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BlogKindle.com has just announced release of Kindle 3. Prices vary from $139 for WiFi only version to $189 for WiFi + Free 3G version. So far all pre-orders are scheduled to ship on August 27th. Read Blogkindle post for more details.
A little gem from the System76 has just been released as the second generation Starling netbook. As far as specs go, System76 keeps on with the norm. They have the Atom, the 10″ screen size and the almost typical memory and storage size. However, they do have something that sets them apart. They offer their products — netbooks, laptops, desktops, et al — with appropriate versions of Ubuntu Linux pre-installed. When netbooks originally started, it was hard to get one without Linux. That was before Windows finally adapted and took over the entire game. Now the situation is in reverse and it is hard to find a netbook without some form of Windows pre-installed. But System76 is still offering Linux systems and the latest Starling is a nice little treat for netbook lovers. Finished with rubber exteriors, this netbook comes in two color options — Obsidian Black and Coral Red. The rubberized finish gives it quite the look and you are going to be happy to parade it around. As far as specs go, it is pretty updated. It is powered by the latest Atom N455, clocked at 1.66GHz with one integrated single-channel DDR controller, an integrated graphics core and also support for multi-threading. It is also SSE3 and 64bit capable — making it quite the deal. This is a system-on-a-chip and its graphics bit is derived from GMA 3100, which gives it the hypothetical power to run 720p videos. However, the realization of that will depend on how good the drivers are. The new Starling comes pre-installed with Ubuntu 10.4 and the display is 10.1″ with a native resolution of 1024×600. It has LAN, WiFi (b/g/n), VGA out, 3 USB 2.0 ports, SD Card reader and a built in 0.3 MP webcam. It also has a Kensington lock slot. The price starts at USD389 and you have to pay $25 extra for the Coral Red soft rubber finish. [via]
MSI [LON:MSI] seems to be heading for a new niche in the netbook category. They have launched a new light version of the Wind U230 netbook. It has more or less the same specs that the original U230 has but with some crucial differences. The main difference is the display, which at 11.6″ is smaller than the original 12.1″ display. This causes the entire package to shrink a bit, making it more compact and supposedly light. The internals stay more or less the same. It is still an AMD MV-40 Neo powered machine with 1.6GHz of processing power. The whole AMD chipset contains an integrated ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics chip, enabling it to decode HD video and also afford an HDMI output. Given the better than average graphics performance, the battery life is going to take a hit. The U230 Light, despite being smaller, is actually better equipped when it comes to the other options. Unlike the original U230 which comes with Windows 7 Starter Edition, it comes pre-installed with the more expensive Windows 7 Home Premium Edition. This model is available only in two colors — Black or Gray. Since MSI has chosen to go with AMD, they get to install more RAM and hence this model comes with 2GB of RAM and a 250 HDD storage option. For connectivity it has a WiFi-n module to offer, which ensures a high-speed WiFi connection wherever it is available. Sadly though, there seems to be no option for Bluetooth. As for ports, other than the HDMI mentioned earlier it has a card reader, 3 USB ports, 1 VGA out and the usual audio in and out ports. The 6-cell battery is good for only 4 hours, which is the trade off that you have to make for the better graphics performance. The US price is $400, keeping it above the average netbook pricing and clearly pointing at the fact that MSI is indeed gunning for a bridge market. [via] Time for a cool new concept from Arc Computers. These are people who take their name pretty seriously. So they have introduces a concept design that fits together a curved OLED display and a curved, ergonomic keyboard to create what can only be called an Arc computer. Or a bent laptop, perhaps. It does looks a wee bit weird but the ergonomics are undeniable. Plus, the curved display has the added advantage of being better for displaying 3D content. The curved design of this concept netbook/laptop from Arc computers thus gets the opportunity to do more with the traditional laptop set up by bending the rules a bit. Other than the ergonomics of the entire set up and the 3D content display capability of the screen, the curved design has one more advantage. It creates a space in the middle of the keyboard for fitting in almost anything you can think of. From a touchpad to a series of dedicated buttons or may be even a secondary touchscreen display. This one has a touch There’s no word on this being actually manufactured by anyone and frankly it would not be viable in the market anyway. However, it is always nice to look at these really interesting concepts that tend to crop up every now and then. And they always have a tendency to slowly filter down, in bits and pieces, to the mainstream manufacturers. The industry has been pushing forward with newer displays which can bend and even wrap around pencils and these will no doubt result into very interesting computers. They are especially good for portability and even wearability. But for now, they are still in the labs and are part of concept designs like this one. Enjoy the videos for now. Also note that it is running an OS that looks suspiciously like the OS X. [via]  MSI Wind U135 Dodgers Limited Edition MSI Los Angeles Dodgers All-in-One PCs and Netbooks Now Available to the Public MSI Co-founder Henry Lu to Throw out Ceremonial First Pitch to Celebrate MSI Night at Dodger Stadium LOS ANGELES, CA – July 8, 2010 – The Los Angeles Dodgers and MSI announced today that the Wind Top AE2220 All-in-One PC and the Wind U135DX Netbook will now be available to the public in a special Dodgers limited edition. To mark the occasion, MSI co-founder Henry Lu will join Dodgers’ Casey Blake and Hung-Chih Kuo to officially unveil the All-in-One computers. In addition, Lu will be throwing out the ceremonial first pitch on July 9th in celebration of MSI Night at Dodger Stadium. Dodger fans can expect to start seeing the limited edition PCs on shelves at select La Curacao store locations from early July. In addition to their availability at retail, MSI will be giving away three All-in-One PCs and three Netbooks on MSI Promotional Night (July 9) at the stadium. From July 9 – August 9 fans will also be encouraged to enter a photo contest showcasing their Dodger spirit. The five selected winners who demonstrate the most spirit will receive an All-in-One PC and Netbook courtesy of MSI. “We have had a chance to work with the new Wind Top All-in-One PCs here in the front office and they are absolutely amazing,” said Dodgers VP, Steven Spartin. “The fans are going to love the ease of use, design and most of all the speed in which these new PCs operate.” The partnership forged between MSI and the Dodgers in March saw the Dodgers front office completely outfitted with the new All-in-One computers. The MSI Wind Top AE2220 all-in-one PC combines theater-like multimedia capabilities with the processing power for the most demanding applications. It features a 21.5-inch screen with 16:9 widescreen display, full HD (1080p) resolution and high-fidelity 5.1-channel SRS Premium Sound. Powered by NVIDIA ION graphics and the latest Intel® Core 2 Duo/Pentium Dual Core processors, it can effortlessly run HD movies, resource-hungry applications and sophisticated 3D games. The AE2220 also incorporates MSI’s exclusive graphic interface, enabling users to take advantage of “One Touch” convenience to browse the Web, edit images, use VOIP software, play music, and much more. For more on the partnership between MSI and the Dodgers: http://us.msi.com/dodgers/. Another computer fans will soon enjoy is the ultra-portable Wind U135DX Netbook, part of MSI’s award-winning Wind series. Its super light weight – just 2.6 pounds and long-lasting battery life make the Wind U135DX ideal for those who are looking for a lightweight, affordable Netbook, whether for work or play while on the go. The unit also features Intel’s most advanced ATOM processor, N455 and TDE technology to enhance overall performance. The stylish and classy Wind U135DX boasts a power-saving 10-inch LED backlit screen with 1024 x 600 resolution, resulting in richer, crisper colors and better readability while word processing and surfing the Internet. Name Wind Top AE2220 Name Wind U135DX
Looks like Google [NASDAQ:GOOG] is finally coming to their senses. They cannot sell hardware and they are better off making great software. Of course, it is not like the Nexus One flopped. But we all saw how bad Google was at managing the whole thing about selling and the whole thing was a mess for both parties. Imagine the kind of mess they can get into if they actually try to sell Chrome OS netbooks at a subsidized price. Over all, it is pretty clear that Google should not do this and Eric Schmidt agrees. Only, he says that the company probably wouldn’t need it. Recently, Schmidt gave a statement saying that there will actually be no Nexus II or Google branded Chrome OS netbooks. According to him — the Nexus One was meant to serve one single purpose and that was to stimulate the Android manufacturers. Google introduced a new smartphone scenario with Android — one party supplying the OS to smarpthone manufacturers. It is similar to what has happened in the Microsoft [NASDAQ:MSFT] ecosystem for a long time but smartphone manufacturers weren’t used to this. With the Chrome OS, Google is not breaking any industrial mould. They are changing the way the main OS works, yes but not the way this industry works. So Google shouldn’t need to spur on the market for making various different and compelling Chrome OS netbooks. Eric did say that Google might be looking into partnering with other manufacturers (like they did with HTC), again adding that Google probably won’t need to in this case. Chrome OS netbooks are still going to be slightly different from the usual models. Google places hardware restrictions for any netbook that uses Chrome OS. It will still be free for anyone. And the hacker community will probably be out with a hack for everyone else in a matter days. But as for the Google Netbook. [via]
Gateway has been launching decent portables in recent times and like any self-respecting computer manufacturer, the company is trying to find its own space in the market. And so we have a very interesting 11inch model from Gateway that was only just launched. This is the LT32. It has a near HD display of 1366X768 and it actually has the graphics muscle to render this resolution, unlike the multitude of other Intel Atom based models that we have seen from the others. And that is where the difference lies actually. The LT32 is powered by an AMD Athlon II Neo processor — the main main Atom rival from Intel’s main rival. Even though the Neo was born out of a need to compete and hasn’t really covered much ground, it has been gaining more following recently with manufacturers looking to build netbooks that do not look like the models that are already out there. The Neo processor comes with an ATI Radeon HD 4225 graphics processor onboard giving the LT32 the capability to run 1080p HD videos smoothly and at its own resolution. Now that is saying something for an 11″ netbook powered by something that attempts to compete with Intel’s Atom. The LT32 can also smoothly render the Aero interface elements on Windows 7 (Home Premium). To be fair to the Atom-based netbooks, the LT32 is actually packing quite a bit of extra memory than the Atom average. At 2GB, the Gateway model has double the memory of the average Atom netbook. However, all of this does not work well for the battery life and hence it has a relatively short battery life of 5.5 hours. Gateway is pricing this at $450 and you get Microsoft Work bundled free with that in order to get some light work done without spending extra. The LT32 is expected to be in stores soon. [via]
Acer is not cutting its main netbook competitor any slack and is going to release its own dual-core Atom netbook soon. This development comes from newly leaked development details from deep inside Acer. The new model is going to be called D255 and it is going to go on a head to head collision course with Asus’ Eee PC 1215N. The Eee PC 1215N is a fairly new model from Asus and it is their first to sport the new dual-core Atom N550 chip. Atom of course, already had a dual-c0re chip before this — the N330. But that was not meant for use in portables, for power consumption issues of course. Intel has been hard at work developing a chip that will work well for netbooks and still be able to run twin cores simultaneously. The Atom N550 has two chips running at 1.5GHz each and thus gives the whole system a significant power boost. The difference will especially show in multi-tasking performance, which is a processor oriented job. However, other than the processor details, little else is known about this forthcoming Acer netbook model. It is believed that the D255 will actually resemble the D260 in terms of the other hardware features and looks. The D255 is expected to have different color options and perhaps a chrome trim. So nothing out of the ordinary is to be expected from this release. There’s one thing that might differentiate the two competing models from Acer and Asus respectively, quite distinct from each other. Whilst Asus’ model uses the NVIDIA ION 2 graphics to deliver superior graphics and 3D performance, Acer’s model might be paried with an ordinary Intel onboard graphics. But less graphics performance also means longer battery life and vice versa. So it might be a close one after all. [via] Just an interesting note. According to this Kindle blog, Amazon has finally gotten around to sell Kindle eReaders in the airports, where they would sell best. It absolutely makes sense to sell one of the few devices that can be used for reading books right away without having to be tethered to a computer first. Perhaps some day we’ll see netbooks, pre-charged and pre-loaded with movies and games sold next to airport gates as well?
There was a lot of excitement around FroYo (Android 2.2) when it was released and Android owners everywhere celebrated the fact that they will soon have a phone full of those cool features that they saw at the presentation at Google I/O. However, in all that excitement it is easy to forget that phone and tablet owners with various ARM inspired goodies powering them are not the only ones who use Android devices. There are also those devices that use chips with the x86 architecture and finally their owners have a reason to rejoice at the wonders of FroYo. Intel [NASDAQ:INTC] has finally started to port Android 2.2 for their x86 platform. FroYo netbooks, here we come! Intel’s port x86 port of FroYo is destined for a summer release at the moment and it has the whole community buzzing with excitement. As you might know by now, Intel really wants to shoe horn itself into ARM’s position in the mobile industry but so far has failed to do it. So it grabs at every opportunity to bring the new-age mobile experience to its platform. Hence, they are hoping to have FroYo ready for some x86 action this summer so that their platform can also be benefitted from the rich radiation of the “less than free” mobile platform. This port has been reported to be not all that difficult to accomplish and soon they will have it ready for manufacturers to use. There are already a lot of experimentation going on with the Android on Netbooks and it is more than as just another Linux-based mobile OS. Android’s burgeoning Marketplace and backing of the one of the largest tech entities in the world right now (the only other being Apple at the moment), it makes for one helluva deal. Not to mention the fact that this fantastic OS is available for free to anyone who is willing to work with it. So we are very likely to see some interesting new FroYo netbook ideas this summer. [Via] |
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