ASUS VivoBook S500 / S550 Windows 8 laptops now on sale for $699 and up
 

With Books, Pads, Tabs, Fones and the intriguing Transformer AiO, we can only wonder what else ASUS has in the stockroom. Recently liberated from the warehouse are the VivoBook S500 and S550 -- they're the biggest of the new VivoBook range, with 15.6-inch, 1,366 x 768 displays supporting multitouch for prodding at Windows 8. The S500 comes in one configuration: 1.7GHz Core i5, 6GB RAM, Intel GMA HD GPU and a 500GB HDD with 24GB SSD for fast-booting Redmond's latest OS. Almost identical is the S550, which has Core i3 / i5 / i7 options, as well as an optical drive for "physical media," whatever that is. You can call an S500 your own for $699 and ASUS has kindly put a slim list of retailers stocking the notebooks on its product page, though we can only find the i5-laden S550 for circa $750. Amazon seems to have had both on sale since March 4th, but ASUS thought it'd leave it a week before issuing a minimalist PR, which you'll find below.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/12/a...ook-s500-s550/