ASUS intros M70 entertainment notebook flagship

ASUS on Thursday revealed its new flagship notebook from its Personal Entertainment Center line, the M70 (content coming soon). The HD-capable notebook features a 17-inch, 1920x1200-pixel resolution display and takes advantage of it with Blu-ray support and an HDMI port. ASUS' dynamic brightness technology improves image quality by reading the environment's color temperature and adjusting levels accordingly.

Complementing HD video are Altec Lansing speakers that deliver sound thanks to Dolby Home Theater processing. The touchpad, meantime, doubles as a remote for video playback with navigation buttons integrated into it.

Security is also high on the priority list, as the M70 is capable of scanning the user's face via a 1.3-megapixel swiveling webcam or their fingerprints in the more traditional method.

Video processing power comes via one of two ATI Radeon cards: the HD3650 with 1GB of VRAM (500MBx2) in the M70SA, or the HD3470 with 256MB of VRAM in the M70SR. An Intel Centrino Core 2 Duo processor powers the Vista-based interface, while HDD choices include a 500GB 12.5-inch unit, a few smaller-capacity 9.5-inch HDDs, or dual HDD support for 1TB of storage space.