WiMax Takes Center Stage In Sub-$500 Devices

As the rollout of WiMax inches closer, Asus unveiled Tuesday a line of WiMax compatible products during the WiMax Summit in Taipei.

Of particular note is the WiMax Eee PC 901. Asus said these mini-notebooks will be able to rapidly connect to a WiMax network out of the box.

"Imagine carrying the Eee PC, and while travelling or at a cafe, connect to the world in just 20 seconds," said Jonathan Tsang, Vice Chairman of Asus, in a written statement.

The 901 models feature Intel's 1.6-GHz Atom processor, 1 GB of memory and a 20-GB solid-state drive for Linux builds and a 12-GB SSD in machines running Windows.

The WiMax Eee PC 901 also features an 8.9-inch screen, multi-format storage card reader, supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Asus said the Eee PC 901 would have four to six hours of battery life, but did not indicate whether the WiMax version would get the same.

While this is not the first laptop to feature integrated WiMax, Asus' line of mini-notebooks has been extremely popular with consumers. The WiMax 901 models may drive early adopters to test out the new 4G network.

Asus is also prepping a WiMax dongle, called WUSB25E2V2. The dongle is a universal serial bus device, features a plug-and-play interface, and can rotate 180 degrees. Additionally, the dongle has a mirror-polished silver surface.

The company also introduced a pair of WiMax base stations, the WMNV25E2+ and the WMV25E1+.

All of Asus' announced devices belong to either IEEE 802.16e wave 1 or waver 2 standard, (depending on the model), can support different working frequencies, and can support QPSK, 16QAM, and 64QAM adaptive modulation.