Archive for the ‘Netbooks’ Category

Asus has unfortunately decided that instead of moving in the right direction with other products, they will instead continue to make more multicolored and different styled Eee PC’s. This time around, it looks the the 900 series is the one on the receiving end of this face lift. The 901A will now be in a luscious blue and the 900A will be gilded. There’s nothing special going on inside of either of these models that seperates them from their plain colored counterparts so we’ll just have to wait and see if there is any sort of premium slapped on to these more fancy models.

If so, maybe the lack of sales will actually cause Asus to get back to making real products?

The quest for the ability to properly hide that you’re looking at porn on your computer has come to a three way stand off. Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Firefox all have active (or will by the launch of their next beta) a method that will allow users to ensure their privacy when doing private things.

Internet Explorer 8 calls their mode InPrivate.

Google Chrome calls their mode Incognito.

But as of yet, Firefox does not have a name for their privacy mode that will be launching with next months Firefox beta 3.1.

Let’s hope it’s something witty.

AMD isn’t content with sitting back and letting Intel take over the netbook market. While it may not be something they’ve got ready to launch just yet (with their first attempt being on the desktop side), AMD had started developing the Athlon Ultra-Value Client (UVC) series. They’ve already created processors to match the single core 1.6GHz Atom and the dual core 1.5GHz Atom down to the T. But they’ve also seemed to beef up the wattage on these chips, making them a bit more powerful.

If they can get the prices right and make the laptop version available quickly, we may just see Atom get a run for its money.

Waiting for the perfect netbook before you take the plunge? Well who better to wait for then BenQ? We’ve just got word the the BenQ Joybook Lite U101 netbook is already available for viewing. This sharp looking little 10.1 inch 1,024 x 600 display (also available in an 8.9 inch version) will come packed with a 1.6GHz Atom Processor, 1GB of RAM, variable hard drive options, a 3 cell battery, your choice of Windows XP or Linux, and optional 3G broadband router.

The 10.1 inch model will be available in November while the 8.9 inch model will be coming a little bit earlier in October.

With the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 already having shipped, it comes as a bit of a confusion as to why Tesco is selling a moderately unrecognizable Dell laptop for £299. The image shown beow is clearly the Inspiron Mini 9, but it’s labeled as an Inspiron Z530. What’s more confusing then that is the fact that there is currently no 12 inch Atom based laptop model available by Dell under any product model. Plus, there’s nothing listed anywhere about the Z530.

These specs do match up directly with the unreleased 12.1 inch E Slim offered by Dell. You’re looking at a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 2.6lb weight, 12 in WXGA 1,366 x 768 resolution display, 40GB hard drive, and Ubuntu Linux.

I guess we’ll have to wait until October 6th to find out more!

There’s not a ton more to say on the topic besides that. Dell has officially rolled out the first shipment of their newest model, the Inspiron Mini 9 netbook. Anyone who ordered this little laptop when the page launched has most likely already opened up their new toy and started tinkering away with it. If you weren’t there on day one, you’ll probably be seeing your laptop in sometime this week, so don’t worry to much about it.

And for those of you who decided not to buy one, you may want to reconsider. This thing is pretty neat.

Everyones getting into the Netbook race these days. Even Samsung apparently. Not all of the companies joining the race seem to be adding anything special besides just there own brand. That’s apparently the approach that Samsung took as well.

While there’s still no official name for this device, Samsung’s 2.9 lb 10.2 inch display Atom based netbook will come equipped with Windows XP. You’ll also be able to pick it up in either white, black, or blue. The only real difference here seems to be that instead of loading the system up with media keys. Samsung has decided to offer a full sized keyboard, just lacking any of the bells and whistles one would expect out of a computer meant for ease of use.

The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 has made a splash since it’s launch just this past weekend and it looks like there’s already some confusion. Apparently there are at least two versions of this netbook floating around the world. One of them won’t be hitting the states until much later this year. That version being the one with built in 3G.

While the boards are exactly identical, it would seem that there isn’t the right hardware for it in the US version. So our overseas friends will be enjoying their 3G systems sold from Vodafone, we’ll just have to enjoy what free WiFi we can actually find. Either that or wait until the end of the year, your call.

The Asus Eee PC family has decided to offer quite the price drop over the past few days. Perhaps it was inspired by the competition that has entered the market with the new Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbook? Either way, we’re looking at some pretty great deals here.

The Asus Eee PC 901 is now available for just $500 and offers a 8.9-inch display, 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, 12GB SSD, and a 6-cell battery.

The Asus Eee PC 1000H is now available for $449 and offers a 10-inch display, 1GB RAM, a 6-cell battery, 80GB hard disk, and XP.

You can pick either of these up for the mentioned price from Amazon.com