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Asustek unveils ultra-mobile PC

"The UMPC is set to be people's second notebook computer outside their homes."

Jose Liao, Asustek product manager

Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), the world's largest motherboard maker, yesterday officially unveiled its first ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) in the hope that the new PC breed will soon become the computer user's second laptop.

"The UMPC is set to be people's second notebook computer outside their homes," Jose Liao (廖逸翔), Asustek's product manager, told a product launch ceremony yesterday.

Featuring a 7-inch touch screen, the UMPCs are super-portable, full-featured computers similar to notebooks, but are much smaller, being roughly the size of a paperback and weighing less than 1kg.

According to Liao, the company expects to sell as many as 2,000 units of its R2H model every month, after the machines hit local shelves next week.

The UMPC project was announced in March by Microsoft Corp and its hardware partners Asustek, South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co and China's Founder Group (方正集團), at Germany's technology trade fair CeBIT.

Samsung took the lead by launching the world's first UMPC -- dubbed the Q1 -- with a price tag of US$1,100 in March, and plans to introduce its second UMPC, the Q1b, soon. It is expected to retail at US$899.

Asustek's R2H incorporates a Web camera, biometric fingerprint authentication and a global positioning system.

The device, which measures 23.4cm by 13.3cm by 2.8cm and weighs 830g, also has a virtual keyboard and handwriting recognition for entering text.

It is powered by an Intel 900MHz Celeron M ULV processor, has 256MB of random access memory, a hard disk size of up to 60GB, three universal-serial-bus ports and a secure digital card reader. It runs on Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.

However, the R2H carries a price tag of NT$36,800 (US$1,118), which is more expensive than the US$800 the company said it would offer a machine for in June.

"The prices have gone up as we choose to incorporate an Intel chip, with add-on features such as fingerprint and GPS for the R2H," said Kevin Lin (林福能), Asustek's sales director.

Microsoft Corp said talks are underway to rope in more vendors to join the UMPC push.

"Computer vendors have given us positive feedback, and there will be more partners joining us in the future," said Thomas Li (李志超), a director from Microsoft Taiwan Corp.

He said consumers, especially in the US, have given the thumbs-up to the mini machines due to their powerful functionality and high portability.

Meanwhile, Asustek yesterday also launched its first tablet PC, which incorporates a convertible panel allowing users to make notes directly on the display.

Computer vendors -- including Fujitsu Taiwan Ltd which launched a tablet PC here last week -- are banking on niche markets such as insurance, medical, logistics and education to adopt tablet PCs.

However, tablet PCs -- despite being introduced into the local market in late 2002 -- only account for less than 5 percent of notebooks sold here, said Amy Teng (鄧雅君), an analyst at Gartner Inc's Taiwan.
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