Asus U30Jc Notebook Has Core i3, Nvidia Optimus

The new ASUS notebook brings Intel's Core i3 and Nvidia's GeForce GT310M.

ASUS said Monday that it launched the "strikingly stylish" U30Jc, a new notebook packing Intel's Core i3 350M processor and NVIDIA Optimus technology. Available now for $899 in the U.S., the device boasts a slim and lightweight chassis that makes it one of the industry's thinnest 13.3-inch laptops so far-- even with an integrated optical drive.

Monday the company promoted the U30Jc as a laptop for casual gamers and media buffs, offering a 13.3-inch HD LED backlit panel, 4 GB of DDR3 memory, and "HD audio" thanks to the built-in Altec Lansing speakers. NVIDIA's Optimus technology uses both Intel's integrated graphics and the NVIDIA GeForce GT310M discrete graphics chipset-- Optimus chooses the appropriate GPU for the current application.

"Applications such as games, GPU compute, and high definition multimedia applications will use the NVIDIA discrete GPU, while the Intel integrated graphics processor is used for operations such as email, web surfing, and document creation," the company said. "The transition between discreet and integrated graphics is seamless and requires no user-intervention, it just works."

Other bells and whistles provided by the ASUS U30Jc include its Chicklet Wide Spaced keyboard design, a durable brushed aluminum exterior housing, Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11 N wireless capabilities, a webcam, and a built-in microphone "for video conferencing." The HDMI output jack allows users to pump HD content to an HDTV, backed by a battery that provides up to 9.4 hours of life.