Today ASUS launched a new 13.3” U3 notebook computer running on the Intel Santa Rosa platform. The notebook has a black exterior with a magnesium frame on the inside to give the sexy little computer a weight of only 3.86 pounds when using the standard 3-cell battery.

Graphics for the U3 are via NVIDIA GeForce 8400M G GPU with 128MB of video memory. Hard drive capacity is up to 160GB. The one bad thing about the U3 is that there is no optical drive, you will need an external or to map another optical drive from your network to install software and obviously watching movies on the plane is out of the question.

Asus also packs the U3 with Bluetooth, GPS, and built-in 3G for mobile broadband. An HDMI port is built in, though I have to wonder why with no optical drive, as well as an eSATA post on the rear. No official pricing information has been announced at this time. Via DailyTech