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Viliv’s S10 Blade appeared late last year and then quickly disappeared in the tidal flow of new gadgets in the first two months of 2010. But its back now, thanks to the folks over at UMPC. Chippy at UMPC has managed to get hands on time with a production sample and so far it shows nothing that is really outstanding. The Viliv S10 Blade is what some people are calling netvertibles. These are the convertible netbooks. They are much like convertible laptops but with all the features (and signs) of a netbook. The first one that hit the market in a major way was the Asus Eee PC T91, followed quickly by the T91MT. This one from Viliv uses a multitouch resistive touchscreen along with keyboard. The display is 10.1 inch diagonal and the there is a removable lithium-polymer that will supposedly last for 10 hours. There is also an 1.8″ access panel for storage. The device that was reviewed had an Intel Atom Z530 which is clocked at 1.66GHz. In the review, the S10 is put through tests that show its response to 3point touch as well as onscreen typing. There were some issues with palm rejection, which means you could accidentally trigger something or ruin your finger painting with palm smudges. Zooming in and out of webpages and handwriting input were also tested. It does look pretty good in person and what we can see in the review is apparently 98% complete, so all the major components are in place with only a few tweaks left to go. It will be available form Dynamism very soon and you will have several choices of customization before your buy your S10. The website mentions that you can have a 2.0GHz processor as well. The sleek design and the convertible aspect of it might win it a few loyalists but this form factor has always been a bit of novelty and not much of a functionality oriented device for the masses. Niche uses are many though. Just before CeBit 2010 hit the tech crowd, Asus’ latest crop of Eee PC models have leaked all over the internet. These are three new models that Asus is expected to debut at the CeBit show. The leak has been courtesy of Blogee, who is the source who claims the existence of these models. The leaks is a pretty good one actually — complete with pictures of the alleged models. I only say alleged because it is not official yet and there hasn’t been another such story but this rings pretty true. So start planning if you are in the market for a netbook.
The three models are — 1018P, 1016P and 1015P. These are all Pinetrail toting models, if there ever was a doubt about that. The 1015P is apparently a refresh of the 1005P model, with the newer additions being a larger touchpad and an aluminum shell. The matte seems to remain intact. The photo shows as much. There aren’t any photos of the 1016P but it is supposed to have a business focus. Let’s hope that does not mean a premium finish and Windows XP. That is so totally not a great thing to do. It will apparently have chiclet keys, aluminum chassis and a squared off design. No ThinkPad obviously but just might do. The 1018P is apparently only 18mm thin and is supposed to be the thinnest netbook that Asus has ever made. It is also tipped to have a USB 3.0 port and a finger print scanner. My verdict — it will charge you a lot for things you will have no use for. The 1015P and the 1016P are both expected to have a battery life of 14 hours, without the wireless on that is. The 1018P is supposed to last 10 hours, which again is pretty decent if you ask me. [read]
Marvell had their booth as usual MWC this year at beautiful Barcelona, Spain. What they had with them seemed pretty ordinary till you realized what was really going on. They had a two-screen set up, one small and another a large HDTV. The small screen had a 3D game on it and the HDTV was displaying and HD Movie. And both of them were being fed by just one little box that was powered by the Armada chipset. Armada from Marvell has the potential to completely change the way we look at Smartphones and netbooks it the future. This puppy has the power to drive up to four 2K by 2K displays all at the same time. If you think that is more than 1080p, you’re almost there — that is way more than 1080p. But there already are chips like this, right? Wrong. Because this one barely sips at the battery while doing all this. Armada can power a home theatre rig and a gaming rig all at the same time and still stay cool and satisfied with very little power. At the heart of the Armada 618 SoC is an ARM A7 design chip, explaining its power efficiency. It is capable of working with Linux, Android and Windows Mobile but that is only because they are focussing on phones. Just imagine what this can do to a netbook! Intel Atom is nowhere near this kind of power efficiency and it still can’t provide the kind of performance that the Armada 618 can do at less than that amount of power. It can finally bring HD video and gaming to your netbook and not in a 720p, 2D way. Its 3D rendering engine can render 45 million triangles per second, which is means killer game performance. If this replaces Atom, we will be living in a world of bliss (and addictive gaming on the go).
Ubuntu Netbook Edition is yet another version of the popular Linux-based, Debian core OS Ubuntu. But instead of being almost the same as the other versions of the OS, this one is specially built for running on small screens and low powered processors with scarce resources. This specific version of Ubuntu uses Moblin stacks and has the Moblin as the basis for the UI. Moblin is another Linux project (MOBile LINux) that was started by Intel. Ubuntu Netbook Edition was originally called Ubuntu Netbook Remix. It was only recently renamed to Ubuntu Netbook Edition. But even then, it had some problems while running on netbooks. Those who are familiar with Ubuntu, will know that it comes bundled with free and open source software to take care of all you basic and advanced computing needs. But a lot of the apps are redundant on a netbooks because of the lack of certain hardware features and the typical use of a netbook. Hence, apps like Brasero Disc burning utility wasn’t very useful on netbooks since it did not have the necessary hardware. The same goes for quite a few other apps. Although not all of these apps are necessarily all that large, the space crunch on netbooks makes every byte count. Hence, the Ubuntu developers are currently busy streamlining the entire package and getting rid of the redundant bits like the Brasero app mentioned earlier and utilities like the Palm Pilot app. The latest nightly release has these things missing and is much more stable. The upcoming point release is thus expected to be much slimmer to install and will also have several bug fixes. This edition of Ubuntu is optimized for the Atom because of Moblin, but it can also run on other mainstream processors. And since this is Linux, you can make it run on anything you want as long as you have the time, patience and coding talent for it.
This is a 10.1 inch netbook that is running on Intel’s latest Atom — the N450 Pintrail chip that is basically the heart of every new netbook that is coming out now. Well, almost every netbook that is coming out now some are still using the older Atoms to clear out their stocks or lower retail prices. Even though the MH380 is not very different from all the other netbooks in the market while going by components, it is still one of the few to have 2GB RAM and a large 250GB HDD. It has a 1366×768 display, which has a aspect ratio of 16:9, so it is quite a good model for watching video content. There’s also built-in Bluetooth, which seems like a standard on every model These little differences are probably what will make this netbook worth buying because the $449 price tag does come across as being slightly on the expensive side. The MH380 is supposed to be available in multiple colors, including Red, White, Black and Brown. But right now the official website is only showing the Red one. We are not sure why this is but it definitely suits the mood for those of you who are shopping for Valentine’s day gifts. Fujitsu has always been known for making quality products and that fact has always shown in their netbooks as well. You trust this company to to pay at least some attention to the design whilst others just seem to be glad to put something together when it comes to netbooks.
This is a Symbian supported project in which developers are encouraged to run the OS on unmodified hardware. This means that the spirit of ‘tinkering’ is already in the souls of Symbian developers. This move is arguably a result of the joint pressure of the iPhone and Android on Symbian, which is currently the largest mobile OS in terms of marketshare. A Q2 2010 report puts Symbian’s marketshare over 50% globally. It is a similar situation in the smartphone category where the real competition is. No on cares about the lower-end right now, although Android covers that segment too and thus directly rivals with Symbian. During the announcement, Symbian Foundation CEO Lee Williams said that Symbian is likely to show up several different devices and that would include netbooks as well as tablets – -the two most popular form factors with manufacturers at the moment. Porting Symbian over to larger screens and more powerful hardware (compared to an average phone that is) has already been done several times. And like any other mobile OS, with the right amount of coaxing and right kind of coding it can really work out well. But while tablet-makers would probably have an easier time with the UI, netbook-makers might have to rethink the entire thing. That is mainly because Symbian as a mobile OS is more suited to showing lots of front -end with no back end such as a file system. This would suit tablets quite well. But with netbooks, it will be more of a challenge because customers expect something else from netbooks and laptops.
The man over at ARM Devices is pretty crazy about anything that has an ARM chip inside it. Hence, he usually has his hands on some pretty interesting gear and this time he has the HiVision PWS700A starring in a video demo. Hivision has made something that many thought would be an impossibility but they have made a netbook that fits under the $100 mark. It is not the retail price of course, that would be slightly higher than $100. Still, Charbax of ARM Devices surmises that with a large enough order and the falling prices of the components, the retail price might finally work out cheaper than $100. The resultant device is not meant for your daily use at all. In fact, I think it should be contraindicated against such usage on the back. “May cause sever annoyance to extreme annoyance if used daily”! It has a 7inch screen, seems to have a USB drive and a card slot, a prominent ethernet port and speakers on the side of the screen. Looks pretty snappy on the surfing but won’t take much multitasking, if any. But that does not mean that this Rockchip RK2808 (ARM926) powered device can’t get work done. Even at only 600MHz, this thing can play back video at 720p. And thanks to the Android OS, the PWS700A does not have a UI that looks like it is meant to cause you pain and frustration. So long Windows CE. The WVGA screen doesn’t really help matters any but hey, the fact that you are getting a complete working system and not just barebones for this price should have you praying gratefully at the feet of the tech Gods. So if you want something cheap to surf on and off on when you are mobile and you are pressed for cash — get this one. Else get a MSI Wind!
During an event at Google HQ, Senior Product Manager of Search, Anders Sandholm, was asked this question directly and in reply he said – “I can’t… I mean… right now we are targeting netbooks, that’s what we’re focused on, but I expect it to work well… we expect it to target everything up to desktop computers. Chrome OS will be built for a specific hardware setup.” He couldn’t dropped a broader hint that something was indeed up in that area. After all, it is clear that Google has to go up against the iPad like all other manufacturers who want to sell companion computing devices. And these companion devices are increasingly taking the shape of flat, touchscreen enabled slate devices. So to compete, Google has to step in against the Apple iPad sooner or later. In the mean time, they are focussed on coming to netbooks as fast as possible. The Chrome OS is all set to be a unique approach to computing whereby everything is relegated to the cloud and all you need is a the Chrome OS device and the Internet. But while Google makes the Internet a great place to work and live by, Apple’s offering is right now the most polished and personal way to interact with that same Internet. So this should be an interesting fight to watch.
So let’s look at what the proper video demo turns up for the HP Tablet. The video demo features HP spokesperson Greta Schlendar and CTO of HP Personal Systems, Phil McKinney. Apparently the tablet was already in the work 2 years back but then it wasn’t worked on all that much because the market wasn’t deemed ready for it. Phill mainly talks about how the device was created and why the device was conceived in the first place. He says the same thing that Steve would say a few days after him — there is a gap in the market where people like the smartphone usability but want a larger screen to work with. Conventional netbooks of course do not fit the bill in that case so they made a slate device. Phil is quick to point out and emphasize on the fact that HP would like to think of this as the ultimate media consumption device. That basically means you cannot run a full OS on it properly, even though the HP tablet will be running Windows 7. At this point, if you want a good full OS experience in a small form factor — netbooks and ultraportables are it. And as touchscreen and touch UI’s grow, it is likely that both categories will collide into something new. So till then, we will have to make a distinction.
The 10.1″ screen has widescreen look to it. Looking at the 1366×768 pixels resolution, it is clear that the LG X20 netbook has an aspect ratio of 16:9. This makes the screen really great for watching movies. The display is a TFT LCD screen. It is powered by an Intel N450 processor, humming away at 1.66GHz. Graphics is handled by the onboard intel 3150 graphics. RAM is upto 2GB apparently, so that is definitely a good news. There are several model numbers to be reckoned with for this one device — X200, XB200, XD 200 and XV200. It is clear though that there in only one model. Hence, these separate model numbers probably refer to the various regions in which this will be sold. According to the manual, it will be available in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, China, India, Singapore and Korea. it has WiFi (b/g/n), 250GB HDD, 1.3MP webcam, HSPA 3G (hence the FCC approval) and Bluetooth as well. There’s no information on release or pricing but do expect a higher than usual price for this netbook. The design and the slightly higher specs like Bluetooth, larger HDD and more RAM, will likely increase the retail price. The isolate style flat keys keyboard also adds a touch of class to the X20. In the US, this is might be subsidized by carriers although there is no such talks as of yet. |
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![had-armada-1 [image courtesy Gadget Lab]](http://netbook-expert.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/had-armada-1-300x168.jpg "had-armada-1 [image courtesy Gadget Lab]")
Looks like the stylish MH380 netbook from Fujitsu has finally been put up for sale on the company’s website. This netbook does not have amazingly different components but its styling and design makes it stand out from the usual fare on the market. It has nicely rounded corners, smooth edges and an overall nicely designed body that will definitely make people take notice when you whop the tiny thing out.
Symbian Foundation recently announced that Symbian has officially gone open source. That means it is now legal and free to download and tinker with Symbian’s code and release your own version with your own branding or whatever the developers want to do. Symbian has already been shown to be running in several different hardwares through the ‘Wild Duck Project’.
Like it or not, Google’s mobile OS Android has become the magic ingredient that makes cheap netbooks a reality. And I am not talking about $200 cheap. I am talking about $100 cheap or lower, in fact. This might not sound believable at first because we have reported $100 netbooks before and those have been barely usable. However, they did not have Android.
There has always been speculations about Chrome OS coming on tablets in multitouch versions and by now it is the logical thing for Google to do if they want to stay relevant. The rumor about a Google tablet was floated along with the claim that HTC will be making it. Now it seems like Google does have something in the development. Why else would a senior official get nervous when asked about multitouch in Chrome OS and fumble while giving an evasive answer.
HP managed to slip in a 
LG X20 was last seen in this year’s CES at Las Vegas this January. The world had pretty much forgotten about the netbook till it was again recently spotted passing through the FCC’s mandatory approval process. Being from LG, this netbook pays attention to the way it looks. The lines are much cleaner and the over all finish is definitely towards the slimmer side.
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