It’s big, thick, lost any sort of keyboard and not all that pretty. But whether you’re aching for ASUS’ next gen UMPC to cut loose from the product chute soon after the R70a is it. Besides toting a 7-inch display with Vista tucked inside a 120GB disk (we think) purring along on a 1.6GHz processor of unspecified Intel form (Silverthorne, please?) we really can’t tell you much. Forgive us but the show doesn’t open for a few more days — instead of marketing types the booth is currently staffed with a mustachioed shield brute named Dieter. Nevertheless, from the outside we can tell you that it sports a pair of USB jacks, memory card slot, kick-stand for watching videos, and controls in line with the 5-inch R50a. And judging by the way it’s displayed as a dashboard-mounted device, it’s safe to say that integrated GPS is at least an option. We’ll find out more just as soon

as ASUS decides to build the R70 official.