Asus R50a has netbook specs at quadruple the price

Right or wrong, netbooks have trained us to look at an Intel Atom processor, a gig of RAM, a 32GB SSD hard drive and a tiny screen at 1024x600 as a less than $500 purchase, especially when its being released by Asus. But the Asus R50a is almost $2,000, which is enough to plunge the jaw through the sternum.

Oh, sure, it's a 5.6 inch UMPC, which certainly counts. Sure, there's a 3G option. And sure, it runs Vista... although on a 1.33 GHz Atom, why would you want to? But with the guts of a netbook and the design of a Hong Kong PSP clone, it's really hard to justify the quadrupled price... especially when UMPCs are all but unusable anyway.

Asus R50a Now Shipping [Pocketables]

[#1 posted by Garr , November 18, 2008 5:05 AM]

Get used to it if you're ever expecting Apple to release one :)