Asus to intro full touch notebooks early 2009
updated 11:00 am EDT, Thu October 16, 2008
Asus touch panel notebooks
ASUS plans to launch touch panel notebooks in addition to touch panel Eee PC netbooks revealed last week, according to a Thursday report. The notebooks are due for a first or second quarter release, claim panel makers that will supply the new notebooks. The notebooks will have limited touch support at first but will exploit Windows 7 on its planned launch in late 2009 or early 2010.
Suppliers AU Optronics and Chi Mei Optoelectronics are due to release 11.6- and 12.1-inch touch panels in February of 2009, either of which is considered a strong candidate for the new line of portable PCs. The alleged sources went on to say that ASUS has not yet decided on which panel size it will use.
Any introduction of full-sized notebooks with touchscreens will make ASUS the second to introduce a mainstream, non-tablet touch portable in the near future. HP is now believed to be nearing the release of a TouchSmart notebook and until now was believed to be going largely uncontested for the next few months.
