One of the world's leading computer vendors, AST, recently introduced two notebook families which its says will combine high-performance, multimedia capabilities such as full-screen video, with desktop-equivalent performance.
AST's new family the Ascentia P series and Ascentia J series offer a 133-MHz Pentium processor as well as the new 100-MHz processor.
Paula Ahtye, AST Asia Pacific and Middle East regional product marketing manager said: 'AST's strategic alliance with Samsung and our strong relationship with Intel and other vendors have allowed us to position ourselves in the forefront, to deliver the right mobile solutions to our corporate and end-user customers in Hong Kong.
'These are our next generation products which are ideal for the territories, what we are doing is always upgrading our product, just taking the past features and adding more and putting them into the market.' The Ascentia P series includes models equipped with desktop equivalent features and a modular peripheral bay which can support a CD-ROM drive, floppy drive or second battery. The Ascentia J series has features aimed at the mid-range notebook user.
Both series incorporate leading-edge technologies including Intel's 82430MX chipset, PCI bus, high-resolution SVGA display, 256KB level two cache, integrated audio and infrared communications. The new series of Ascentia notebooks will be available through the company's authorised re-sellers. The Ascentia P series has an estimated selling price beginning at HK$30,000 while the J series will be sold for HK$18,000.
AST feels that the major players in the notebook industry are Compaq, IBM and Toshiba and in Hong Kong Texas Instruments and Dell are coming on strong. But AST claims that there is 'no single leader' in the notebook market, as all these companies have an equal share.