Netbook Review, notebook review, tablet review, PC review » consumers

Stainless Steel Aerodynamic netbook by Kivu Technology

Twinkle — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:05:44 +0000

Kivu Technology Co. has made a brave move by rolling out a new netbook, “G-Five KTNO2” which uses its Aerodynamics shape to let the consumers not feel much of its weight. Though the weight is 1.26 kg but you will feel holding just 0.90 kg while you walk with it. Designed to catch eyes and resembling like the wing of an aircraft, it has a brushed stainless steel chassis to give it a classic feel.It features Intel Atom Processor that runs @ 1.6 GHz, 10.2-inch dispaly @ 1024 x 600 LCD display, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB hard disk, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 3G SIM slot, card reader, LAN, Bluetooth and 1.3MP webcam. Nothing is known about its pricing.

Dell Mini OPI Designer Lids Now up for Sale

Twinkle — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:47:57 +0000

Last month, we informed you about Dell and OPI tie-up to offer new designer lids for the Dell Mini netbooks as-well-as notebooks. Now, they are finally available to the consumers. As mentioned earlier, the designer lid is going to cost you whopping $85There are 26 designs to choose from.“Who doesn’t love New York? It has everything – fashion, theatre, four distinct seasons, energy, excitement, and the best bagels anywhere. Hands down. The place where the official color of fashion is black, this city offers big buildings, big ideas, big beauty – and big inspiration. For this big color.” - Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, OPI

HP 13-inch ultrathins launched – HP ProBook 5310m and HP DM3 – use AMD NEO processor

Twinkle — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:31:53 +0000

HP has churned out two new 13-inch thin-and-light notebooks, which are based on Intel's Core 2 Duo and AMD's Neo platform. Talking about the HP ProBook 5310m, it mainly targeted to more serious consumers; has a balanced and sophisticated look with black anodized aluminum with a magnesium frame in a soft touch finish. HP is punching it up as 'the world's thinnest full-performance notebook'. It seems that they are right about it as it will be available with a Core 2 Duo (SP9300) CPU. Priced at $899, it may be expensive for some, but then there is no settlement on its performance end. You can also go for $699 version powered by a ULV Celeron processor.The HP DM3 is a bit cheaper than the former. However, it will be offered with much cheaper AMD Neo processors or Intel CULVs. It is priced at $549 for an AMD dual-core Neo version, while an Intel-based DM3 will set you back $649. Such a price for the metal look which worth for it. HP claims up to 10 hours of battery life on its 6-cell battery.

Qualcomm betting a lot on Smartbooks – says future is very bright for Smartbook

Paul Merak — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 13:16:27 +0000

Qualcomm is giving its best endeavor to increase its sales and thinks that computers in the future will be just like Mobile Phones. By computers, they mean Smartbooks which are basically netbooks running Android, Google Chrome OS or Linux.Most of the upcoming Smartbooks will be using ARM processors, precisely Qualcomm ARM-based CPUs.Consumers want computers that will run all day on one battery charge, don’t need to be switched off and are always receiving data, said Jacobs, whose company is the world’s biggest maker of mobile-phone chips.According to Qualcomm, people do not want to carry a bulky laptop and its charger all day with them. They want a device that can run all day and remain connected too. More than 12 companies have decided to use the Snapdragon's chip, which runs at 1GHz clock speed. The future is surely very exciting and we are waiting for the Snapdragon-based netbooks AKA Smartbooks to hit the market

Acer plans to launch THREE TOUCH enabled products with Windows 7

Paul Merak — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:45:11 +0000

With Windows 7's release just around the corner, Acer has announced that they will be unveiling three touch-enabled products running Windows 7. According to the product manager of mobile computer department, touch enabled netbooks have a great chance of becoming a hit among consumers in comparison to Tablet PCs concept which never really took off.The manager, Shih, said that the in-cell technology has better prospects than the built-on touch solutions as the components of former are built directly into the TFT panels and are cheaper too.Last year was the year of netbooks and now, it appears that this year, it will be the year of touchscreen netbooks

Bad SONY! – BLOCKS Virtual XP mode in Windows 7

Twinkle — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:10:50 +0000

It may shock you but, its true! The Sony Vaio laptops are not designed to run Window's 7's much boasted Windows XP virtual mode. Also the laptops are shipping with BIOS with which Virtualization cannot be done. Sony hasn't made any clarification regarding whether, they will enable this feature in coming future or not.According to Sony Insider, the company commented on this by saying that “Its engineers and QA people were very concerned that enabling VT would expose our systems to malicious code that could go very in the Operating System structure of the PC and completely disable it”, a official of the company.Many misconceptions and confusion are crawling within the people that Sony’s advertising is not at all clear about the whether the Vaio machines are unable to work with a core feature of the Core 2 Duo chips they ship with. As a result of which, many people have now asked for a refund.I am personally looking forward to do this feature as it would let me to run some of the apps that run only in Windows XP. If SONY does not come with a solution, then they are bound to loose certain number of consumers (including me)

Raon Digital’s website goes down – Bankruptcy on-the-way?

Paul Merak — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 07:44:32 +0000

Looks like all UMPC makers are having a hard time in surviving in the world of (cheap) netbooks. A couple of months back, we reported that OQO's future was bleak and was on the verge of getting bankrupted. That happened. Now, is it Raon's turn? Folks at UMPCportal have lost their contact with them. Most importantly, their website has gone down, which is not a good sign for the current customers.Will the Raon's customers be rendered helpless just like OQO customers? Personally, I have been a huge fan of their products, but for average consumers, their products have always been a little on the expensive side. Example: An average netbook costs under $400, but most of the Raon's products hovered in $600+ range

Netbook Shipments increasing at a mind-boggling rate! – 33 million netbooks expected to be sold in 2009

Paul Merak — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:51:22 +0000

We all are still fighting the economic downturn and most of the people low on cash are treating netbooks as cheap alternative to notebooks. Reason is simple: They are small, trendy and easy to carry around.In western countries and in countries like Japan, notebook shipments faced a sharp fall, whereas the netbook shipments actually increased. In the year 2008, when the netbooks were still considered as niche devices, the netbook vendors were able to sell just 7.3 million units whereas the notebook shipments were still high at 51.4 million.This year, things are changing at a faster pace as netbook shipments are expected to be around 13.3 million units which is nearly 100% growth when compared to previous year. Same is the case in US and Japan, where the netbook shipments increased by 136.9% and 29.1% respectively.Clearly, netbooks are being treated as secondary laptops and in some cases as primary laptops by consumers. Intel Atom processors that are used in almost all modern netbooks are powerful enough for handling the daily computing needs of the normal people. Netbooks are perfect for the ones who are not into hardcore PC gaming.

SmartQ MID now runs Windows CE OS too – costs just $150!

Paul Merak — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:35:48 +0000

We mentioned the SmartQ MID a couple of months back. At that time, it was able to run just Ubuntu Linux. Now, it will be able to run Windows CE as OS. This MID comes with an 4.3-inch screen and runs ARM processor. Although it raises the possibility of dual-booting, but I don't think that will be offered to the consumers.It is available at DealExtreme (non-affiliate link) online shop that has few units in stock and is being retailed at $150 (with free shipping too)

First Eco certified netbook – SAMSUNG N120

Paul Merak — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:15:31 +0000

Any device is said to be eco-friendly if it does not contains any mercury or harmful chemicals. If it comes with display, it should be highly energy efficient. Samsung N120 is the first netbook to become TCO certified.According to TCO, the Samsung N120 is completely mercury free and uses LED backlit for energy efficiency. This makes the netbook as 'green' and 'eco-friendly' for the users."We are proud that the N120 is the first netbook achieving TCO certification which leads consumers to regard Samsung computers as safe and user friendly products. Samsung's commitment to the environment is one of our top values and we are constantly trying to develop our products to be qualified for TCO standards."

Cracking panel issue in the EEE 1008HA netbook

Paul Merak — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:25:38 +0000

ASUS has commented on the cracking panel issue that has affected some of the EEE 1008HA netbook. ASUS says that they had seen the defect before it reached the hands of consumers. Fortunately, there is nothing to worry about as the defected netbooks won’t reach the consumer market.

Asustek noted that the cracking was not due to faulty design or manufacturing, but because it has been using panel components from a secondary supplier

CONFIRMED: Qualcomm will launch Smartbooks at the end of this year

Paul Merak — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:25:32 +0000

Qualcomm has confirmed that they will be launching 'smartbooks' at the end of this year. Qualcomm will be using their fast Snapdragon processor in their smartbooks as-well-as in their upcoming mobile phones. Qualcomm is pretty sure that it will be able to sell 2.5 billion units by the end of year 2011.So what makes Smartbooks better than the existing cellphones and MIDs (Mobile Internet Devices)? Smartbooks will give you a very powerful smartphone in your hand and will come with both voice and data capabilities. Unlike netbooks and MIDs, the smartbooks can remain connected all the time. No need of shutting your device down or putting your device into hibernation. All that will all day battery-life and integrated GPS.Also, we are happy to know that smartbooks will cost less than the existing netbooks. This indicates that the smartbooks should cost less than $400. If they are able to do that, it will be a huge hit among the consumers.

Sony now offering Z530 proccessor for VAIO P

Peter — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:47:23 +0000

Sony is now (finally) offering the 'faster' Atom Z530 processor to the US consumers. The Z530 runs at 1.6GHz as compared to 1.3GHz Z520 processor. The 'new' Atom will be offered in the new P698E model, in which Sony has also bundled the 128GB SSD. Keep in mind that Z530 is still slower than N270/N280 processor, but offers better battery life.I don't think that it would be appealing enough for the consumers to shell out so much. Anyway, if you have $1500 lying around, then you should give this little thing a shot![SONY VAIO P Z530 model]

Acer Android netbook will dual boot with Windows!

Paul Merak — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:42:18 +0000

Talk about being playing safe. Acer has decided to bundle Windows XP along with their first few models of Android netbooks.Acer knows very well that they are going to be first to launch a netbook with mobile phone OS. Obviously, a lot of risk is involved and bundling their Android netbook with Windows XP is a great way to know how well the consumers receive the Android netbooks. However, it may result in increase in overall cost by $20-$30 due to license fee of Windows XP.

Dell phases out Mini 9 netbook

Paul Merak — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:05:04 +0000

Dell has confirmed that it won't be making Mini 9 netbooks anymore. The Dell Mini 9 was launched in September 2008 at a price tag of $349. Since then, the Dell has released several (bigger) netbooks as the market was responding better to the bigger netbooks as they allowed the manufactures to equip them with bigger keyboards and bigger screens.Dell is now urging the consumers to go for the Dell Mini 10V instead which is currently retailing at $299 and comes with a bigger 10-inch screen.

Sandisk Netbook SDHC card!

Paul Merak — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:03:09 +0000

Sandisk has launched Netbook SDHC card with capacities of 8GB and 16GB. With this product, Sandisk is targeting the users of SSD-equipped netbooks that usually come with small storage capacities. Using 8GB or 16GB will let the users to immediately increase the capacity to store their stuff."SanDisk is committed to offering flash memory products that create the best possible consumer experience," said Eric Bone, vice president, retail product marketing, SanDisk. "Our Netbook SDHC card helps consumers get the most out of their netbooks by increasing storage capacity and providing a reliable means of transferring data from the netbook to a removable storage device or another PC."The 8GB card will retail at $39.99 and 16GB for $79.99.

Acer to be the first netbook manufacture to OFFICIALLY launch Google Android Netbooks!

Paul Merak — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 16:38:49 +0000

Although myriad of netbook manufactures have announced that they will be making Google Android netbooks, but the Acer is going to be the one that will officially launching them in the year 2009 itself. At first, we thought that it was going to be the ASUS that would launch Android Netbooks at the end of this year, but then we heard about news that they have postponed the production to the next year, 2010.Jim Wong, Acer's global president of IT products and services said something which really captured my attention,'If we do not continue to change our mobile Internet devices, consumers may not choose then any more."But, why would one need to run a mobile phone OS on a netbook? True, it will help them to save few dollars, but then we can achieve (almost) desktop-class productivity when using an OS like Windows XP/Vista/7.Good news is that Acer is not downgrading the processor to ARM and they have decided to stick with the powerful Intel Atom platform.

LonMID M100 is a MID with built-in phone!

Paul Merak — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:06:21 +0000

A lot of consumers have always yearned for a MID that has a phone function built-in. The LonMID M100 comes with a dedicated phone pad to easily dial the numbers. Inside, you will find a massive 4.8-inch display, which is even bigger than the Toshiba TG01 (Windows Mobile device). On the outside resides a 2.4-inch display. The bigger display comes with WVGA resolution while the display on the outside has QVGA resolution.It has Atom Z500 processor clocked at mere 800MHz and uses 1GB RAM. For memory expansion, there is a micro-SD slot. It runs MIDinux, a custom linux distro.Specs-wise, it is too slow to be a netbook and too big and heavy to be a smartphone.

Skytone netbook to cost $250

Paul Merak — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:14:44 +0000

Remember the Skytone netbook that we mentioned a couple of days back? Some more details are come up about this Android-netbook. The netbook will be named Alpha 680 and will cost $250. It will run on an ARM processor and will weigh just 1.5 pounds which is even less than the EEE 701.It uses the same chip that is being used in the iPhone too, the ARM 11. The skytone netbook is set to debut in month August or September this year. Don't you think that $250 is too much for the Android netbook? By spending a few more dollars, one can buy an Atom-powered netbook. But, the biggest asset that the Android-netbooks will have over the Atom powered netbooks will be better battery life.Only time will tell, if the consumers will adopt netbooks running Android OS.