Asus Dresses up Notebooks in Bamboo

The company's Bamboo Series notebooks not only use renewable resources in their construction, they also boast tweaked power settings that deliver 35 to 70 percent power savings.

It looks like Asus’ fabled wood notebooks that have shown up at trade shows and on blog postings in the past will actually turn out to be more than just concepts and prototypes – they’re finally coming out for consumers. On Friday, the company announced its Asus Bamboo Series Notebook, a machine clad, as the name implies, in bamboo rather than plastic.

Although Asus selected bamboo for its sustainability (it can grow up to 12 inches in a single day,) it’s also pushing the material’s natural feel and tactility for notebook buyers. The company claims the bamboo cladding lends the notebook an “aura of spirituality, warmth and old world charm,” which must be more than can be said ABS plastic, anyway.

It’s no normal notebook inside, either. Asus has added its own proprietary Super Hybrid Engine, which supposedly cuts down power usage by 35 to 75 percent over comparable notebooks by monitoring hardware power requirements and adjusting them on the fly. Asus’ press release also claims it allows users to boost performance by 23 percent, but doesn’t elaborate on just how this happens.

The Bamboo Series will come in both 12.1- and 11.1-inch variants, weighing 3.46lbs and 2.76lbs, respectively. Hardware will vary slightly with each version, but both will get Intel Core 2 Duo processors, DDR2 RAM, and LED-backlit displays.

Asus has not yet announced a final release date or retail pricing for the machines.