By Paul Hayes

TAIPEI, TAIWAN: Hot on the heels of Apple’s first major international iPad release, Asus has looked to take advantage of the new market and has introduced its own tablet computers.

Unveiled in time for today’s Computex exhibition in Taipei, the Asus Eee Pad is a Windows-based portable tablet PC that comes with 10 and 12-inch screens.

The 12-inch Eee Pad EP121 is powered by a CULV Intel Core 2 Duo processor and the Windows 7 operating system and features both an embedded and docking station keyboard.

According to the company, the Eee Pad easily handles multitasking and is able to process Microsoft Word and Excel documents simultaneously.

Designed for more mobility at 12.2 millimetres wide, the 10-inch Eee Pad EP101TC runs on Windows Embedded Compact 7 with the latest Windows-based technologies and tools, said AsusTek.

For reading and note taking, Asus has also introduced the Eee Tablet, a combination e-reader-notepad which features a 2450 dpi touch resolution screen, 0.1-second text file page turns and a 2-megapixel camera for accurate screenshots.

The Eee Tablet has a 10-hour battery life and can be synced up with a PC or notebook via USB or Micro SD.

News of the new tablet devices comes on the same day Apple announced its already firmly entrenched place in the market, with iPad sales topping two million in its first 60 days and most Australian outlets selling out within 48-hours of last Friday’s release.