ASUS S121 Officially Announced: Not an Eee But Joins New Crop of Oversized 12-Inch “Netbooks”

We told you this was going to be a trend; larger notebooks (call them netbooks if you want) that sport a 12 inch display but forgo expensive ultraportable insides for the affordable Intel Atom platform. Joining the Dell Inspiron Mini 12, the MSI X-Slim U300 and the HP Dv2, is ASUS’  S121. An enlarged Eee PC S101, the S121 drops the Eee name but has the same fashion forward chassis with a glossy lid available in a slew of different colors. The 2.6 pound laptop is less than an inch thick, has Swarovski crystals in LCD hinge and a leather palm-rest. However, gone is the 10 inch display on the S101 and in its place is a edgeless glass 12.1 inch 1280 x 800 resolution LED display. On the insides it packs Intel’s Atom (Menlow) platform and 128GB Solid State hard drive.  Claiming 10 hours of battery life, ASUS will offer an extended battery for this configuration. More details to follow in the battery. The notebook will offer Windows XP and Vista Basic, Business and Ultimate operating system options. It will also include Express Gate ASUS’s Splashtop powered quick-boot environment. Other specs include 802.11b/g/n wireless and a 1.3 megapixel webcam. No information on availability or pricing on this one yet but we are crossing our fingers that it hits for under a grand.