ASUS Unveils New Tablets With Physical Keyboards At CES 2011 (VIDEO)

ASUS just unveiled some of the first eye-catching new products of CES 2011, kicking things off with a slew of new tablets.

The 4 new tablets come in a few different shapes and sizes, including 2 models with physical keyboards, and the MeMO, which is similar in size to Samsung's Galaxy tablet.

The Eee Pad Slider and Transformer are ASUS's head-turners, both featuring QWERTY keyboards and Tegra-2 processors. The Slider (pictured above) has a unique design with a fold-out keyboard. Both tablets feature HDMI ports, front and back facing cameras, and will run Google's Honeycomb Android OS.

The Transformer will cost between $400 and $700 and the Slider from $500 to $800, according to Engadget. Both should be released in April or May.

The Eee Slate EP121 tablet hasn't been a secret, according to Engadget, but attendees got to see it in person today. The stylus-equipped 12" tablet (the Slider and Transformer come in at 10.1"), has a Core i5-470M processor, 2 to 4GB of RAM, and a 64GB SSD, but most importantly runs Windows 7. It should run around $1,000 and be released early this year, according to Engadget.

The MeMO features only a 7" screen, but packs a dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm 8260 processor and dual camera. ASUS is heralding it as a cross between and iPad and a smartphone, as it will feature "MeMic," a communications tool. It will also run Google's yet-to-be-releases Android 3.0 (Honeycomb).

The MeMo will likely start at $499, and debut in June, according to Engadget.

ASUS's announcement is the first of what many predict will be a tablet-filled CES.

More on ASUS's new releases from Engadget:

Eee Pad Slider and Transformer

Eee Pad MeMO Tablet

Eee Slate EP121

WATCH:

Comments

[Pete Marriott]

03:35 AM on 01/08/2011

Why I can't stop laughing at this! It's basically a netbook ROTFL!

[dmezz1962]

09:35 AM on 01/07/2011

The circle of life in a nut shell Laptop -> Mobie Device Phone -> IPad -> Laptop whew luckily I did not buy any of this junk or throw away my clothes from the 80's whooo whooo

[xtiangodloki]

02:03 PM on 01/06/2011

Why do tablets need to have keyboards? If people want keyboards they can easily buy a netbook for a cheaper price. For tablet users who occasionally use keyboards, they can easily buy a separate bluetooth keyboard.

[ramblingjohnny]

10:12 AM on 01/06/2011

"A tablet with a physical keyboard!" Didn't we use to call that a Laptop? lolll

[Roger Thorland]

01:02 AM on 01/06/2011

This thing is increasingly ugly, do any PC makers try to at least mimic Apple's sleek designs (but not the hardware shortcomings)?

This is more like Eee(k)!

[justin i]

06:35 PM on 01/05/2011

So..... basically a laptop. We have come full circle.

[Genep34]

06:01 PM on 01/05/2011

i am on the internet all day long - typing is not that important to me.

[Alex Moschopoulos]

05:17 PM on 01/05/2011

Nice stuff, but not what I personally want in a Tablet.

I understand those who are skeptical on why someone would give up a laptop for a tablet...and I agree. I won't give up my desktop or laptops for one...but I do know that I won't need to carry a laptop with me anymore.

At work I use a Mac and at home I have several PCs. The only needs I'd have for a tablet would be as an eReader (because my iPhone is a bit small for me to read a book on), and some kind of go-between when I travel. Meaning I'd use it to transfer RAW files off my camera into an external hard drive...as well as check email and such.

I think for travel especially the tablet is a great thing. Still...I think these devices need to be able to do word and spreadsheet stuff, and be able to move them around to external drives. Cloud isn't there yet to make thumb drives obsolete.

[Onutz]

06:03 AM on 01/06/2011

There's nothing cooler to me than traveling on the road and using the iPad to surf the net, email, play games, sketch, draw and paint.

[jabreal00]

05:05 PM on 01/05/2011

Underpowered + Tablet + Keyboard = Fail!

[Charles L King]

04:42 PM on 01/05/2011

A tablet is just a dinky laptop, whilst a laptop is just a portable desktop, OR the tablet could be seen as an enlarged and over-enabled smartphone, whilst the latter is just, in turn, a souped up cell phone, which is in turn just a portable home phone. That's all, so take your pick. It's your money.

[Onutz]

09:59 PM on 01/05/2011

LOL, so does that make a car a tiny bus, a motorbike half a car, and a bicycle a skinny, powerless motorbike?

Gotta admit, co-existence is a helluva concept. ; )

[Charles L King]

02:43 AM on 01/08/2011

Ha Ha! YEAH! You gotta know exactly what your needs are, and the environment in which you'll have to use them. There must be situations where a laptop is still too clumsy a tool, whilst a smartphone is not versatile enough or too tiny for high speed or high volume typing.

[MrBwood]

03:44 PM on 01/05/2011

Personally I like the idea of a physical keyboard. Why is this a bad idea?

[Roger Thorland]

12:59 AM on 01/06/2011

Apparently, people like poking a featureless glass screen more than human-centric tactile input.

[Onutz]

05:59 AM on 01/06/2011

They also seem to like poking mechanized keyboards for human-centric tactile input, more than they like expressing their thoughts through pen & paper....

[Vulcerco]

02:28 PM on 01/05/2011

If its got a keyboard, they blew it...

[metropixie]

01:18 PM on 01/05/2011

Stylus, keyboard? Hey, if it quacks like a laptop, it's not a tablet...

[ApolloniaCreed]

01:16 PM on 01/05/2011

Pointless... wireless keyboards are relatively inexensive and you can use them with more than one device.

[jt1980]

02:27 PM on 01/05/2011

The disadvantage of having a separate keyboard is that you have to remember to lug the thing around. Not very convenient from the portability perspective.

I think that this design is just a sort of "throwing things at the wall to see if it sticks" engineering effort. In the worst case, ASUS will hold some patents that it can use to its advantage later on.

[gfs5541]

01:13 PM on 01/05/2011

ASUS may have some great technology, but their thinking is truly backwards

Sent from a iPad using the HuffPo app for iPad.