NetbookTech

Dell announced new customization options for their recently announced Inspiron 11z thin and light notebook system. Originally announced back in August with limited configuration options, the 11z now comes with several processor, memory, hard drive, and color choices to choose from including:

Processor:

• Choose from either the Intel Celeron 743 processor clocked at 1.3GHz or the Intel Pentium SU4100 dual core processor clocked at 1.3GHz.

Memory:

• Choose from 2GB or 4GB of memory

Hard Drives:

• Choose from 160GB, 250GB, or 320GB 5400RPM 2.5 inch SATA HDD

Power:

• Choose from 3 cell 24 WHr or 6 cell 56 WHr Li-Ion battery

Color:

• Choose from Alpine White, Ice Blue, Jade Green, New Cherry Red,  Passion Purple, and Promise Pink

According to the Direct2Dell blog, the 6 cell battery will get around 6 hours of battery life (compared to the 3 hours of battery life from the 3 cell battery). All of these customization options are available now at Dell.com.

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Yes I’m definitely on a roll here today. Right on the heels of our Toshiba NB205 unboxing pictures comes even more unboxing pictures – this time of the new Acer Aspire AS1410  thin and light notebook.

Here’s a quick rundown of the AS1410 just in case you’re not familiar with the system. First off, you’re forgiven if you think the AS1410 is just another 11.6 inch netbook. It certainly looks and feels like one.. but power it up and you’ll quickly realize the system feels snappier than traditional Atom-based netbooks. Reason? The AS1410 utilizes the more powerful Intel ULV Core 2 Solo SU3500 processor clocked at 1.4GHz thus classifying this system as a “thin and light” rather than a “netbook”. While not a dual core processor, the Core 2 Solo is certainly higher performing than the Atom processor (although it consumes more power too).

Other notable specs to the AS1410 include:

• 11.6 inch LED backlit widescreen display with 1366 x 768 resolution
• 250GB SATA 5400RPM HDD
• 2GB DDR3 RAM
• Intel Graphics Media Acceleration 4500MHD
• Multi-gesture touchpad
• Crystal Eye webcam
• Draft-N Wi-Fi
• Gigabit Ethernet
• 5 in 1 memory card reader
• HDMI output
• Stereo speakers with Dolby Surround Room audio enhancement
• Vista Home Premium
• Up to 6 hours of battery life
• Measures 11.2 x 8 x 1.2 inches and weighs 3.1 pounds

While the insides are certainly not that of a netbook system. the AS1410 certainly has the price of a netbook – at least a higher end netbook. You can easily find the AS1410 for as low as $429 – a good price considering all that you get (although it does lack Bluetooth for some reason).

And now – onto the unboxing pics! Enjoy!

Yes I’m a little late but heck – better late than never right? Here are unboxing pictures of the Toshiba NB205 netbook which I took back in August as I was preparing for a trip to Romania. With a long flight coming up, I decided that it was probably a great opportunity to see how the NB205 would fare while on the road. The verdict? It rocked.. but more on that in my review later on. In the meantime, enjoy these unboxing pictures!

News.com reports that Intel is planning to accelerate the development of the Intel Atom processor. According to Sean Maloney, Intel executive vice president, the Atom processor will be updated more frequently – following a strategy similar to the “tick-tock” methodology used for Intel’s Core processor lineup.

Not familiar with “tick-tock” advancement process? It works like this. One year (tick cycle) Intel delivers a new manufacturing process for the current processor architecture. The following year (tock cycle), the company introduces new processor micro-architecture.

So why the acceleration?

Intel’s always walked a fine line with the Atom processor. The chip’s superb energy efficiency and good enough performance catapulted the processor to a dominant market share of the explosive netbook market. Yet the very same netbook market has proven to be a double-edged sword for Intel. Higher sales of netbook systems have resulted in lower sales for the rest of the mobile computing market – translating to lower demand for Intel’s higher gross margin mobile processors as more lower-margin Atom processors are sold. Not a good thing for Intel. 

As a result, Intel tried to downplay the Atom processor – making sure to relegate and market the processor as just powerful enough for “basic computing” and small mobile devices like smartphones, MIDs, etc. In addition, the company has been reticent to introduce advancements to the processor line. In the last two years, we’ve seen only a dual core desktop version and a bump up in speed with the Atom N280 processor (from 1.6GHz to 1.66GHz – yawn).

In the meantime, recognizing that consumer interest in mobile systems has shifted to inexpensive thin and light systems, Intel saw a need to accelerate development of consumer oriented “ultra-low voltage processors” of the Celeron and Core 2 processor lineups. The end result? New thin and light notebooks that were more powerful than netbooks while also commanding a slightly higher price point (while certainly lower than inexpensive ultra-light notebooks which run faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors).

A good containment plan for Intel right?

Unfortunately all the success the Atom processor has witnessed has resulted in competing chip manufacturers looking for a way to get into the market. This year alone we’ve seen new processors/plaforms from all the major players including AMD’s Neo processor, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor, ARM’s Cortex processor, and new VIA reference platforms built around C7-M and Nano processors – all in an effort to get a slice of the overall inexpensive mobile market. The message was clear to Intel – if they weren’t willing to improve the performance of low-end energy efficient processors, then the competition surely will.

As a result – we’re seeing a change in strategy for Intel. If the company wants to maintain its lead in all market segments – including the low-cost energy efficient netbook/MID market, then it needs to increase development of the Atom architecture. In the foreseeable future, we should see faster Atom processors as well as the upcoming Pine-trail architecture which integrates the GPU with the CPU.

What does this all mean to the consumer? More choices, faster systems, better battery life, and hopefully more inexpensive systems on the horizon. Good stuff!

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Dell and Canonical announced last week the availability of the Ubuntu Moblin Remix Developer Edition for the Dell Inspiron Mini 10v netbook.

Ubuntu Moblin Remix Developer Edition is a new Linux distribution combining the core Moblin version 2.0 interfaces, libraries, and applications with the internals of Ubuntu Linux 9.04. The distribution is called a “Developer Edition” since it’s still a “work in progress” – (which means the rest of us might call it an Alpha or a Beta version but whatever).

Ubuntu Moblin Remix Developer Edition can be purchased factory-installed on the Mini 10v at www.dell.com/ubuntu. You can also download the Ubuntu Moblin Remix installation image at the Dell Moblin wiki page here – http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Moblin.

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One of the first Qualcomm Snapdragon-based Smartbook devices made an appearance last week at Chicago’s “4G World”. Dubbed the “Mangrove” and manufactured by Korean manufacturer, C-motech, the Smartbook apparently runs Windows Mobile 6.5 (there’s apparently support for Android also). No further details as of yet.

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If you’re looking to add a performance upgrade to that ASUS Eee PC of yours, you’ll want to check out Active Media Products new line of SATA Mini PCIe Sold State Drives called the SaberTooth S3.

Available in storage capacities of 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB, the SaberTooth S3’s feature a new multi-channel SMI controller and “top-brand” MLC NAND flash chips for sequential read speeds up to 95MB/sec and sequential write speeds up to 70MB/sec. Other features include advanced ECC, bad bit management, and wear leveling algorithms which improve reliability and performance. The SaberTooth  S3s have a mini PCIe connector with a SATA-II 3Gbps interface.

Price are as follows:

• 16GB SaberTooth S3 (model N16G-SATA-S3) is available for $69
• 32GB SaberTooth S3 (model N32G-SATA-S3) is available for $89
• 64GB SaberTooth S3 (model N64G-SATA-S3) is available for $159.

The SaberTooth S3 series SSD’s are available via Amazon.com.  Active Media Products guarantees compatibility with the Asus Eee PC 900, 900A, 901 and S101 netbooks.

Do you love the portability and affordability of the netbook but dislike the overall performance? Are thin-and-light notebooks a bit too expensive for what they offer? Well, VIA Technologies is looking to address this with the introduction of the NetNote segment. Based on the VIA “Surfboard” motherboard, VIA is targeting the “NetNote” at the segment between netbooks and traditional notebooks.

According to VIA, the NetNote “combines the portability and affordability of a netbook with the functionality and HD entertainment capabilities of a notebook in a light, high performance clamshell mobile device with long battery life, screen sizes of between 10.2″ – 12.1″, and support for flawless playback of high bit-rate 1080p HD video.”

Key to the performance and affordability of the NetNote is the combination of the VIA VX855 media system processor with either the VIA C7-M ULV or VIA Nano processor – resulting in two VIA Surfboard NetNote Edition Platforms.

In addition, VIA will be offering complete NetNote Turnkey systems which allow vendors quick and easy ways to enter into the market.

Both the new motherboard designs as well as NetNote Turnkey Systems will be made available to members of the VIA Global Mobility Bazaar program.

The two motherboards turnkey platforms are the VIA VT6552 and the VIA VT6549. The two motherboards share the following specs

• VIA C7-M ULV @ 800MHz FSB or VIA Nano @ 800MHz FSB
• VIA VX855 Media System Processor
• Supports internal display resolutions of up to 1366 x 768 pixels and external display resolutions up to 1920 x 1440 pixels
• One SO-DIMM socket , Support DDRII 667/800, up to 2GB
• VIA Vinyl VT1702S audio codec
• VIA Rhine VT6107 10/100Mb Ethernet
• ITE8502E embedded controller
• IDT ICS9UM701AKLF-T clock generator
• Mic-In, HP-Out audio jacks
• D-SUB VGA Output
• 2 USB ports

The VT6552 comes with Genesys GL827S card reader and Sunplus SPIF223B PATA to SATA chipset while the VIA VT6549 has an ITE IT1337E card reader and a Marvell 88SA8052-TBC2 PATA to SATA chipset.

VIA will be showcasing the new platforms as well as new systems based on the platforms at the VIA Global Mobility Bazaar Alliance event to be held on Friday 25 September in Shenzhen, China.

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MSI announced the 12.1 inch Wind U210 netbook/ultraportable notebook earlier this week – the first MSI system to feature the AMD Athlon Neo processor instead of the more common Intel Atom processor. The Wind U210 (which is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com for $429.99) features the following:

• AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 processor clocked at 1.6GHz
• AMD RS690 + SB600 chipset
• 2GB RAM
• 250GB SATA HDD
• 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi
• 12.1 inch WXGA 16:9 aspect ratio (1366 x 768) display
• Radeon X1250 graphics
• HDMI output
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• 6 cell (5200mAh) battery for around 4-5 hours of battery life
• Measures 7.4 x 11.69 x 1.2 inches
• Weighs 3.2 pounds
• 1.3 megapixel webcam
• 3 USB ports, VGA port
• 4 in 1 memory card reader

As mentioned earlier, the MSI U210 is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com as well as Newegg.com .

via CrunchGear

The folks at Gizmodo have a review of the Viliv S7 netbook/tablet device up on their website and absolutely have to love the title – “Viliv S7 Review: Looks So Good, Tastes So Bad”.

Ouch.

Before we get into the summary of the review, let’s go over the specs of the S7 (mostly because I wasn’t familiar with the unit until I read the review myself). Here’s what’s listed on the myviliv.com website for the S7:

• Intel Atom Z520 1.33GHz Processor
• 9.5 hour battery life
• Weighs 799 grams
• 7 inch SVGA swivel touch-screen (1024 x 600) LCD display
• SDHC memory card slot
• 60GB HDD or 32GB SSD
• Stereo speakers
• 2 USB ports
• Built-in Microphone and 1.3 megapixel Webcam
• Optional 3G HSPA or 4G WiMAX
• MID Shuffle UI
• Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity
• Instant On (3-4 seconds)
• Windows XP
• 1GB RAM

There are actually three S7 models – the S7 Express, S7 Premium, and S7 Premium 3G. Primary differences are:

S7 Express has the 1.2 GHz Atom Z515 while the S7 Premium/Premium 3G have the 1.3Ghz Atom Z520. The S7 Express comes with a 16GB SSD while the S7 Premium is 32GB HDD/64GB SSD and the S7 Premium 3G is just the 32GB SSD. You can read more about the S7 here.

OK.. so back to Gizmodo’s review. One sentence says it all:

“A lousy screen ruins the entire experience.”

Really now.. how bad is the screen? Well according to Mark Wilson, “This may be the only LCD in history with a more discernible side viewing angle than you get head-on". WOW

Other tidbits about the touch-screen – you need hard presses on the display to register actions and it has horrible glare issues.

OK.. yes it’s a short review but if the display isn’t usable, then the S7 is just junk.. Sigh.. it was such a promising looking netbook/tablet device too!

Here are some more promotional pics of the S7:

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