14 DAY TRIAL // Yesterday, ASUS announced a new portable computer system that will most certainly draw your attention the very first time you have a chance to notice it. Touted as one of the company's most “environment-friendly” products, the new Bamboo Series of notebooks boasts a more than interesting exterior design, which is, in fact, one of the notebook's “green” features. Ultimately, the Bamboo name tag best describes the new series, which is currently available in 12.1-inch and 11.1-inch models.
The very first time you feast your eyes on the new notebook, you will notice that it stands out from all of its other competitors. The Taiwanese manufacturer has decided to incorporate bamboo in the notebook's production materials, which resulted in a unique chassis that is easier to recycle, and is more durable than in other computer systems. Furthermore, the use of bamboo will make each notebook in the new series as unique as it gets, each one having its own natural pattern.
In addition, the company has also featured the new Bamboo-series notebooks with its exclusive Super Hybrid Engine technology, which offers users the possibility of choosing what level of performance they want from their Bamboo notebook. According to the company, this technology can improve battery life by as much as 70%, and also improve the system's performance by up to 23%. In other words, it is yet another way by which the Taiwanese manufacturer is trying to make its upcoming notebook as environmentally friendly as possible.
As far as technical specifications go, the first Bamboo notebooks in the series will provide users with a more than decent performance level in an ultra portable form factor. The 11.1-inch model is built on Intel's GM965 Express Chipset, and can be equipped with a maximum of 4GB of DDR2 memory. It features Embedded Intel GMA X3100 graphics solution, a 1.8-inch PATA hard drive, with capacities ranging from 80GB to 120GB. There's also support for the DVD optical drive, an 8-in-1 card reader, and a 0.3 MP web camera.
The other model is based on Intel's PM45 Express chipset and can be equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, an NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS graphics card, and a 2.5-inch SATA hard drive with capacities ranging from 160GB to 320GB. Other than that, the 12.1-inch model is rather similar to the 11.1-inch version.
Equipped with a 3-cell battery, the notebooks weigh 1.57kg and 1.25kg, for the 12.1-inch and 11.1-inch models, respectively.