Thursday, September 4th, 2008
Aving have produced a report praising the new Asus N10. You can check out the images here. I have to admit, it’s a pretty stunning example of a netbook that will no doubt push Asus sales even higher. Aside from looks the N10 has a surprise up its sleeve in the form of an Nvidia GeForce 9300GS graphics card. Pretty impressive for a device this size. Other specifications have been pushed out including: 320Gb platter disk, 2GB of RAM, 10″ backlit screen and the Intel N270 (Atom) processor. But this netbook won’t be cheap - $1140 (although it will carry a 6 cell battery that should keep you going for about 6 hours at a time).
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Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008
It’s not often I get excited by a mobile phone but this is one of those occassions; I’ve got some details on the Nokia N96.
The much hyped and long overdue is heading for the United Kingdom before it starts its world tour! spreading its magic elsewhere in the world. The latest model is available for preorder on Nokia’s site for £535 (yes, it’s expensive but check the specs!).
The N96 has a well laid out, eye catching 2.8-inch, HSDPA support, WiFi, aGPS, 16GB of internal memory (including a microSD slot), a 5-megapixel camera from Carl Zeiss. Oh, mustn’t forget the DVB-H receiver for TV on the move.
See, told you it’s not bad.
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Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008
Ok, it doesn’t have a camera and the screen is a rather dismal 800×600 but the price is good: £158.99 inc VAT from Expansys!
At that sort price can you really argue?
Here’s the link: Asus Eee 701 Surf
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Friday, August 22nd, 2008
Asus Eee fans, get ready for more models. It looks like the success of the Eee PC has spurred Asus to even greater heights with the launch of more new UMPC’s.
The largest of the four models, the 1000HD XP, features a 10-inch screen - I’m not sure how much bigger the netbook can go before it falls into the notebook category. Anyone? You’ll also get Bluetooth connectivity as standard on this model
The other three variants, the 904HD XP, 901 XP and 900 XP (16GB), all feature 8.9-inch screens with resolutions of 1024 x 600 resolution.
The interesting point here is that the 901 XP ships with Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor, whereas the other three will have an Intel Mobile CPU. I really can see the reasoning behind apart from keeping prices low. On the plus side, all of the new devices will carry 1GB of RAM, Ethernet jacks and offer 802.11b/g WLAN apart from the Eee PC 901 XP which features draft-N WLAN.
Storage varies across each device as well:
- 904HD XP has an 80GB SATA HDD
- 901 XP will ship with a 12GB SSD
- 900 XP gets a 16GB SSD.
All devices will run Windows Windows XP Home and are currently only available in Taiwan. I’m looking to the 1000HD arriving in the UK so that I can strip out Windows and see how well Linux runs on it - should fly with that spec.
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Wednesday, August 20th, 2008
Archos is looking to make the leap from portable media player to Mobile Internet Device with their latest offering (image shows Archos 7 in DVR Station).
The new devices, Archos 5 and 7, have been aimed at the heart of the Ultra Mobile market. New features include a flash compatible web browser, 3G and 3.5G connections (where available) and WiFi connectivity. Oh and I mustn’t forget this; a full email client.
As you’d expect, the new Archos MID’s are going to hit the US market first with price tags varying according to the spec (I’ll list those at the end). I’ve no doubt the Archos MID’s will be in UK stores shortly after launch.
Specs:
Archos 5
- ARM Cortex CPU
- Hard disk options: 60Gb ($350), 120Gb ($400) or 250Gb ($450)
- 5″ touchscreen
- Digital free TV live on the device (with TV Snap-on)
- TV playback (needs DVR Station)
Archos 7 (differences only)
- CPU - as per the Archos 5
- Hard disk options: 160Gb ($450) or 320Gb ($550)
- 7″ touchscreen
Looks like Archos are making a leap of faith. Not that I blame them, the Archos media player is a seriously good bit of kit. Hope the Archos 5 and 7 live up to the name.
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Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
Looks like Gizmodo have more information on the Dell netbook, aka Inspiron 910. Rumours suggest that Dells netbook will drop into the UMPC market around 22nd August with a price tag of $299 (this figure hasn’t been confirmed yet).
The Inspiron 910 is reported to support SDD’s up to 16 Gb.
It also appears that Dell are going to give users a choice of OS - including Ubuntu.
Here’s the specs that Gizmodo are quoting:
- Intel Atom N270 Diamondville 1.6 Ghz CPU
- 1Gb DDR2 memory (max)
- 3 x USB ports
- 10/100 LAN, WLAN/WWAN
- 0.3 - 1.3 Mega Pixels camera
- Weight 2.2 lbs (just under a kilo)
The price seems pretty impressive although I have my doubts that the Inspiron 910 will drop in that low. As we all know, manufacturers have a habit of ‘leaking’ low prices in order to drum up interest.
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Monday, August 18th, 2008
A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article about Access Linux and the move into the Mobile Internet Device market. Nice move but It looks like AL may be on shakey ground in the mobile phone market.
Mobile operator Orange has decided to kill off the planned release of an Access Linux based handset. In part, this may well be due to the imminent release of Google’s Android although, to be fair, I haven’t seen much of a demand for Linux mobiles in Europe. The nature of Open Source has spawned a mass of competing OSes which presents manufacturers with a dilemma over which flavour to install - get it wrong and sales will plummet. Add in the swathe of different packaging mechanisms and you can see why many vendors ship Windows based devices. Ok, this is not so much of a problem in the Ultra Mobile sector as buyers tend to know exactly what they want but surely it’s time we had a some control over Open Source compatability? If something isn’t done soon, the Google backed Android is going to make Linux handsets a distant memory. Do you really want a world that’s totally dominated by Google?
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Tuesday, August 12th, 2008
There was some speculation around AMD entering the UMPC/netbook market. The company had stated that they already had an answer to the Intel Atom in the form of the AMD Turion 64×2 but, there were no plans to enter the sector. Well, it looks like things have changed.
Raon Digital has confirmed that they will be building an AMD based UMPC aimed at the Asian and American markets. The device will feature the Turion 62×2 1.2 Ghz processor and Windows XP UMPC running XP. Information over at UMPCPortal suggests that this new netbook/UMPC/whatever is going to be even smaller than the SC3! Pretty hard to imagine, especially from a usability perspective.
We’ll get a preview out once we know more.
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Monday, August 11th, 2008
There are two models coming with Lenovo’s Atom based push into the netbook market - the S9 is a 9″ model which be made for the Asian market and the S10 which is a 10″ version destined for the US. Even though the screen sizes differ, both models share the same chassis - keeps the cost of manufacturing down.
The $399 price tag looks good - this fact alone should ensure the S9/10 has a welcome reception into what is fast becoming a very crowded market.
The Lenovo netbooks support up to 2Gb of RAM which should keep even the hungriest OS happy (read ‘Vista’!). Two flavours of hard drive as well - 80 Gb and 160 Gb platter disk.
On first impressions, the S9/10 actually looks like a very attractive netbook. Personally, I like the Lenovo hardware having used one of their laptops for about 9 months. Let’s hope this netbook offering is as robust and capable as its larger brothers.
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Friday, August 8th, 2008
I’ve found an article on Business Week that gives some details of the Benq Aries 2, due to launch in Europe this quarter.
The Aries2 is a Mobile Internet Device with some interesting features; shake the Aries 2 and all open windows can be displayed and accessed (I’m not entirely sure how this works as info is a little thin on the ground). There’s also an auto rotate feature which appears to be much like the capabality built into Safari on the iPhone 3G. And it’s touchscreen - would you expect anything less? Lots of hype around the Aries 2 but it remains to be seen how good it really is.
On a final note; the Aries2 won the Bronze Award in the Interactive Product Experiences category at the 2008 Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA) held in the United States. Now let’s see if functionality matches the design.
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