With just about as little fanfare as possible, Asus has posted information on a new ultraportable laptop, the B23E. Coming in with a 12.5-inch, 1366 x 768 screen, it's available with a variety of configuration options from an Intel Core i3 with a 320GB hard drive on up to a Core i7, 8GB of RAM, and a 750GB/7200rpm drive. Although the 3.4-pound design doesn't inspire, it is arrayed with a decent set of default ports and options, including USB 3.0, HDMI, Express Card, Bluetooth, fingerprint scanner, and an SD card reader. The battery is only a three-cell, 4,400mAh and the 2-megapixel webcam certainly isn't anything special, but they are at least encased in a magnesium-aluminum alloy body. A mid-range version has been spotted on Amazon for just under $1,000.

A new netbook from Asus also surfaced, the not-so-cleverly-named Eee PC R051BX. It sports a 1.0GHz AMD c-60 processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive within its 10.1-inch frame.