Asus Fold/Unfold notebook will cost $1,000 – $1,500

Asus plans to bring its Fold/Unfold concept to reality by commercially launching the product in September or October 2009 according to a TechRadar interview with Asus’ CEO Jerry Shen. He also said that the new type of notebook will retail for somewhere between $1000 to $1500. We previously reported that a launch was being pencilled in for the third quarter this year, but this is the first time we have had details on pricing.

This new form factor has a keyboard that slides backwards as the screen is opened, maximising room for the keys, trackpad and palm rest. As we have discussed previously, this new concept is a very interesting development for netbooks as given the size limitations of netbooks and efforts by manufacturers to maximise keyboard space, we would be very surprised to not see this concept appear in an Asus netbook at some point in the future.