At last! JKK has found an official reference to the ASUS R50 UMPC that I wrote about last week. It received a CES innovation award. There isn’t much info about why the award was given anywhere so I’m getting the feeling that its more a PR exercise for anyone daring enough to preview their new equipment before CES in Jan but its good to see that its official now. ASUS are obviously pushing hard into the ‘sub’ sized market now. R2HV, R2E, EEE and now the R3 and R50.
The press release confirms that the R50 is a 1024×600 device, has GPS and 3G/3.5G but there’s no mention of WiMax so maybe, due to the recent WiMax partnership problems, manufacturers are dropping back to EVDO and HSDPA solutions for 2008. There’s a mention of a digital TV tuner and the info-pen stylus. I wonder if its got the same invisible magic as the ‘digi-pen’ of the R2E!
If it’s using the same platform as the R3 that was revealed at IDF, it’s a Menlow-based device and, based on the size, I’d say its going to have a 20-25Wh battery. If all is well and good with the design and Intel’s Menlow platform is performing as it should, it should come in with 4-5 hours of battery life making it an Interesting choice in the handheld area. I have been told, although its not official, that it doesn’t have a keyboard and as ASUS are calling it a UMPC, it might even be a Windows-based device and not based on Moblin, Intel’s Linux platform but you never know. All this is just best-guess efforts at the moment and we’ll have to wait for a few more months for final confirmation. Maybe there are two devices. The R3 low-end device based on Moblin and a high-end R50 device with Windows. All the information I have so far is in the new ASUS R3 / R50 specification page.
JKKMobile – ASUS R50A UMPC. Official ASUS info.
