameter to enable larger fins and better air flow.
A closer comparison, the fan on the left (purple) uses the new core and the larger standard core on the right.
CMC's Booth
CMC's booth.
There haven't really been a lot of updates in the Blu-ray and HD DVD disc area, so while every optical disc manufacturer still showcases their range of HD DVD and Blu-ray discs, we find that everyone has additional attractions.
CMC has an elaborate setup of their AnyX media streaming server. Connect your TV cable into AnyX and let it stream your favorite channels across the Web to PCs, notebooks and even mobile phones (as long as your phone is a 3G device that supports a HTML web browser and MPEG-4 playback that is).
Prodisc's Booth
Prodisc's booth.
Like CMC, Prodisc showcases your regular range of HD DVD and Blu-ray write, rewrite and RAM discs ranging from 15GB to 50GB.
ePro is a sort of subsidiary of Prodisc researching other avenues of technology and products. The first thing on display is a funky looking intelligent LED lamp with touch controlled light intensity and automatic memory recall.
Optodisc's Booth
Optodisc's Booth
Similar to CMC and Prodisc, Optodisc have on display generic optical disc media from CD to DVD re-writables up to Blu-ray and HD DVD discs.
What's interesting in their booth though is this mini display of a direct methanol fuel cell unit.
Hitachi's Booth
Hitachi may be a big consumer electronics brand, but at Computex, you'll only see components.
Hitachi showing a slim BD rewriter that supports 50GB double layer discs and the SATA interface.
There is also the desktop variant sporting the same specifications as the slim rewriter. The CGW-H20N is also a SATA drive.
A 200GB HDD isn't anything to shout about. A 7200RPM HDD isn't new either. A 3.0Gbps SATA drive is common place too, but put all these together in a 2.5-inch notebook drive and you get the Travelstar 7K200.
Transcend's Booth
Transcend's booth. We like how they tell us up front what's new. Saves us a lot of time that.
In the desktop consumer space, DDR3 is the hottest item this year with official platform support already out in the market. Transcend shows their DDR3-1066 and DDR3-1333 modules.
Solid State Drives are another thing no memory maker will miss out on. Trancend shows a 1-inch IDE SSD here with an 8GB capacity and 25MB/s read,12MB/s write.
SSDs are everywhere, in every interface, for every platform. They've suddenly exploded into the market. How about a 32GB ExpressCard drive that can be used in notebooks.
Not to be confused with USB flash drives, these USB flash devices connect directly to a motherboard's free USB header. This approach is similar to what ASUS offered in their ASAP module for their VISTA series motherboards. Such devices not only ride on the recent SSD rage, but also Vista ReadyBoost functionality as well as possible uses with Intel's desktop Turbo Memory RAID functionality.
Lobos' Booth
We happened by Lobos and spotted some cool iPod accessories that were of pretty high quality.
The iWalk is quite self explanatory really. It is a retro looking pair of headsets with integrated iPod dock. You've got all sorts of iPod straps in the market, here's your chance to wear your iPod on your head. You control your iPod directly through the click wheel.
The Lupus RePure Amp for your iPod. Vacuum tubes, mirror finish, the promise of audiophile audio reproduction and some drool is all you'd get looking at the picture.
Point of View
Point of View's booth.
All Point of View GeForce 8 series cards on display use NVIDIA's reference designs as far as we could see. The highest end available on display was a 256MB GeForce 8600 GTS.
The GeForce 8600 GT on the other hand is a smaller card, though the decals look pretty similar at first sight.
Targeting budget buyers, Point of View has some of the lower end models of the GeForce 8 series on display as well such as this GeForce 8500 GT.
Promise's Booth
Promise promises something unexpected this Computex with a focus on consumer media and lifestyle products.
The Promise SmartStor NS4300N is a consumer oriented 4-bay HDD NAS device with RAID 5 as well as native dlna support. This means that you can bypass the PC streaming to dlna enabled equipment like TVs. This is Promise's focus for the SmartStor even though it also has comprehensive SOHO and SMB features like NAS to NAS replication and snapshot backups.
Considering the new focus as a media server for the SmartStor, Promise has a whole slew of cool OEM designs to fit the living room.
Promise is also looking into a cheaper 2-bay SmartStor alternative, which should be much more appealing to consumers than the NS4300N.
Here's something that is more in line with Promise's enterprise products, not something you'll see in your home anything soon, but this is a demonstration of a Promise CTrak E-Class SAS/SATA RAID 6 storage system. This is a cascade with a E610 dual controller and 4xJ610 JBOD modules for a total of 80 HDDs and 60TB of storage.
SuperMicro
Supermicro's booth.
Supermicro is touting their newest SuperBlade server platforms that can be configured for both Intel Xeon and AMD Opteron processors. The SuperBlade offers the best density in the industry for 7U chassis, highest power efficiency (up to 90+%), the fastest InifiniBand network and is more cost effective than 1U servers.
4 processors (up to 4 cores per processor) per blade, 10 blades per 7U chassis. That's 40 processors (up to 160 cores) per enclosure and 240 processors (up to 960 cores) in one 42U rack.
Thermaltake's Booth
Thermaltake's booth.
Water cooling is not only becoming easier, but also classier with each generation. The Thermaltake BigWater 760i is a dual drive bay liquid cooling system that is easy to install and features a new slim copper waterblock with micro channel flow design.
Latest update to the ATI version of the TMG VGA cooler is the TMG AT4, designed for the Radeon HD 2900 XT.
The TMG ND4 on the other hand is the NVIDIA variant supporting the GeForce 8800 GTX.
The V1 cooler looks just like a napkin holder, but Thermaltake's quad heat-pipe design really takes on heat directly.
Thermaltake's Toughpower PSU's previously topped out at 1500W, which was already overkill to most. Now, meet the 2000W Toughpower – that's got to be as tough as it gets.
Thermaltake Continued
As much as iPod docking devices flood the market, they have an appeal that can't be resisted, just like Thermaltake's Mozart iF casing – the world's first to employ an integrated iPod dock.
Works just like a cassette deck of yesteryear too.
This model is still called a LANBOX, but it’s a home theater system through and through. It has a Media LAB VFD module and can be upgraded with an iMEDIAN home theater kit and 7-inch LCD.
Thermaltake concept NAS storage device prototypes.
Do you get sweaty palms while using your mouse too long, be it for gaming or at work? This simple little air cooler might just be the next door gift of choice.
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.