After some rumors about Asus’s plans to launch a slate tablet from the EEE series it seems we finally have the first official announcement that states the company will launch a slate type tablet device during Computex IT show this July. We knew already it was going to be presented at Computex, the biggest IT show in Taiwan and that the price will be situated around the 500$ mark.

    We now know officially that it will use the Nvidia Tegra 2 platform powered by Android OS and will feature all the things iPad lacks: USB ports, webcam and support for Adobe Flash. Jerry Shen, the Asus chairman, said that they plan on selling around 300.000 devices this year, starting with Q4, when the EEE Pad is rumored to be available to customers.

    asus eee padI’m glad ASUS didn’t try and chop one of their netvertibles, the T101MT and T91MT to produce a sluggish tablet and started things from the ground up with a completely new platform that might actually have a chance against the iPad, offering an alternative, not a similar product. ASUS also declared that they’re keeping an eye on the eReader market, to see if there’s enough room for them to launch a product there, but they are also careful not to bite into other products market share.

    ASUS is not the only Taiwanese manufacturer that is preparing a tablet as MSI is doing the same. We’ll keep you posted on how things evolve.

    Source: The Inquirer