Asus's Eee tablet plans revealed
Release details for the upcoming ASUS tablet range have been disclosed by the chief executive of the company following a recent investors' conference call in Taipei.
Speaking to assembled reporters following a quarterly financial meeting in Taipei on Friday, the company's head, Jerry Shen, confirmed that Asus is planning to release several tablet devices in the coming months on both the Microsoft and Google platforms, according to PC World reports.
Going on Shen's comments, the first fully-fledged Asus tablet, known as the Eee Pad, will house a 12-inch touchscreen and run the Windows 7 Home Premium operating system. Officially going under the moniker of the EP121, it is also believed that the Eee Pad will sport an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and that it will cost around $1000 (£638) when it hits the market next January.
The Eee Pad is being introduced to rival Apple's iPad which is available in 3G-less form for between £429 and £599, depending on storage capacity.
"If you want to compete with the iPad, you have to do more than just be less expensive," Shen said. "You have to offer more features. We want to spend more time perfecting the [Eee Pad] device before we launch. We're looking more at Q1 to launch the devices."
Shen also said that the Eee Pad will include a keyboard dock that "transforms" it into a full home computer, according to the report.
Staying with Microsoft, the second device is the EP101TC, a 10-inch tablet that has also been conceived as an iPad alternative. However, instead of Windows 7 Home Premium, it will run on Microsoft's Windows Embedded Compact 7 operating system, the successor to Windows CE.
No official announcements have been made since the devices' debuts at Computex in June but according to Shen the EP101TC is also set to go on sale in January 2011 priced somewhere around $399-$499.
Shen also confirmed that Asus is planning an Android tablet for release in March 2011 which he said would also have a 10-inch screen and will cost around $300, but failed to give more details.
Adding to that mix, Asus is also planning the confusingly-titled Eee Tablet, an e-reader device pitted as a competitor to Amazon's Kindle.
Instead of opting for an e-ink display the Asus Tablet will ship with a monochrome, standard LCD capable of showing 64 shades of grey. Other e-readers use special e-reader or digital ink displays as it allows a longer battery life than traditional LCD screens.
Asus's Eee Tablet, which Shen says may be renamed the Eee Note to avoid confusion with the company's other tablet devices, will reportedly not use a backlit display to avoid the eyestrain associated with looking into a standard LCD screen for long periods.
Under-the-bonnet, the Eee Tablet is said to be based on an AsusTek-developed Linux operating system rather than Microsoft Windows or Google Android.
The Eee Tablet, or Note, is said to be going on sale in October 2010 for around $300, though no UK-specific release dates have been confirmed for any of the devices.