Asus to Launch $199 Netbooks for MeeGo and Windows 7 This Fall

Asus, which turned heads at Computex in May with the UX21, based on Intel’s Ultrabook platform, is now on track for a late-October debut in stores with prices that “should be under $1,000,” Tammy Lin, marketing specialist, told us in New York on a media tour touting new tablets and notebooks. Asus had originally planned to have Ultrabooks in stores in September. The company is planning 10-, 12- and 13-inch models based on the second-gen Intel Core i5 processor, Lin said, but pricing and feature details aren’t yet available, she said.

Those plans come amid a flurry of reports suggesting Ultrabook manufacturers won’t be able to hit Intel’s desired price point of $800-$1,000 when they launch for the holiday sales season. Tuesday’s DigiTimes reported that Ultrabook makers were demanding CPUs at a 50 percent discount, compared with the 20 percent discount Intel is offering first-tier PC companies to help get the platform out of the gate. Intel didn’t respond by deadline to our request for comment. HP, reportedly one of the first companies on deck for Ultrabook introductions, also didn’t respond to queries about pricing or release dates.

Meanwhile, Asus is continuing with plans to offer “different flavors” of computers and to let consumers choose which products or platforms “are eliminated” from the market, Lin said, quoting CEO Jonney Shih in his CES 2011 address. The company has a palette of tablets, notebooks and netbooks, including several models due to ship in the next two months, Lin said. Among them is the Eee Pad Slider, a hybrid tablet with an integrated keyboard based on the Android 3.1 operating system. The tablet packs a 10-inch LED-backlit screen with Gorilla glass, an Nvidia Tegra 2 graphics processor and offers expandability via a microSD slot and USB 2.0 port. The Slider will ship in late September or early October at a suggested retail price of $450-$500, Lin said. The Slider prices out roughly the same as Asus’ Eee Pad tablet combined with an optional docking station and keyboard, which arrived in stores in May, she said. Retailers for all of the new Asus introductions will include Amazon, Best Buy, Newegg and Fry’s Electronics, she said.

Also due in late September are two $199 Asus netbooks, Lin said. One, targeted toward students and teens, is built on the Intel MeeGo platform and the Windows 7 version is designed with more productivity in mind, Lin said. Both netbooks come with eight-gigabyte solid-state drives, she said. Asus is increasingly building computers 13 inches and under with SSDs, while models 15 inches and larger are based on traditional hard disk storage, she said. “We want to focus on thin,” she said. Despite the increasing attention to tablets, Lin said Asus remains committed to netbooks, whose business “is still growing.”

Two Asus notebooks will launch this fall including the Intel i5-based $1,099 U36SD, a 13-inch, 3.7-pound model with a SSD and USB 3.0, Lin said. Delivery is mid-September, she said. For gamers, Asus launched Tuesday the 15-inch G53 notebook built on an Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia GE Force GTX 560M graphics processor and 12 gigabytes of RAM, she said. Two fans on the back provide extra cooling to address heat issues associated with gaming PCs, Lin said. Suggested retail price is $1,499.