Although ASUS usually focuses on stuffing as much performance into all of its laptops as possible, this latest release seems to be more focused on portability and smart design. The new product developed by the company is the ASUS UM30 laptop and is a mid-range performance mobile platform. The body of the product is made of aluminum and black bezel, and all of the components are put together in such a way so as to allow the station to boast a minimal thickness.

Normally, one would expect the company to 'surprise' the market with yet another product capable of this or that feat. ASUS's mobile workstations have a history of delivering performance in unusual conditions. Its laptops were used in the PATAGONIA 2000 race, which saw the computers employed in hot deserts and snow-covered mountains, and two ASUS notebooks were selected by R&K - a major supplier of computers and electronics for aeronautic missions to outer space - to provide astronauts with dependable computing during a mission on the MIR Space Station.

This time around, however, it seems that ASUS is relaxing with the modest ASUS UM30. The notebook is, as already stated, a mobile PC with no groundbreaking performance capabilities but that still has reasonable capacities while being light, slim and versatile. The platform is powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo SU 9400 central processing unit and it comes with a hard drive storage of 320 gigabytes and 3GB of DDR2 SDRAM memory. The laptop's screen size measures 13.3 inches and the display itself is an LED-backlit TFT Liquid Crystal Display.

As additional details go, the new, slim, mobile PC from ASUS can support secure digital cards, including the SDHC (secure digital high capacity) as well as Mini SD data cards and MMC.

The product will be made available by ASUS starting tomorrow (December 5) and will be exclusively available in Japan at the retail price of 100,000 yen. It will come with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit edition and will make an excellent traveling companion for anyone interested in a discrete mobile computing solution that is easy to carry and doesn't stand out more than it should.