ASUS showed off the S121 notebook. Based on Intel’s Atom, the S121 isn’t exactly fast but it is portable. The S121 carries a much more conventional notebook form factor, measuring 11.7” x 8.3” with a thickness of 0.9” - 1.0”.

The most unique feature of the S121 (just being thin, light and running Atom isn’t enough anymore) is its 512GB SSD. It sounds like ASUS assembled its own drive in the machine, unfortunately utilizing a JMicron SATA-to-Flash controller - although I didn’t get confirmation on which model in particular it used.

ASUS will certainly have plenty of other products, the last item we wanted to mention for now was a demonstration of a new N20 laptop.  This is sort of based on the N10JC that recently received our Gold Editors' Choice Award, only in a larger 12.1" chassis.  New additions include a touch sensitive display, an optical drive, and a Core 2 Duo processor.  Hopefully they can still keep the good battery life that we witnessed with the N10JC, although with all the upgrades that might be pushing things a little.  We're still interested in seeing an N10 or Eee PC netbook with a dual-core Intel Atom processor; a less expensive N20 laptop with such a CPU would also be a nice option.

Today is full of press conferences so we're off to see what else is new at CES 2009. Stay tuned.

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