More on Future Asus Eee PCs
July 31, 2008
Earlier this week, the Asus Eee PC roadmap was leaked by accident (or not by accident, you never know in this industry).
Asustek’s President Jerry Shen has come out and discussed some of the Eee PC models seen in the roadmap (although he didn’t name them by model).
He confirmed what many of us have believed for a while, that Asustek Computer is going after many different market segments and many different price points. This is due in part to their belief that Intel’s forecast for demand of upwards of one billion netbooks and Mobile Internet Devices (MID) is correct. Shen believes that in the third quarter of this year, that Eee PC shipments will meet or exceed 1.5 - 1.6 million units, putting them on track for five million units.
It’s also due to their confidence that from here on out, Intel is going to provide a steady stream of Intel Atom N720 CPUs (as well as the upcoming dual-core Atoms) based on demand.
Asustek is adding two new categories to the netbook field this year, “Ultimate” and “Pro Fashion” (or at least two new categories in Asustek’s lineups).
Read more
Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Compared to ThinkPad X61
July 31, 2008
Earlier this week, we showed you several photos of the upcoming Lenovo ThinkPad X200.
CNET / Crave have their hands on a ThinkPad X200 and have posted a brief comparison of the 12.1-inch X200 with its predecessor, the ThinkPad X61s as well as the 13.3-inch Thinkpad X300 (some the X300’s design and technology made its way into the X200).
It’s clearly smaller than the X300 (obviously), but you can see the full-size keyboard on the X200 when compared with the X300 (it’s the same full-size keyboard found on the 14″ and 15″ T61 series). With the previous X60 / X61s, there was a smaller keyboard, with some keys being reduced by half. This was due to the previous X series having a squareish / standard aspect display. The X200 has a widescreen display, and as a result is slightly wider, wide enough to accommodate a full-size keyboard.
Read: CNET / Crave
Sylvania MESO to Enter Netbook Market
July 30, 2008
A consumer electronics manufacturer / retailer with close ties to Wal-Mart is announcing that it’s jumping into the netbook game with an 8.9-inch offering.
The Sylvania MESO (or Sylvania g netbook MESO) will be based on a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, will weigh in at around 2.2 pounds, and will come with an 80GB HDD loaded with either XP Home or Ubuntu Netbook Remix. It’ll have an internal webcam, and the 8.9″ display is an LED-backlit display.
Its a follow-up to Sylvania’s VIA C7-based “Syvania g” netbook (which was not well known).
It will be available in four colors: Onyx (black), Snow (white), Solar (yellow), Blossom (pink)
Read: RossRubin.com
MSI Wind U100 - 6-Cell Versions Get a Price Hike
July 30, 2008
If you’ve been looking for the 10-inch MSI Wind U100 with the extended 6-cell battery, you may have noticed that the few retailers carrying it (at least for pre-order) are showing prices ranging from $549.99 on up to $599.99.
That’s quite a bit more than what MSI had originally planned on, which was around $499 (which is now the standard for the 3-cell battery version). In fact, it pushes it up to around the Asus Eee PC 1000H and it gets way too close to the low-end mainstream laptops in the 13.3-inch category (remember, you’ll soon be able to buy the 13.3″ Dell Inspiron 13 for a starting price of $699 at your local Wal-Mart).
Now the U100 is very popular, make no mistake - it’s got a nice design and layout, it handles up to 2GB of memory (although as far as we know, upgrading the memory voids the warranty, but we are still waiting to hear if MSI has changed this), and because it handles a normal 2.5″ SATA harddrive, some have upgraded the stock 80GB HDD to a 320GB HDD. It’s still a little disconcerting.
LAPTOP Magazine is reporting on the reasons for the increase, with a statement from an MSI representative: We finally heard from an MSI rep who tells us that “Since the cost of the battery and materials raise (sp), we had no choice but adjust the MSRP to $499.99 with 3-cell battery and $549.99 with 6-cell.”.
It makes me wonder though - Even though it’s 8.9-inches, the currently shipping Acer Aspire One can be found online for around $375 to $400 with the 120GB version for under $425 (albeit probably with a 3-cell battery, but it still has plenty of harddrive space). The similar version of the Eee PC 901 costs quite a bit more.
Something has got to give, and with the Dell Mini Inspiron or Inspiron Mini or whatever it’s being called just around the corner, I would image that quite a few companies are going to have to drop the prices on the 10″ and 8.9″ models.
Read: LAPTOP Magazine
Lenovo Netbook by End of September?
July 30, 2008
Update: Looks like it’s the Lenovo IdeaPad S10
We could be looking at another netbook within two months, courtesy of Lenovo.
DigiTimes is reporting that Lenovo will have a netbook available by the end of September.
Compal Electronics (manufacturer of Lenovo’s mainstream / consumer laptops), Wistron (manufacturer of Lenovo’s X-series laptops) and Pegatron Technology (manufacturers of Lenovos’ IdeaPad laptops) are listed as potential manufacturing partners for such a device.
Confirmation (at least of Lenovo bringing out an ultraportable netbook) came from Ken Wong, who is the General Manager of Lenovo Taiwan, along with news that both consumers and enterprise markets would be looked at.
Read: DigiTimes
Asus Eee PC 1000 (Linux) Review - LAPTOP Magazine
July 30, 2008
LAPTOP Magazine has published their review of the 10.1-inch Asus Eee PC 1000. The 1000 is powered by an Intel Atom and this version comes loaded with Xandros Linux.
LAPTOP Magazine lists it as one of their favorites (although as they point out, it’s the largest netbook / mini-notebook to be released, slightly bigger than the 10-inch MSI Wind U100).
In addition to physically being the largest in its class, it also has the largest Solid State Drive (SSD) in any netbook to date, with a 40GB SSD. In addition to the 40GB of onboard storage, it also has 20GB of online storage through Asus’ YoStore (which simply acts as another drive on the system, similar to Apple’s iDisk available through their .Mac/MobileMe package).
They were impressed, able to get over five hours with WiFi on, and gave it four stars out of five.
Read: - LAPTOP Magazine
