VIA and NVIDIA Netbooks: Unlikely, Plus No More New Apple Hardware in 2008
November 4, 2008
It looks like NVIDIA and VIA Technologies won’t be working together on VIA Nano netbooks, as well as Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) according to a report by DigiTimes.
Earlier this year, they had agreed to work on netbooks powered by C7-M and Nano CPUs produced by VIA, controlled by NVIDIA’s MCP79 chipsets (complete with integrated graphics).
Meanwhile, Macworld spoke with Apple and got a confirmation that Apple will not be releasing anymore new Mac hardware this year. An Apple spokesman, Bill Evans, told Macworld “Our holiday line-up is set,”.
Most of the rumors had to do with iMacs and Mac minis, but there were a few floating around concerning an Apple netbook.
MSI Wind U100 and 9-Cell Batteries
November 3, 2008
First reports of the third-party 9-cell batteries for the 10.2″ MSI Wind U100 are coming in. Wired Magazine mentioned a thread over at the MSIWind.net forums where somebody ordered one off of ebay.
They mentioned that currently, you are looking at over 4 hours with a standard 6-cell battery in the MSI U100. An MSIWind.net forums user picked up a 9-cell in the UK off of ebay UK, which cost around £70 ($120 USD). With WiFi switched on, they were getting over 7 hours of battery life (under Windows XP Home), with some OS X users getting just under 7 hours. These are initial charges, so the numbers should change after a few charge / discharge cycles.
A few of these have popped up in the US - Amazon has a 7800mAh 9-cell battery from Lion Battery that is up for pre-order (and pricier than the one mentioned above).
Read:
- Forums.MSIWind.net
- via Wired Magazine
Windows 7 Pre-Beta on HP 2133 Mini-Note
November 2, 2008
We’ve already seen a few instances of Windows 7 on netbooks. Now HP Mini Guide has loaded a Windows 7 Pre-Beta on a VIA-powered HP 2133 Mini-Note. Keep in mind the VIA CPU used (C7-M series) was underpowered compared to the Intel Atoms, etc., that we’ve seen powering netbooks with Windows 7 this week.
It only took them less than half an hour to install (which is a good sign) to the point where they were at a desktop. Only a few drivers were initially missing (ethernet among others), but Windows Update fixed those issues (there were video driver issues). Booting looks good - faster than Windows Vista, but slower than XP.
They did have some issues with sleeping and video (due to drivers), but overall it’s looking good, and running faster than Vista. Not something you would use day-to-day at this point (until the video driver issue is fixed), but as they point out - if Windows 7 Pre-Beta is looking this good, there may not even be a netbook specific build (or rather a need for one).
Read: HP Mini Guide
Could Acer Beat Asus in Netbook Shipments in 2008?
November 1, 2008
There is a very distinct possibility that even though Asustek has a large variety of their Asus Eee PC netbooks (from 7″ up to 10″) and had a big lead on everybody at the beginning of 2008, that Acer’s 8.9″ Aspire One could just help them beat out Asustek.
Yesterday, we mentioned Eee PC shipments (5 million units in 2008 being their goal), and now PC World has information that Acer is saying that they might hit 6 million shipped Acer Aspire Ones this year.
That would be very impressive given that the Aspire One was only announced/launched in June of this year, but as Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci put it in a conference yesterday: “ The netbook segment is growing very nicely.” He mentioned that that Acer plans on shipping 12 - 15 million Aspire Ones.
Read: PC World
(thanks to Tim for the link)
Apple MacBook - 6GB of RAM
November 1, 2008
For those of you wanting more than 4GB of RAM with Mac OS X, and wanting to buy one of the new 13.3″ Apple MacBooks (or one of the 15″ MacBook Pros that came out last month, you might just be in luck.
Apple will tell you that the maximum amount of memory is 4GB of the 1066MHz DDR3 (aka PC3-8500) RAM. Mac Rumors is reporting that 8GB of RAM causes stability problems with OS X on MacBook Pros , however 6GBs works just fine (8GB is supported by the NVIDIA chipset).
If you are willing to pay $675 (one 4GB DIMM and one 2GB DIMM) RAMJET Inc. will set you up with the proper non-stacked DIMMs (which run cooler and require less power than normal stacked DIMMs).
This is tested on Model 4,1. You can find the memory and more information at:
http://www.ramjet.com/mbib.asp.
Read: ZDNet.com via Mac Rumors
Asustek: $200 Eee PC in 2009
October 31, 2008
Update: 7″ and 8.9″ Asus Eee PCs will continue to be manufactured.
A few weeks ago, Asustek’s CEO Jerry Shen discussed a $250 Eee PC netbook being launched sometime in 2009. Shen has since lowered that pricing, saying they expect to launch an Eee PC netbook for $200 in 2009.
DigiTimes published an article going over Asustek’s financial performance this year, including mention that in the third quarter, Asus Eee PC shipments hit 1.7 million units, and will hit 1.8 million units this quarter, allowing Asustek to hit 5 million units in 2008 (a goal they had set earlier this year). This doesn’t just include netbooks, there are some Eee PC-branded nettops, however the majority were netbooks (nettops were launched later in the year).
These figures were mentioned:
- Shen believes Asustek will get 30% of the 2009 netbook market (around 6 - 7.5 million)
- They believe the 2009 netbook market will see 20 - 25 million netbooks produced
- Hard Drive-based netbooks account for 70% of total netbooks shipped, with SSDs hitting 30%
- Eee PCs with Windows XP Home versus Linux-based netbooks is also around 7:3
This was really interesting: Shen believes that 7″ and 8.9″ Eee PCs will be phased out of the market in the future, in favor of 10″ models.
Read: DigiTimes
