Introduction

ASUS was one of the hottest names this year at CES. With all the hype from the Eee PC and ASUS's keynote earlier in the week their booth was crowded, but they took the time to take us through and check out all of their new products. They have new notebooks, motherboards, video cards, and other CE products. Read on to see what we saw from ASUS at CES this year.

Notebooks

ASUS made a lot of news when they came out with their Ferrari themed notebooks. After that they had the Lamborghini notebooks, which are still very popular. With everyone wanting smaller and lighter notebooks they have come out with a 12.1-inch Lamborghini themed version the VX3. The VX3 has everything you expect with the yellow Lamborghini styling. It also features a Core 2 Duo processor, fingerprint reader, and swiveling webcam. Next in the Lamborghini line is the VX2Sn, which has a larger 15.4-inch screen. It features a full 1080p screen and GeForce 9500 graphics.

Of course ASUS was showcasing the Eee PC. For those who don't know Eee stands for Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play. These small 7-inch notebooks are based on Intel's Celeron Mobile 353 900MHz processor, have 512mb DDR2, 802.11 b/g wireless, Ethernet, built-in card reader, 3 USB 2.0 ports, VGA out port, built-in webcam (only on 4G and 8G versions), and come with 2GB, 4GB or 8GB sold state drives. Solid state drives have no moving parts so this gives the Eee PC a shock-proof design. The Eee PC does come with Linux running, but is Windows XP compatible. There are many different offerings, you have the 2G Surf model which has 2GB SSD and a webcam for $299, the 4G Surf that has a 4GB SSD and no webcam for $349, the 4G that has a 4GB SSD and has the built-in webcam, and finally the 8G which has an 8GB SSD, 1GB DDR2, and the built-in webcam for $499.

The Eee PC was originally released in white and black as you can see above, but since then they have released blue, pink, and green versions as well. Also while at the ASUS booth we caught a glimpse of ASUS Express Gate (SplashTop) running on an Eee PC. This portable OS is known to come with many ASUS motherboards, but we have not heard anything about it being ported to the Eee PC. As you can see from the picture below it is being run off of a USB flash drive. It will be interesting to see if ASUS puts this on newer versions of the Eee PC. Being able to run Pidgin, Skype, or any browser without having to boot into the OS on the Eee PC would be great.

One big notebook announcement at CES was the G70 gaming notebook. This beast features a nice big 17-inch screen with a 1920 x 1200 native resolution, a pair of GeForce 8700M GT cards with 1GB dedicated memory, built-in Altec Lansing speakers, a subwoofer, embedded TV tuner, remote control, and webcam. You also have room for up to 8GB of system memory and dual hard drives. No word yet on pricing or when the G70 will be available.

Next up is the U6E Stylebook. This stylish 12.1-inch notebook features a LED screen, Intel Core 2 Duo processor, optical drive, fingerprint reader, and a built-in webcam. It also features ASUS's Smart Logon technology so you can logon to the notebook with facial recognition via the built-in webcam. The U6E is very attractive with its high gloss painted cover and leather palm rest. It is extremely thin and light at only 3.46lbs.

The smaller Stylebook is the U2E. It has an 11.1-inch WXGA 1366 x 768 LED backlit screen, which will extend battery life. The U2E features a Intel Core 2 Duo processor, built-in webcam, fingerprint reader and TPM module for security. Just like the U6E it has the facial recognition technology and leather on the palm rest, but you also get leather on the cover as well. Because it is so small you lose your optical drive.

The G50 and G70 notebooks were also on display at the ASUS booth. The lure of these 2 notebooks is their hard drive capacity, 1 terabyte! That is sure a lot of space to have in a notebook! Both notebooks also feature Core 2 Duo processors, built-in webcams, and a very cool touchpad with AV controls. The G50 is the 15.4-inch, whereas the G70 is the 17-inch.