Mobile warriors that dream about a device with just about everything you could ask for may have just been given a nice gift. Asus has officially announced the R50A, a UMPC that seems to include just about every technology that you would want or need. The R50A features a 4.8-inch, 1024 x 600 screen, GPS, TV tuner, a webcam, microphone and has 3G and 3.5G support. Sadly there is one important feature that is missing, a QWERTY keyboard. Lets just hope the battery life lives up to the included features.
The Asus R50A is expected to be released in early 2009, pricing has not yet been announced.
Gee… with a release date of 2009 I'm surprised it doesn't include 64GB of SSD… Can we assume 2008 as a more realistic date?
I really believe that the R50A will open up a new product segment for Asus. Something in between a smartphone and a fully equipped notebook computer. Ben (not affiliated with Asus)
I think the point about the R50A is that it is likely the beginning of a new breed of connected navigation devices. GPS devices without Internet connectivity will soon become unacceptable to consumers. They will soon expect software to be position aware and mobile devices able to support location based services.
See http://gpstekreviews.com?p=135 for some more details on the R50A and where GPS devices are heading.