ASUS AIRO Fold/Unfold: $1k To $1.5k By October

ASUS' AIRO Fold/Unfold concept notebook – which was shown at CES and CeBIT – is headed for a launch in September or October 2009, priced at between $1,000 and $1,500.  That's the word according to ASUS CEO Jerry Shen, who is positioning the innovatively-folding ultraportable as a more affordable and economical PC version of the MacBook Air.

Only shown to-date as a mock-up prototype, the AIRO Fold/Unfold notebook has a slide-up keyboard section that opens up the chassis for increased cooling.  It will also use ASUS' new polymer battery technology – as featured in the ASUS Eee PC 1008HA "Shell" – for up to five hours runtime from a single charge.

Of course, there's a big difference between putting out a non-functional concept and a working, production model.  It's unclear what sort of specification the AIRO will have, whether ASUS will make it a netbook-style device with an Intel Atom processor or similar, or if it will be one of Intel's new CULV platform machines.