Intel Reveals Dual-Core Atom 330
August 20, 2008
Intel has officially revealed information about the first of the dual-core Atoms, the Atom 330. The version mentioned is the desktop version (N330), but much of it applies to the netbook market since the chipsets, specs, etc., are so similar.
Specifications (that should be in netbooks)
- Still a 533MHz FSB
- HyperThreading still present (may look like four cores, but really two cores)
- Desktop version based on 945GC Express chipset
- GMA 950 integrated graphics
- 2GB (Maximum) of 533MHz or 667MHz DDR2 Memory
They’ve released a fact sheet about the desktop / nettop version as well.
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Lenovo IdeaPad S10, S9 - Hands On at IDF
August 20, 2008
Both the 10.2-inch Lenovo IdeaPad S10 as well as the 8.9-inch Lenovo IdeaPad S9 have been spotted at Fall 2008 Intel Developer Forum.
UMPC Portal posted a gallery of photos, while Joanna Stern made a few videos showing off the front-facing speakers as well as the display (and boot-up).
She came away with a very favorable impression of the keyboard and scrolling touchpad:
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Dell Inspiron 910 - More Pics, Linux Information
August 20, 2008
Some interesting information coming out about the Dell Inspiron 910 (aka the Mini Inspiron).
First up, Eee PC News has some photos of what appears to be the Inspiron 910. Of note - you can see that Dell did indeed remove the row of function keys (F1, F2, etc.) and merged them with the top numeric row. The strange thing is, Dell didn’t appear to take advantage of the space that this should have given them. It looks like wasted space above the keyboard, with a small touchpad below.
iPhones and Netbooks
August 18, 2008
James Kendrick has a great article about the rise of the netbooks and how they are changing the laptop landscape these days, and why peoples’ views (mainstream users) are changing. He points to the iPhone as changing how people are viewing netbooks. They are basically looking for cheap devices where they can, as JK points out, “jump on the Internet”, do email and get their photos off their camera”. The iPhone was the major turning point - it showed people that they didn’t need a huge setup to access the internet, check email, etc. With the Acer Aspire One hitting $400 (and with Dell and Lenovo possibly hitting that area) with a decent sized screen and keyboard, all of the sudden many people who wouldn’t normally consider a second computer in the house, or a laptop (or even a second laptop) are seeing how easy it is to hop on the internet, check email, etc., and they want that and it’s now in their price range.
He thinks, and I agree, that the major turning point will be when they are available in the big-box retailers. We are already seeing this with some - Circuit City is a good example with the Acer Aspire One (albeit many Circuit Citys have them on hand, but they aren’t always displayed because they don’t have a good way of securing them, according to one CC employee I talked to over the weekend). Best Buy seems wishy-washy at times but will probably start offering a lot more Asus Eee PCs as we get closer to the holidays at the end of the year. Wal-Mart will probably accelerate things as well. By the end of this year, they will probably have three (if not more) different offerings from three different brands.
I have two major concerns though:
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MSI Wind U100 - Change in Touchpads
August 17, 2008
Over on the MSIWind.net forums, some users are reporting that MSI has changed the touchpad that is currently (or was) shipping with the 10.2″ MSI Wind U100.
This is in reference to batches with the 6-cell battery (and possibly earlier) switching from Synaptic touchpads to Sentelic touchpads.
The differences are major:
- No finger scrolling (instead you tap the corners)
- You can’t disable the touch-to-click
- Possibly problems finding support with non-Windows OSes.
The drivers/device can be seen on the German MSI Wind U100 device driver page.
Read:
- MSIWind.net forum
- MSIWind.net
Acer Aspire One - Replacing SSD with 1.8″ HDD
August 16, 2008
A few days ago we mentioned that tnkgirl Mobile had been modding their SSD-based 1.8″ Acer Aspire One to handle bluetooth. Now they’ve since published a how-to guide (complete with lots of pictures).
The SSD is slightly smaller in the area where storage is located, compared to the HDD version (which takes a 2.5″ Serial ATA (SATA) hard drive). As such, the space is limited and you are basically having to work with 1.8″ size devices.
tnkgrl Mobile replaced their SSD with a 1.8″ 60GB Samsung HDD. The Samsung drive has 8MB of buffer and spins at 4200rpm.
Read: tnkgrl Mobile
