Asus is best known these days for the Eee PC, an inexpensive, small, stripped-down notebook. But Asus also operates in the other end of the laptop spectrum, as confirmed by the announcement of the M50 this week.
To begin with, the M50 is fancier than the Eee. It's shiny, with a piano black finish, and is made for the media-obsessed. It has a 15.4-inch screen, an integrated Blu-ray player, an HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) port, and Dolby Home Theater surround sound technology. The M50's cursor pad also doubles as a multimedia touchpad. Asus also hooks these up with Penryn processors from Intel, and a choice of Windows Vista, from Basic to the Ultimate edition.
No word on pricing or exact availability.