Industry sources speaking with Digitimes maintained on Wednesday that Taiwanese PC maker ASUS was readying the launch of tablets powered by a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 CPU. The four-core T30 chip, according to a roadmap from NVIDIA early this year, isn't expected to reach products until 2012. The chip is believed to have a 1.5GHz clock speed.
At the same time, tips also anticipated tablets with Intel CPUs at their core.
Earlier than that, however, ASUS was planning the launch of two new known tablets, including the 10-inch, Tegra 2-powered Eee Pad Slider and 7-inch Eee Pad MeMo EP71 with a Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU. These are due to arrive within three months, insiders said.
These plans are in line with the company's goal of shipping two million tablets this year.
Apple as expected today unveiled its 2011 iMac. The new models are all based on the Sandy Bridge architecture and are the first to go entirely quad-core, starting with the 2.5GHz Core i5 and scaling up to the 3.4GHz Core i7. Each now uses the same 10Gbps Thunderbolt technology from the MacBook Pro that also doubles as a mini DisplayPort output; two are on the back.
FaceTime HD cameras are also new and give conversations between newer Macs a true widescreen conversation. AMD's Radeon HD 6000M series graphics define the line and give them more efficient graphics than before.
A 21.5-inch model starts the line and comes with the 2.5GHz Core i5, a Radeon HD 6750M, and a 500GB hard drive for $1,199; a 2.7GHz Core i5, a Radeon HD 6770M, and a 1TB drive raise the price to $1,499. Buyers of 27-inch models can start off with a 2.7GHz Core i5, a Radeon HD 6770M, and a 1TB disk for $1,699, while the 3.1GHz Core i5, a Radeon HD 6970M, and a 1TB drive cost $1,999.
Build-to-order options include the 3.4GHz Core i7, up to 2TB of disk space, a 256GB SSD (separate from main storage), up to 16GB of RAM, and AppleCare.
