uSmart M1C – a tiny netbook that is 1080p capable

At the Hong Kong Electronics fair, uSmart uncovered a tiny netbook, called the M1C. This one has just 4.8-inch display and is equipped with power-sipping Intel Atom Z530 processor, a GMA 500 graphic chipset and HDMI out. It weighs just 0.5kg and can run Linux, Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7.

That keyboard looks awful!

Wireless N + Bluetooth into Single Card by Atheros

Atheros has recently come up with a mini card which combines both wireless N (150Mbps) and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR into one single chip. It is not uncommon to see few netbook vendors still pumping out netbooks without Wireless N and Bluetooth. The card offers a Wireless-N connection up to 150Mbps (single-stream, as opposed to 300Mbps in other dual-stream Wireless-N solutions found mostly in desktop computers).

This new combination transforms the mobile computing experience to enable a wide array of simultaneous wireless applications on the same device. For example, a netbook will be able to support concurrent audio and data transfer applications such as playback on Bluetooth-enabled speakers of music from a laptop, while browsing the Internet and syncing a smartphone’s contact database. The mini-card is named AR9002WB-1NGB and it will support Linux, Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

Dell not perturbed about their Linux-netbook returns

Few months back, Microsoft said that netbooks running Linux have experienced higher number of netbook returns as compared to the netbooks running Windows OS and most (~96%) of the netbooks in the world run Windows OS . Dell, however thinks that it is not the whole truth. According to the Dell, the number of Linux-netbook returns are same as those for Windows netbooks, atleast for Dell netbooks. In fact, they are quite pleased with the stability and soundness of their Linux netbooks.

Here is the remark made was a Dell official, which is contradictory to many said in the past. Todd Finch, Dell senior product manager, says that ‘this is false, calling it a “non-issue” and that “they are making something of nothing” in response to Microsoft’s claims. He says they see about the same in return rates’.

That said, the demand for Linux netbooks is no-where as Windows netbooks. Reason is pretty simple: people do not much about Linux and their advantages over the Windows-based operating systems. Fortuntaely, Dell has realized this fact and now they are going to be little more aggressive in advertising Linux.

“If you take my marketing budget, add it to Ubuntu and Red Hat’s marketing budget it’s not even a rounding error for Microsoft. For us to generate the market awareness to say: ‘I want Linux on a netbook’ is going to be incredibly hard because we don’t have the tools to do that,” Brockmeier said.