Asus Eee PC 900HD at FCC
August 26, 2008
One of the new netbooks mentioned in Asus Eee PC Roadmap has hit the FCC. This time it’s the 8.9″ Asus Eee PC 900HD (or the Eee PC 900HD).
Unfortunately there’s not much information on it at the FCC (due to confidentiality agreements / regulations that are in place at the moment), but as JK and others have pointed out, the bottom is definitely different than a normal Eee PC 900.
I would speculate that it will be Intel Celeron M-powered (Based on the other 900 variants - The 901s and 904s were Intel Atom-based, while the 900 series has a Celeron). It shoudl also have a 2.5″ SATA HDD (given the “HD” in the name). Asustek has maintained that they will continue to sell Celeron-based netbooks for the time being, until the Atom shortage is over (although you never know - Intel did just announce more Celeron M CPUs last week).
Since it was submitted to the FCC for approval, we can expect to see it on the US market in the next month or two, or at least available for pre-order. Given that you can get 8.9″ Intel Atom-based machines for $340 - $430 from Acer and Lenovo, one would expect that a new Celeron-based 8.9″ sub-notebook with a conventional drive should fall within the same range (or even cheaper).
Read:
- FCC filing
- via jkkmobile
Intel Announces New Mobile CPUs
August 25, 2008
At the Intel Developer Forum last week, Intel announced the general availability of the same types of Merom-based CPUs that are currently powering the Ultra-lightweight 13.3″ Apple MacBook Air. This was speculated back in Lenovo ThinkPad X301 and the HP EliteBook 2530p, among others. All are 45nm.
1066MHz Front Side Bus
- Low Voltage (LV)
- SL9300 (1.6GHz, 6MB L2), 17W TDP, $316
- SL9400 (1.8GHz, 6MB L2), 17W TDP, $284
800MHz Front Side Bus
- Ultra Low Voltage (ULV)
- SU9300 (1.2GHz, 3MB L2), 10W TDP, $289
- SU9400 (1.4GHz, 3MB L2), 10W TDP, $262
These were also announced:
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Lenovo X200T Tablet at the FCC, With UWB
August 25, 2008
The Lenovo ThinkPad X200T Tablet PC, Lenovo’s widescreen sequel to the ThinkPad X61T Tablet PC is pretty close to being available in North America. It’s now shown up at the FCC.
The thing that struck me was that it (at least the model sent to the FCC) has a “Bluetooth and UWB transmitter” - that is, Ultra Wideband. UWB has a short range, but it’s got a good bandwidth - if it goes through as Bluetooth 3.0 (which I believe it will), to give you a comparison: UWB can transfer data up to 480Mbit/second while Bluetooth version 2.0 + EDR transfers data at up to 3Mbit/sec. It should be able to retain low-power requirements as well.
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Asus F6 / F6V Announced
August 24, 2008
Asustek has announced a rather interesting line of 13.3-inch laptops, the Asus F6 / F6V. We’ve already seen laptops with keyboards designed to fight bacteria. Well Asus is making is “freshening” things up with this new line (sorry, couldn’t resist).
The F6 / F6V line is “scented” - they give off a scent for a certain amount of time (depending on usage), and there are four designs: Floral Blossom (Pink), Musky Black, Morning Dew (Green), Aqua Ocean (Blue).
As for the specs:
- Powered by Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 (2.53GHz, 6MB L2), P8600 (2.4Ghz, 3MB L2), P8400 (2.26GHz, 3MB L2)
- 13.3-inch widescreen display
- Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon HD3470 w/256MB Dedicated DDR2 Memory
- DDR2 Memory, 4GB Max
- 120GB - 320GB HDD
Size:
Width: 12.28 inches / 312 mm
Depth: 9.13 inches / 231.9 mm
Height: 1.27 - 1.39 inches / 32.3 - 35.2mm
It’ll be interesting to see the price on these. The graphics are definitely a plus.
Read: Asustek Computer, Inc.
(Thanks to Tim)
Acer Aspire One at Best Buy
August 24, 2008
It looks like more of the price drops for the 8.9″ Acer Aspire One netbook / sub-notebook are starting to pop up, and this time in a retail store in the US.
Best Buy prominently features the Acer Aspire One in today’s (Sunday) flyer. They are calling it an “Exclusive”.
Specifications:
- Model: A0A150-1570
- Windows XP Home
- 1GB of RAM
- 120GB HDD
The SKU shown is 8967335, however it doesn’t yet show up in their online laptop area . When Circuit City started carrying Aspire Ones, many stores didn’t have the hardware needed to display the Aspire Ones (the security hardware that is) because they were much smaller than their normal laptops, and you had to ask somebody to get you one. The same maybe true of Best Buy - they may not be out on display just yet in the actual store. Keep in mind they only guarantee three per store.
This is going to be big over the long term - now that many consumers can get exposed to these things, at this price point, it’s going to force other companies to drop their prices, and more importantly, as many have said, this will be the shove that netbooks need to really become mainstream machines.
Below is the ad:
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Apple MacBook Air System Update
August 23, 2008
Apple has released a new software / system update for their 13.3″ Apple MacBook Air (all models).
It addresses two issues:
- Video playback
- Processor core idling
Apple strongly recommends that any third-party software that users have installed that changes anything having to do with the CPU such as speed / frequency or voltage should be removed before this update.
It sounds like part of this update could help increase battery life (i.e. the change having to do with the core idling).
It’s 368KB and can be downloaded from the link below:
Read/Download: Apple.com/Support
