ASUS has confirmed that the company is planning to announce a tweaked version of its tablet-smartphone hybrid at Mobile World Congress on February 27th in Barcelona, Spain, according to Modaco. The Padfone — which combines a smartphone, tablet and netbook all in one — was first unveiled at the Computex trade show in Taiwan last year by ASUS chairman Jonney Shih. The innovative device is expected to feature Ice Cream Sandwich and Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon S4 processor. The PadFone consists of a 4.3-i...

Are PC makers starting to give up on tablets? Manufacturers Asus and Acer are shifting focus to Intel-powered ultrabooks instead of tablets to improve gross margins, DigiTimes said on Tuesday. The site’s report suggests that the notebook market may soon begin to rebound after declining in 2011. Both firms are seemingly drawn to the wider margins achieved on sales of notebook computers, and are also gravitating away from developing low-cost netbooks. Asus and Acer aren’t alone; other reports have...

ASUS reportedly has plans to unveil a convertible ultrabook running Microsoft’s next-generation Windows 8 operating system at the annual Computex trade show in Taiwan next June. DigiTimes’s anonymous industry sources claim that the super-slim notebook computer will feature a swiveling touchscreen display, allowing the computer to be used like a standard laptop or like a tablet. No other details are available at this time. The report claims that ASUS’s new convertible ultrabook will launch in...

The long-awaited sequel to ASUS’s Eee Pad Transformer tablet finally has an official release date: December 12th. The Transformer Prime became available for pre-order last week and if the sentiment shared by our readers via email and comments on the site is any indication, this could be one of the most eagerly anticipated Android tablet launches to date. The convertible Android tablet features a 1.3GHz quad-core Tegra 3 processor, Android 3.2 Honeycomb with an upgrade to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich...

Taiwan-based PC and smartphone vendor Asustek is expected increase its tablet sales forecast for the full year to 2 million units. Taiwan Economic News reports that the increased estimates would follow strong Eee Pad Transformer demand, as well as Asustek general manager Kevin Lin’s recent comments that ASUS was the No. 2 tablet vendor in Taiwan last quarter. Despite some reports to the contrary, most agree that ASUS’s Eee Pad Transformer tablet has been a big hit for the vendor. The company’...

Acer, ASUS, Dell, Lenovo and HP will begin to mass produce Intel-powered ultrabooks in September, on schedule for a second-half launch, DigiTimes reported on Tuesday. ASUS’ UX21 ultrabook will be the first such device to market, despite reports to the contrary that HP would release its device before ASUS. Instead, HP’s ultrabook may not launch until the fourth quarter or early next year, a far cry from the original rumored August launch date. Models from Acer and Dell could be late to the market, ...

Shipments of Asustek’s popular Eee Pad Transformer tablet have surpassed 400,000 units per month according to a report from DigiTimes. The industry watcher cites anonymous sources at touchscreen display panel suppliers in claiming shipments are expected to grow even further in the third quarter, possibly reaching up to 500,000 units per month. ASUS reportedly hopes to ship between 4 million and 5 million tablets across all of its models during the second half of 2011, and almost 3 million units could be...

More than 100 tablets were unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show this past January, but only a few of them really caught our attention. Among those select few were the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer — a tablet that saw high demand at launch, though it may now be waning — and the ASUS Eee Pad Slider. When the slider was announced back in January, ASUS said it would launch in May and we expected it to cost between $499 and $799. While exact pricing remains a mystery, May has come and gone, and the month was d...

ASUS on Monday unveiled its second convertible tablet just ahead of Computex 2011 in Taipei, Taiwan. Using what ASUS calls the “n+1″ concept, which refers to taking a current product and adding a single change that allows the product to evolve beyond its current capability, ASUS sought to simplify the process of moving between a tablet and a phone. The result is a unique 10.1-inch tablet that acts as dock for a 4.3-inch Android smartphone dubbed Padfone. Similar to Motorola’s “webtop&...

Asustek Computer is promising to increase monthly production runs of its versatile Eee Pad Transformer tablet. Citing strong demand in the U.S., UK, Taiwan and China, the company will extend production totals from 8,000 units per month to 10,000 units per month. The company also has the lofty goal of manufacturing 300,000 Transformer tablets in the second quarter; with aspirations of shipping 2 million tablets in 2011. The Transformer, which connects to a dockable keyboard, retails for $399 and comes with ...

While Acer scrambles to reverse the current negative trend that saw its PC shipments fall last quarter as revenue dove 56%, Taiwan-based competitor Asustek just issued second-quarter guidance that predicts growth in shipments over the first quarter of 2011. While analysts go back and forth over what the emerging tablet market’s impact on netbooks and notebooks might be moving forward, Asustek expects to ship 3.1 million devices this quarter, a 10.7% increase over the first quarter. While the company doe...

Asustek confirmed Monday that the Garmin-ASUS joint venture it entered into with GPS giant Garmin two years ago will end early next year. The confirmation comes following last week’s report that the unsuccessful venture would come to an end when the companies’ deal expires in January 2011. With the popularity of navigation apps for smartphones exploding over the past few years, the joint venture seemingly started as an experiment that posed a single question: are consumers interested in a product ...

T-Mobile has cut the price of the Garminfone by $70, lowering the handset to $129.99 with a two year agreement. This price cut comes hot on the heels of a series of contradictory rumors regarding the demand for the GPS-centric device. Earlier this week, analyst Yair Reiner calculated that T-Mobile has sold a paltry 20,000 Garminfones since the phone launched in June. Asustek refuted that number with a claim that the handset was shipping as expected and consumer demand was positive. Until actual sales figures ...

You know your proprietary mobile OS isn’t all that great when we go ahead and say: thank heavens for Windows Mobile. Garmin/ASUS have announced that their M20 “GPS that can make phone calls” will now ship with Windows Mobile 6.5, and “all” current M20 owners are eligible for the free upgrade. Sweet. The two companies claim 6.5 will be available in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Czech, Turkey and elsewhere on the M20 by the close ...