14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this year, at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, ASUS showcased a number of new products and some interesting-looking concepts. One of those concepts was the AIRO laptop, which was designed from a new perspective, providing users with a sleek-looking sliding keyboard. As it turns out, the AIRO will take a step further from just a design concept to a fully fledged, working laptop, as the company plans to roll out a system based on the AIRO sometime later this year.
According to ASUS CEO Jerry Shen, in a recent interview with Tech Radar, the AIRO concept has more market potential than some of the company's other projects. The fold/unfold AIRO laptop will be designed to compete in a new market segment, much like Apple did with the MacBook Air, released back in early 2008. The design of the laptop is expected to be at the base of at least one of the new portable computer systems from ASUS.
The laptop is slated for market availability later this year, around September or October, with a price tag that should range between $1000 and $1500. The market impact of said laptop is expected to be somewhere in the lines of the Eee PC series that ASUS launched back in 2007.
Unfortunately, there were no details on the system's specifications or performance, but given the laptop's overall design, users will likely grow to enjoy the product, which will enable ASUS to take advantage of a new market segment.
As far as the dual-screen laptop ASUS showcased at the CeBIT 2009 show in Hanover, Germany, the company's CEO said that this was still a concept in its development stages. Despite its interesting looks and overall design, there are several issues related to a portable PC that is made out of two separate displays.