Asustek wants to replace Apple

Obviously, Asus would also need a reasonable operating system.

That is fairly easy. Take a Unix clone, add a fancy interface to it, fill it with proprietary bloat, and make sure it blocks everything that Asus doesn't agree to.

Ohh, and make it so irrelevant and have so little market share, that no one is bothered to write malware for it. Then Asus can market it to it's fans as "A secure operating system"

If ASUS wants to establish a name in the US, the first thing they have to do is improve its service, it sucks. Also, they should look at its WEB page, it's too techie and probably slow too, need to be consumer oriented and faster.

At home we swear by ASUS motherboard for gaming, but at my professional office (with a part time IT person) there is probably $100,000 in hardware and is all Dell.

It's nice, I keep XP on it (mainly because of the Radio Shark software) and and I run iTunes and a Radio Shark on it as a compact home stereo instead of a iPod. If you are going to get one I recommend getting the 10" screen (I have a 8.9") or larger, anything smaller is just too cramped in my opinion for everyday usage.
I would love to try one of the new 12" netbooks, I think Lenovo has one now and USUS is coming out with one as well, hopefully with Linux on board as a cheaper option instead of we will dictate your hardware if you want a cheap Windows OS.

If Asustek wants to compete in the mainstream American market they will need to pick up their marketing. Apple has a marketing monster that's helped make them what they are today and without a similar stratedgy Asustek will continue to be produce products that are marginalized. Of course us geeks will love them, but we are few in numbers compared to the mainstream where Asustek wants to be.

I'm with Joe above. Apple provides pretty good service.

ASUS service is not even a joke, its an after thought.

There is no way ASUS can even compete in the service arena. And I don't think ASUS can throw money at the problem either because their products are not really that reliable in the first place. Build quality lately is pretty poor compared to ASUS in the past.

Well, ASUS did for the first time in Taiwan's computer history, actually innovate something with the netbook, but they need to do better than that to compete with Apple. They won't do it with Windows either. Work with Ubuntu or similar, do some marketing research to find out what people actually want and design something desirable. Look at the Mac Mini - been around for years and still nobody in Taiwan can come close to it.

Yellow? Oh, hi Steve, I'm just talking on my awesome new Banana phone. Yeah, I know you're jealous 'cause it's half the cost and can run more stuff.

Very much looking forward to seeing what they make.

You win.

"And it is not just nice design that made Apple what it is, despite that being a fairly obvious differentiator for the California company."

I'm shocked. How many shots did you have to take before you could type that?

2,400,000,000.08 transistors, worries on heat dropped envelope on single gpu:

one of primary concerns was how to avoid all the thermal spots that plagued the GT200 architecture.

The GT300 part targets a thermal range of 225W and should feature two 6-pin PEG [PCI Express Graphics] power connectors, same as on the current GTX285 graphics card. The target was not previously rumored 300W, e.g. one 8-pin and one 6-pin PCIe. Then again, nVidia should hold off from opening the champagne, since ATI's Evergreen uses just one 6-pin PEG. Dual Evergreen will probably use the conventional high-end arrangement off one 8-pin and one 6-pin PEG connector.

There you go. You have a 40nm chip targeting clocks of 700 MHz for the core, 1600 MHz for those 512 MIMD shader cores and nice 1.1 GHz QDR, e.g. 4.4 GT/s for the GDDR5 memory... sucking same amount of power as the actual GTX285. Expect Jen-Hsun and Ujesh to be all over the power features inside the chip, since the chip architects sweted blood over this one.
its Dx11 & hoped for sooner than latter. nvidia IS quite & further babbage may be forthcoming before end of Month.

Does vondrashek use an advanced gibberish generator or does he type all that trash by himself?

Hmm, we've already got Apple, we've had Apricot, I suppose Acorn is a sort of fruit if you're a squirrel, what fruit could possibly fit in with these and still show Asus' values, pride in customer service and core competencies?

Ah yes. Lemon.

Hey if you don't remember, the MacBooks were manufactured for apple by Asus.

"He thinks Asustek's lack of brand recognition may be because it has been too conservative. It has an image of being a foreign, Asian company which does not go too well in the US, he added."

If Asus isn't really happy with that, they could always start moving their plants over to the US.

OK, I admit, Asus make better looking kit than most of the other manufacturers. Asus can do good looking stuff, almost as 'cool' as Sony gear.

BUT - taking on Apple in the STYLING department!? Yeah, right. Apple has this certain je ne sais quoi about their stuff that's hard to put your finger on, but it's just -so hot-. Apple as a brand has such a slick, polished, stylised chic, supported by the best support offered by an IT vendor; slick, svelte advertising, and bucket loads of R&D poured into seamless usability. Apple has refined over years and years of careful brand creation to forge an entity that shrieks 'cool' all the way from adverts, the shops themselves, the products, interoperability, software, everything about Apple! And Jobs is a complete headcase as far as 'cool' is concerned.

I honestly can't see Asus coming close to taking it to Apple in the way they delusional minds think they can. It's like a Chinatown tailor announcing he's going to make 'copy Armani suits' and sell them for $50.

It's all about the je ne sais quoi. And I seriously doubt any style out of China/Taiwan can possibly compete.

I've been with Macs since MacOS 8 and my main reason all the time was the OS. It's true that they have a good hardware but also I've seen pretty nasty burned up mcbook pro's nvidias, batteries that explode, brand new memories that will cause the computer to crash, always. The good part of it was the service, very competent and responsible.
About the design, I'm sure standard users are buying it just for design and publicity but for me there are really big design flaws:
- any apple mouse, from that big round silly shape one buttoned unusable mouse to the overpriced and non functional functions mighty mouse.
- white macbook from one year and a half before, had a lot of problems with enclosure cracking.
- emulated color TFT's on macbook pros (c'mon I'm paying for the real deal).
- low end hard drives overpriced and with heat issues.

Although I like the magnetic cord, the movement sensor in labtops, the keyboard design etc.

My point is every single hardware have issues and Apple is no different.

The proof: an asus with MacOS X, just try it, is virtually the same.

Apple has a long, rich history of being a leader in innovation. Take the GUI, for instance. That was way back in 1984 when GUI was unheard of in the PC platform.

You don't build brand equity overnight. It's like Mercedes and BMW. Sure, maybe Hyundai can build cars that are as durable, dynamic and stylish as BMW's flagships, but in the eyes of the public, they will never be BMW. For some reason, defying logic, that's just the way things happen.

I'm not saying Asus doesn't have a rich history of quality and innovation. They do. But manufacturing game consoles for names like Microsoft don't really make the brand step forward.

It doesn't matter if they're foreign or not. Nintendo did it. Toyota did it. Honda did it. Ford and GM are locals but failed at it.

They have to keep churning stylish, high quality products for many years before they can go head to head against Apple.

And oh, don't copy. Apple never does that.

Asus has my support as long as they don't comne out with a one button mouse and then 10 years later charge someone $100 if they wanted two buttons!!!

Actually, they should make a super sexy looking, no button mouse. Apple would be blown away.

Yea. I don't think Apple is selling shedloads of Mac Mini's. Apple's success boils down to Steve Jobs return to to the company he founded, plus his OS NeXt operating system along with fancy fruit themed kit. The truth is that if you take Jobs away from Apple, it's only a matter of time before they dry up. None of the other management blokes at Apple have Jobs Charisma.