Intel Atom Shortage, VIA Sales, Nano Shipments
July 3, 2008
Couple of quick articles on Intel and VIA CPUs for the netbook market.
First off, DigiTimes mentions the impact the Intel Atom shortage is having on the netbook industry. They mention that because of the shortage, that LCD panel makers who handle the manufacturer of the 7″ to 10″ LCD panels for these devices are concerned about shipments of these devices (i.e. people waiting for specifically for an Intel Atom device). It’s not helped by the fact that there is a battery shortage (which might ease up this month - note the word “might“). The Intel Atom shortage on the other hand could last through the fall (into September).
DigiTimes mentions that for 8.9-inch displays, AU Optronics (AUO) and Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) are the primary suppliers. When it comes to the 10.2-inch displays, Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) and HannStar Display ship the majority of those. Kind of interesting little bit of information. Another company, Innolux Display, is ready to start producing panels for the low-cost / sub-notebook market.
HP 2133 Mini-Note in the Classroom
July 2, 2008
Might the HP 2133 Mini-Note gain additional popularity with students (a target audience that HP mentioned was important to the 2133’s success).
HP made an announcement yesterday at the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) that the Fresno, California, United School District is working on deploying over 7,000 8.9-inch HP 2133 Mini-Note PCs to students in kindergarten all the way through the 12th grade.
The chief technology officer of the Fresno United School District said:
“The HP Mini-Note is a powerful laptop that is small enough to fit on students’ desks along with their textbooks and papers, allowing them access to the Internet and educational content from around the world without leaving their seats…”
While it’s great to see netbooks reaching a younger audience, kindergarten and up through the third or fourth grade, it seems like it would be more of a distraction than a tool. That’s just my opinion though. We’ll have to wait and see how it works out.
Read:
- HP Press Release
- HP’s K-12 Education Page
- Thanks to Susan G. for the link
Crave’s Most Notable Notebooks from 1H 2008
July 1, 2008
Matthew Elliott hast posted an article about what he considers to be the most noteworthy notebooks to have passed through CNET in the past six months. This isn’t necessarily the highest-ranks of the review notebooks either, but ones that instead introduced something new or that did something that helped differentiate them from others.
Ultraportable laptops listed:
- Apple MacBook Air
- Lenovo IdeaPad U110
- Lenovo ThinkPad X300
- Asus Eee PC 900
- HP Compaq 2133 Mini-Note PC
- Asus Eee PC 901
Out of the 10 notebooks listed (including honorable mentions), ultraportables captured six of those positions (with three being “netbooks”).
Read: Crave / CNET
HP Pavilion tx2500z Reviews (LAPTOP Magazine, Tablet PC Rreview)
June 30, 2008
A couple of reviews of the 12.1-inch AMD-powered HP Pavilion tx2500z series, were published last friday.
The tx2500z series is the replacement of the popular HP Pavilion tx2000z. It’s just starting to appear at online stores ($1050 after rebate at Amazon.com , etc.). It’s a “convertible”, that is, it has a touchscreen display that swivels around and lays across the keyboard, allowing it to be converted and used either as a conventional laptop or as a dedicated Tablet PC.
TabletPCReview.com has a user review of the same tx2510us linked above at Amazon, and that is available for around the same price at Circuit City (in the US, if you want to see one in person, although not all stores have them). the tx2510us has an AMD Turion X2 Ultra ZM-80 CPU (2.1GHz, 2MB L2), 3GB Memory, 250GB Hard Drive, an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3200 graphics chipset, the dual active/passive digitizer, and it’s running Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit Edition. As “Rex Orbis2″ notes in his review, there were same impressive gains made over the tx2000z series, with the addition of the new AMD Puma platform. As they point out, it is geared towards consumers and multimedia enthusiasts and even digital media (it comes with a remote control for media playback).
The LAPTOP Magazine review gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars, with comments about the washed out display look (due to the fact, as noted in the TabletPCReview, that it has a dual-mode display - both an active and passive digitizer), although it is accurate, whether it’s in active or passive modes.
Read:
- LAPTOP Magazine
- TabletPCReview.com
MSI Wind U100 - Amazon Ship Times (US)
June 30, 2008
Looks like shipping dates for the 10.2-inch MSI Wind U100 in the United States are starting to firm up. The U100 will be available in the last week in July into the first weeks of August.
Model # MSMU1-035LABK at Amazon.com is showing as shipping in 3-5 week for $499.99.
Specifications:
- Windows XP Home
- 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Processor
- 80 GB Hard Drive,
- 1 GB RAM
- 3-cell battery (3 hours battery life)
It’s only one model, but it’s a start.
As far as 6-cell batteries, expect it to be several weeks after the 3-cell battery models ship (although nothing would prevent you from buying the 3-cell model now and ordering a 6-cell battery later on).
HP 2133 Mini-Note and Windows Vista SP1, XP SP3
June 23, 2008
Over at HP 2133 Mini-Note Guide, they’ve posted some new performance benchmarks for the HP 2133 Mini-Note using updated drivers from VIA for the CN896 chipset and Chrome 9 integrated graphics chipset that were recently released for Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows XP.
The benchmarks with the new drivers were between Windows XP and Windows XP with the new drivers, and Windows Vista and Windows Vista SP1 and the new drivers.
Among the highlights:
- Overall, Vista SP1 with the new drivers was close to XP SP3 with the new drivers (both were slight improvements over Vista and XP SP2)
- 3DMark03 scores improved around 15% with Vista when SP1 and the new drivers were added.
- 3DMark03 scores with XP SP3 were around 16% higher than Vista SP1
- 3DMark06 scores with XP SP3 were around 15% higher than Vista SP1
They note that video playback overall was improved with the new drivers and service packs, and that no matter what OS you are running, the latest drivers and Service Pack do make quite a bit of difference.
Read: HP2133Guide.com
