Asus brings some impressive multimedia laptops, and some tiny new EEE PC tablets sure to shake things up.
The laptop that ate an MID
Asus certainly created some buzz at CES 2009 this year, especially thanks to a modded multimedia laptop. The laptop features a 4.7-inch touchscreen display beneath the keyboard, but this isn't some Windows SideShow screen. In fact, it's an entirely separate computer, an Nvidia Tegra APX-based system-on-a-chip PC running off of the multimedia laptop's battery. We checked out the Nvidia APX 2500 prototype last year, and we've been crowing about it ever since, so it's nice to see the impressive graphics hardware make its way onto a device. Nvidia expects mobile devices based on their technology to be released in mid-2009, and now that we know that Asus is playing around with Tegra based chipsets in their labs, it makes us wonder whether Asus will be one of the first manufacturers to offer next-gen Windows Mobile smartphones using Nvidia's hardware. We don't have any photos of the modded Asus laptop, but luckily AnandTech got a short glimpse of this uniquely designed laptop.
A gaming supercomputer
 Asus also unleashed the Asus W90 gaming laptop. The Asus W90 uses a whopping 18.4-inch screen, and to drive all of those pixels Asus has a variety of graphics card options, going all the way up to an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870 X2, which uses a full GB of video RAM. The machine can handle up to 6GB of DDR2 RAM in 3 slots, as well as dual hard disk drives for a maximum of 1TB of disk space. The Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 processor can be overclocked easily thanks to the included Turbo Gear features, which let you dial up the processor speed 25% over stock. The powerhouse laptop is more than a desktop replacement, as its Altec Lansing 5.1 channel speaker system means this is more of a living room replacement. Of course, the Asus W90 gets a Blu-ray drive and HDMI outputs to power a real hi-def experience.
Convertible EEE PC tablets
  No matter how you feel about the inexpensive, bargain netbook Asus EEE PCs, it's hard to deny that Asus started a real fire with its EEE line and perhaps even created the Netbook craze. So, it's hard not to be curious when the company introduces their newest convertible tablet PCs, the Asus EEE T91 and the Asus EEE T101H. The two are very similar machines, with an 8.9-inch and 10-inch screen respectively. Both have a hinge swivel to turn the display around and lay it back on top of the keyboard, though the actual keyboard design on the two machines was slightly different.
Both will run a proprietary Asus Linux-based OS, and will probably come with enough power to run a version of Windows. Asus wasn't too forthcoming with details on these devices, so there's much we don't know. We don't know the price, but don't expect these devices to come in under $400, like the regular EEE PC laptops. We don't know much about the hardware, but it would be a shame if these machines weren't available with some sort of 3G WWAN option, preferably the Qualcomm Gobi chip we've been seeing elsewhere. Availability is also up in the air at this point.
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