Hands on with the Asus R2H Origami

By Rory Reid on 13 March 2006, 10:27am

Crave managed to get a quick hands-on with the Asus R2H Origami Ultra Mobile PC at CeBIT this morning, viciously elbowing a horde of tech-obsessed journalists to get our sweaty mitts on the gadget.

The device uses most of the same gubbins as the Samsung Q1, but has a more industrial look. Like the Q1, it felt a little bulky, and this pre-production sample was worryingly hot to the touch.

We'll give it the benefit of the doubt, though -- it has a few features that could give it the edge over its early rivals.

Most notably, it has an integrated 1.3-megapixel webcam mounted at the front, which can be used for on-the-go Web conferencing and self portraits. There's also a GPS receiver (note the retractable antenna protruding from the top left), and a fingerprint reader -- which we think is a stroke of genius.

Like the Samsung Q1, the R2H has in-built TV features. This adheres to both analogue and DVB-T specifications, so it'll work just about anywhere. The rest of the device is fairly standard, and uses Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, an Intel Centrino ultra-low voltage processor, and 512MB of RAM. -RR

See our CeBIT 2006 Special Report for all the latest news, product announcements, photos and videos from CeBIT.