Posted 10/09/08 at 07:40:52 PM by Pulkit Chandna

The largest and second largest PC manufacturers in the world, HP and Dell respectively, haven’t taken an instant liking to WiMax it seems. The launch of the first commercial WiMax network in Baltimore, earlier this month, inspired OEMs Acer, Aspire, Lenovo and Toshiba to launch WiMax-enabled notebooks. However, Dell and HP did not rush to take advantage of the launch.

All said, a few models in Dell’s Latitude E series of notebooks are equipped with WiMax, a fact that Dell highlighted - almost as a reminder - after the launch of Sprint’s XOHM WiMax service in Baltimore. But a spokesperson for the company went onto state that Dell has no plans of launching more WiMax-enabled notebooks in the near future.

Moving to the largest PC supplier HP, even though the company is testing WiMax it has no immediate plans of offering support for the technology in its notebooks. It has asked its customers to explore the option of purchasing WiMax enabled PC card, USB dongle or ExpressCard, if they are keen on using WiMax. Dell and HP want to wait until WiMax becomes available in other major cities.

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notebook, dell, hp, asus, lenovo, Sprint, hardware, Acer, wimax, baltimore, xohm

Posted 10/09/08 at 10:16:46 AM by Paul Lilly

Riding the success of its Eee PC series, Asus has big expectations for competing in the notebook segment, and that includes trying to whiz by both Dell and Lenevo.

Asus will look to ship 50,000 units of its Eee PC S101 this month, which would translate into about $35 million towards the company's revenues. Those numbers could jump even higher as Asus gears up to launch the same model in Europe and Japan later this month.

Fanning the fire, Asus will launch a pair of Linux-bases S101s in the coming weeks, with the 32GB version commanding $700 and the 64GB model bringing in between $800 and $900. All together, Asus thinks it will ship anywhere from 200,000 to 300,000 S101s by year's end.

Other plans include two more Eee PC models positioned between the S101 and 1000 series, and if un-named sources turn out to be correct, Asus will soon announce plans to outsource Eee PC production to Foxconn and another as-yet unknown electronic manufacturing service.

It all adds up to fierce competition in the notebook segment, in which Asus president Jerry Shen had no bones about  admitting his company's goals are to surpass Dell in the China market and Lenovo in the worldwide market by the end of 2009.

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mobile, dell, asus, lenovo, Asustek, notebook. laptop

Posted 10/08/08 at 05:25:37 PM by Andy Salisbury

Asus has recently admitted that some of their Eee Box desktop PC’s have shipped with a virus.  While they’ve claimed that they’ve only sent boxes with viruses to Japan, it can be confirmed that other territories have received units as well.

As stated by an email sent out by Asus, the Eee Box’s 80GB hard drive has the “recycled.exe” virus files hidden in the drive’s D: partition. Once the drive is opened, the virus activates and infects the C: drive, as well as any removable drives connected to the system. Symantec states that the malware is likely to be a W32/Usbalex worm, which creates an “autorun.inf” file to trigger “recycled.exe” from D:.

With any luck, Asus will have this under control before they send out their next shipments. Until then though, be sure to look out for any of these new boxes shipping to a desk near you, they could be waiting to take all of your precious information.

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Software, asus, virus, hardware, consumer electronics, eee Box

Posted 10/08/08 at 01:30:12 PM by Paul Lilly

The era of quad-core mobile gaming draws closer as Asus gears up to release its G71 gaming notebook. Quad-core processors in notebooks are nothing new, but the G71 will use a true mobile quad-core CPU, specifically the Intel QX9300.

The 17-inch notebook uses a GeForce 9700M GT videocard with 512MB of GDDR3 RAM to push gaming pixels on the display's 1920x1200 resolution. Users can configure up to 4GB of DDR3-1066 memory, and on the non-volatile storage front, up to two 500GB hard drives for a total of 1TB. In other words, it will be a long time before you have to decide between installing a new game or storing porn.

Other features include a 2MP webcam, secondary keyboard display so you can keep an eye on your MSN Messenger IMs while gaming, optional Blu-ray drive, HDMI, eSATA, and everything else you'd expect to find on a modern high-end laptop.

Pricing and availability have not yet been announced, but did we mention it comes with a quad-core processor?

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games, gaming, mobile, notebook, laptop, asus, quad-core, Videogames, g71

Posted 10/03/08 at 05:20:04 PM by Paul Lilly

Asus has to be feeling on top of the world, assuming sources at the company aren't blowing hot air. As DigiTimes reports it, those sources are claiming that Asus feasts on the lion's share of P45-based motherboard sales, with the company accounting for a whopping 80 percent of worldwide shipments.

Third quarter motherboard shipments are estimated at 6.12 million units, representing a growth rate of 20 percent and surpassing the company's original estimation of 15 percent. The numbers bode well for what's to come, as demand for Intel's X58 chipset based boards is also expected to run high.

Will your next board be an Asus?

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mobo, motherboard, asus, build a pc, rumor, p45

Posted 09/26/08 at 11:28:33 AM by Paul Lilly

Has there ever been a better time than right now to be a PC enthusiast? Due to oversupply, RAM remains dirt cheap, and pricing wars between Nvidia and ATI in the graphics sector, and Intel and AMD on the processor front have made it so you can build a killer rig on a manageable budget. Could motherboards be next?

If there is to be a price war among motherboard vendors, you can count Gigabyte out of the battle. Richard Ma, VP of Gigabyte, says his company has no plans to cut motherboard pricing in response Asus' recent adjustments, fearing that such a move would force Asus' hand to lower prices even more. Instead, Ma says his company's strategy will be to focus on improving quality, an area he claims is of primary concern to those who purchase mid-range and high-end motherboards.

Motherboard shipments, while still meeting Gigabyte's goal of 20 million units, haven't met the company's expectations the past two months, in part because of the new price competition. However, September sales have been kinder to Gigabyte, and Ma expects October and November to be even better with Core i7 CPUs and the X58 chipset on the horizon.

Is Gigabyte making a mistake by not dropping prices? Hit the jump and let us know.

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motherboard, asus, gigabyte, build a pc

Posted 09/18/08 at 06:05:01 PM by Paul Lilly

If you ever wondered what constitutes an epic fail as opposed to a regular fail, here it is. According to UK based news and reviews site PC Pro, one of its readers claims to have received a recovery DVD with his Asus notebook purchase filled with various software cracks and several confidential documents. Oops!

The reader says his antivirus software discovered a key crack for the WinRAR compression software, and upon further investigation, he uncovered a folder labeled 'Crack,' inside which are what he claims are serial numbers for other software. But that's not all that was included. Another directory is said to contain confidential Microsoft documents for PC manufacturers, complete with program files and key codes. PC Pro says that yet another directory contains internal Asus documents along with source code for some of the company's software.

Apparently this isn't an isolated incident, prompting an Asus spokesman to issue an apology to affected customers, saying "We will be investigating this at quite a high level. Once the investigation is complete, we will ensure it doesn't happen again."

All aboard?

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crack, Software, mobile, notebook, laptop, asus, winRAR, failboat

Posted 08/25/08 at 07:28:14 PM by Pulkit Chandna

The general consensus at the Intel Developer Forum 2008 in San Francisco was that netbook makers will have to slash prices in wake of increasing competition. True to that prognostication, Acer slashed the price of its Aspire One and Linpus Linux Lite netbooks by $50. The former can now be bought for $349 and the latter for $329. The bigger PC manufacturers that have long held sway over the PC market are still to fully embrace this particular segment.

But as the tussle gets more cacophonic, netbook manufacturers will have to cut prices just to be heard by customers over the din. Richard Doherty, research director for a market research firm, Envisioneering, expects majority of netbooks to sell at $299 in the foreseeable future with the possibility of prices plummeting down to $249 by the holiday season.

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asus, hardware, Acer, eee PC, netbook, Aspire, price cuts