Asus has unveiled a new laptop based on Intel's current Core 2010 platform. The chassis is built from aluminum-magnesium alloy lid and a "nanometer coating" on the palm rest that is meant to resist fingerprints and be easy to clean.

The U36 is just 0.75" thick and weighs in at 3.2 - 3.7 lbs depending on the choice between 6 and 8-cell batteries. The 8-cell is rated for 84 Wh which Asus are claiming will achieve around 10 hours of run time for the laptop.

It also uses a standard-voltage Core i3 and i5 CPU (again, depending on model) and has a GeForce 310M discrete GPU. nVidia's Optimus graphics-switching technology is offered - which is definitely not a bad thing. Keeping in mind how thin the laptop is and it has a standard-voltage CPU a more powerful GPU would have been hard to do.

Other features worth noting are it includes a 13.3" LED-backlit panel with a 1366x768 resolution, HDMI and VGA outputs, integrated card reader, 3 x USB3.0 ports, the standard GbE network, 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth support - the U36 packs a nice, hard punch.