Asus Launching Bamboo Notebooks In June

What's better than an 11in or 12in notebook? How about an 11in or 12in notebook encased in bamboo? Well, the Ecobook which Asus was touting last year for a Q1 release is just such a machine. Although that release date has now slipped back to June, according to DigiTimes' sources, it is still just as bamboo-encased as ever before.

Called the U6 (12in) and S6 (11in), the systems specs aren't mentioned but given the eco-friendly leanings it seems safe to assume they won't be powerhouses. On the flip side of that, and if the prototypes shown off last year are a good indicator, features such as an LED which changed between green and red depending on energy usage - guilting users into acting greener presumably.

The manufacturing aims to be as environmentally affable as possibly too, foregoing paint sprays and electroplating. Internally no solvents or otherwise hazardous materials have been used.
All the plastics that are used are of the recyclable type, assuming the bamboo case doesn't biodegrade when you spill coffee on it (fair trade of course) first. As well as these notebooks, Asus also showed of desktop PCs in a similar vein, but apparently has no plans to actually ship any such product.

Price wise the U6 and S6 are expected to cost from NT$50,000 (that's New Taiwan Dollars, or £830-odd in real money) which seems pretty reasonable. Hopefully the UK will get a taste of the bamboo action - although not in the panda sense.