ARM CEO Criticizes New Intel Medfield CPUs

Mobile chip heavyweight ARM has criticized Intel new Medfield architecture Atom Z2460 as only ‘roughly good enough for mobile phones’, even though it is will soon appear in Motorola and Lenovo smartphones. However ARM sees Intel as ‘a serious competitor’ according to CEO Warren East, speaking at CES earlier this week at CES 2012. Mr. [...]

BPhone MID runs Linux

Want a nice stylish Linux machine with a swivel screen that does not costs $1000+? Then, you shall give a glance to the BPhone. From China, this baby features a 5-inch WVGA display, QWERTY keyboard and Marvell PXA310 624MHz processor. Oh, and it is an unlocked phone too. The BPhone costs $570.

That keyboard does not look comfortable, does it?

PEEWEE KIT turns any netbook into age-appropriate PC

Want to prevent your child from visiting naughty, inappropriate sites from any web-browser? Then, you should definitely take a quick glance at the PeeWee KIT from PeeWee PC. Heck, you can even control their netbook remotely.

PeeWee Kit features:

• USB drive.
• Security Suite: “PeeWee Patrol” and “PeeWee Privacy” for online and offline safety.
• Versions for 3 levels of students: Pre-K, Early Elementary, Upper Elementary.
• 7 fun games and educational software titles for the ultimate kid computer in minutes, including:

PCD showing-off Haier X220 netbook at CTIA 2010

CTIA 2010 commences today and PCD has the Hair X220 on display which features a typical 10.1-inch display. What makes it different animal is the fact that the display can fold over allowing the user to use it like a slate tablet. PCD will be offering it with either Windows 7 or Windows XP and it will be powered by the good old Atom N270 processor (1.6GHz). Other specs include a 160GB HDD, 1GB RAM, multi-card reader, webcam, and microphone.

Gateway LT3100 netbooks uses AMD processor

Gateway has launched LT3100, which uses AMD Neo processor along with the ATI Radeon X1270 graphics. The AMD Neo is the processor that the AMD specially made for the ultra-portables. Since, lines between ultra-portables and netbooks have become blurrier than ever, it makes perfect sense to use the processors meant for ultra-portables in netbooks (and vice-versa).

It comes with some features that are not usually present in usual netbooks. For example, unlike most netbooks that come with 1GB RAM, the Gateway LT3100 comes with 2GB RAM. It also comes with massive 250GB HDD (most netbooks come with 160GB HDD). To power this powerful netbook, Gateway has equipped it a 6-cell battery. Also, it seems that folks Gateway were so impressed with LT3100 that put in a Vista Basic instead of Windows XP. It will be offered in two colors: NightSky Black and Cherry Red. It is pretty modestly priced at $400.

Intel to launch Atom N270′s successor in October – Atom N450

Intel is all set to introduce the successor of the very popular N270, the N450. The Intel’s 45nm Atom N450 is codenamed as PineTrail (pineview) and it comes with built-in Northbridge functions. It will also comes with (new) NM10 chipset. Intel will fully phase out the N270 in the Q1 2010.

Although the Intel did release N280 after N270, but it was never meant to be a true successor of N270. The N270 was infact the first CPU that made the netbooks adequately powerful for everyday use.

Here are some features of PineView:

• Better memory support from N270’s DDR2 533 to DDR2 667
• GPU core frequencies increased from 133MHz to 200MHz
• PCB design now uses only 4 layers compared to 6 layers, which was previously used by Intel Atom
• TDP dropped from 8W to 7W

There is no use of using N280 + GN40 combo if you are using Windows XP

Intel N280 processor and GN40 chipset provides better hardware video decoding and 3D graphics performance only if you are using Windows Vista. This is because only Vista (or later) gives you directX 10 and DXVA 2.0.

Unfortunately, most of the netbooks are still shipping with the Windows XP. With Windows XP, you only get DXVA 1.0 due to which hardware video decoding does not work properly. With Vista, DXVA 2.0 is available and hardware decoding worked fine.

Right now, only Eee PC 1004DN and Gigabyte Technology’s Touch Note T1028 have GN40 chipset. It may be true that netbooks with N280+GN40 combo may offer better hardware video decoding, but the overall performance with a BETA product like Vista is simply horrible on the netbooks.

I tried Vista on my EEE 1000H with 2GB RAM and the performance is disappointing. I will (patiently) wait for the Windows 7 instead.

EEE PC T91 for just $549! – ASUS to redefine the price range of Tablets?

Looks like ASUS is really going to make the tablets finally popular among the consumers. Let’s face it, tablets have always been confined to the executives and businessmen. The main reason that the tablets were not received nicely in the consumer market was due to high ‘price’. But, with the $549 price tag, ASUS has hit the sweet spot between functionality and price.
Also, we have heard that ASUS has added few really exciting utilities that are very finger friendly. This is already looking like a winner to me.

Click on read more to know the full specifications of this exciting tablet

Eee PC 1004dn review

Folks at pcauthority were able to get their hands on the EEE PC 1004DN, the first netbook with built-in DVD burner.

The real killer feature here is that optical drive; it’s a big departure for the netbook category, and adds backup capability and software installation possibilities that other systems lack. In addition, there’s an Eee Storage function, to wirelessly backup your system.

The 1004DN is powered by Intel Atom N280 processor clocked at @1.66GHz speed. The HDD capacity is 120GB and it comes with 1GB of RAM. Obviously, the main feature of is the DVD burner, which is surely going to catch the attention of those who did not give much attention to the netbooks due to lack of DVD burner.

Personally, I still do not see the need to have a netbook with built in DVD burner.

Battle of Netbook processors: VIA Nano vs Intel Atom [Netbooks]

Kai Schmerer at ZDnet has done a thorough comparison of two of the most used processors in netbooks: VIA Nano and Intel Atom. Here are some of the highlights: Intel manufactures the Atom using a 45-nanometre (nm) feature size, while VIA still uses 65nm technology. For this reason, the VIA Nano uses more power than [...]