AST ready for multimedia

AST (ASTA) today announced a new line of multimedia-ready notebook PCs targeted at retail stores.

The Ascentia A series follows AST's initial lower-end consumer notebook offerings in August. The line comes standard with a 120-MHz Pentium processor, a 1GB hard drive, 16MB RAM, a built-in infrared port, and a 6X CD-ROM. Prices start at about $2,499.

The systems come standard with an 11.3-inch 800-by-600-pixel dual-scan LCD but can also be purchased with a 12.1-inch active-matrix display. Multimedia features include zoomed video support, software-based MPEG support, 16-bit Sound Blaster audio, 1MB of video memory, and dual speakers.