I subscribe to a total of roughly 1000 RSS feeds spanning many categories, including about 200 gadget feeds. Sadly, most of the incoming messages are not worthwhile reading and I run a filter once every hour or so to find interesting information without having to read on average roughly 5,000 articles a day. One key search term today that brought up some articles was: Asus. Now that may not seem interesting, but it is as they announced or launched three interesting gadgets today.One product that was launched today is a sleek looking PDA, the A686/696 GPS PDA. As from the model name we can already guess that it features GPS for navigation, but instead of needing an additional antenna as most PDAs have, this ASUS comes with an in-built antenna which makes for a nice optical bonus. This PDA is defiantly designed for business people who need a robust, powerful and good looking PDA, as it sports not a plastic but stainless steal case, a 3.5-inch 240 x 320 anti-glare display and a 1200mAH battery which should last for a couple of hours and can be removed. Apart from that WiFi (802.11 b+g) and Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR) offer the needed connectivity for working from the Windows Mobile 5.0 operating system. What I always need in a good PDA is a good microphone, which both versions have as well as integrated speakers for playing back most major audio formats.Both versions have 128MB Flash ROM and 64MB SDRAM, the A686 has an Intel XScale 312Mhz processor and the A696 an Intel XScale 416Mhz processor.
If you just need a navigation system without the PDA, ASUS are now also entering the satnav market with the ASUS S102 PND. Personally I have only used the TomTom One and Volkswagen systems before, but both did not have the feature I find quite interesting in the S102 PND: handwriting and voice recognition. This could save many frequent traveler’s thumbs a lot of painful and annoying work in deed. The screen is fairly sized at 3.5″ with a resolution of 240×320. ASUS use the SiRF III GPS chipset with an built-in antenna, but also offers an external connector. And if all these features are not enough: the S102 PND also doubles up as a personal entertainment system, playing mp3s and displaying pictures from the SD card inserted. When it will be available or what it will cost is not stated in the press release, but my guess - depending on the maps included - will be around the same as a TomTom One.
And if all that weren’t enough ASUS products for one day they also throw in a mobile phone. I am not quite sure who the announced Z801 is targeted at, but it seems to sport some fairly common features, a QVGA display, voice dialing and 64 MB internal memory (expandable with microSD) for example for storage of mp3s, AAC and MPEG4 which can be played back on the phone. ASUS are marketing this a stylish phone, but it does not look too impressive. I will have to wait and see this in action to see if it convince me that it is as cool as the other two product announced today.
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