MSI X-Slim X340 Compared to Lenovo X301

If you were curious about the size of the upcoming 13-inch MSI X-Slim X340, compared to a mainstream “slim” ultraportable such as the Lenovo ThinkPad X301, look no further than NewGadgets.de, a German website that has posted a photo comparison of the two (along with an iPhone 3G).

The X340 is one of the first ultraportable laptops based on Intel’s Consumer Ultra Low Voltage (CULV) platform. It is considerably thin, especially when sitting next to, or back-to-back with the X301. In defense of the X301, it could and should be argued that it is oriented towards a different market and maybe a little more durable (because of the chassis), and you do pay a price for that. It’s also got a dual-core CPU while the X340 is sporting an Intel Core Solo.

On the other hand, the X340 is going to cost around half as much as the X301.

Read/view: NewGadgets.de (Translated into English)
via SlashGear

AT&T to Offer Acer Aspire One, Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and 12, and LG Xenia with Mobile Data Plans

Looks like the reports from the middle of February concerning AT&T offering multiple netbooks/sub-notebooks, or “mini laptops” as the AT&T press release calls them, are indeed true.

AT&T will be offering the Acer Aspire One, Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and Mini 12, and LG Xenia (aka X110) in prices ranging from $49.99 USD to $249.99 when purchasing an appropriate mobile broadband package (along with the contract). If you want something more powerful, such as the 12-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X200, you are looking at $750 to $850 depending on the plan.

AT&T has put together what it’s calling an “Internet at Home and On the Go” plan that covers several situations (mixing mobile data and DSL), and included with that is access to AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots. The standard 5GB a month for $60 plan is still available for those who don’t need DSL.

In the reports from February, the HP Mini 1000 was mentioned in that mix of devices, but it’s been left out for now.

There is a catch to all of this (besides the standard contract) - for now, it’s only being offered in select stores in the Atlanta and Philadelphia areas, but it looks like it will be nationwide later this year.

Read:
- Press Release (AT&T)
via GigaOm

Lenovo Pocket Yoga (Pocket Notebook) Discussed

There has been a lot of talk about Lenovo’s “Pocket Yoga”, which closely resembles the form factor of the Sony VAIO P series (or rather, the VAIO P resembles it). In the words of Lenovo, it’s the smallest pocket notebook. The photo(s) were from two years ago.

Over at Design Matters, one of Lenovo’s official blogs, Johnson Li, who is the Director of Lenovo’s Beijing Inovation Center, has spoken about the concept product from Lenovo that was leaked out.

Note: If you are curious to see several images from the Pocket Yoga concept design, Lenovo has posted photos on the Lenovo Photo Library at flickr. Yes, there is a photo of it in somebody’s back pocket.

Li mentions what created the hoopla:

Last week some buzz was created by a photograph that someone snuck out of our Beijing design studio. The picture was of a pocket-sized PC we developed about two years ago, well before the current netbook craze and the introduction of a similar form factor by one of our competitors. Since the design has been shown in public in the past and received some attention, I thought it might be of some interest to discuss the design inspiration and share some photos and drawings of the device.

We in Lenovo’s Beijing design center refer to this concept as the “Pocket Yoga,” an extension of an award winning design we’ve shown in public based on a folding concept inspired by the practice of yoga by one of our New Zealand-based designers. The full Yoga concept was a folding notebook with a detachable keyboard. The system unit was covered in leather.

The use of leather is interesting - Li says that it can “transform a cold, plastic or metal machine into something warm and considerate, transforming it into something friendlier and more like a trusted and valued possession. Always there, always waiting.”

He also considered the “soft hinge” design that has three different modes, to be one of the major innovations. It allows the touchscreen display to rotate all the way over to lay flat, and turns the device into a Tablet PC.

Read: Design Matters (LenovoBlogs.com)

Lenovo Reorganizes by Market, Product Lines

Lenovo Group Ltd., the largest computer maker in China, and producer of the former IBM-owned ThinkPad laptop series, has announced that it’s creating two new major business units. This follows the return of Liu Chuanzhi as the chairman of Lenovo.

One is going to be focused on developed countries (aka mature markets), while the other will be focusing on emerging markets. Currently, there is a more regional focus. Lenovo said in statements today that this will allow them to focus on products from an income level rather than a regional level. In theory, it should be more efficient - there are plenty of places where mature and emerging markets are nearly side-by-side (or are in fact side-by-side).

Lenovo is also going to create two other units that are product-focused.

One is going to be the “Think” product group, with former IBMer Fran O’Sullivan at its head (ostensibly to focus on business/professional products). The other product group will be the “Idea” product group, which will be led by Lin Jun, and will be focused on consumers.

There were recent rumors that Lenovo would be buying the PC business unit of Fujitsu, but those were denied by a Lenovo executive recently.

It’s an interesting situation - there will be more of a gap between the Think/ThinkPad line and Idea/IdeaPad line, at least from what it looks like. That begs the question of whether there will ever be a ThinkPad version of Lenovo’s netbook/ultraportables like the Lenovo IdeaPad S10, and whether or not some of the technology behind the Lenovo X-series would make its way into future IdeaPad S10 variants or sequels.

Read:
- Bloomberg.com
- LocalTechWire.com (WRAL)

LAPTOP Magazine Updates 10-inch Netbook Face-Off

LAPTOP Magazine has updated their 10-inch netbook face-off with a couple of new models, as well as well as updated models of previous netbooks they have reviewed.

In the original face-off, the MSI Wind U110/U100 and the Samsung NC10 came out on top when it came to battery life tests.

This time around, the HP Mini 1000 and Samsung NC10 came out on top with keyboards (no surprise, the NC10 is The Netbook when it comes to the keyboard).

Netbooks/Ultraportables compared:
- Acer Aspire One 10-inch
- ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (Update of Eee PC 1000H)
- HP Mini 1000
- Lenovo IdeaPad S10
- MSI Wind U120 (update of Wind U100)
- Samsung NC10

A major focus of the Eee PC 1000HE was battery life - that’s the main selling point in addition to the chiclet-style keyboard, and it came out on top in the tests. The 1000HE and the 10-inch Acer Aspire One came out on top as far as value.

Read: LAPTOP Magazine

One of the Best Articles You’ll Read About the PC/Netbook Industry (Wired)

I’ve been waiting for this to hit the web - I read it in the print edition of Wired a few days ago. It’s called “The Netbook Effect: How Cheap Little Laptops Hit the Big Time” and it’s a really good look at how the whole netbook industry took off, and how it went in directions that nobody anticipated, starting with the One Laptop Per Child, and then Asustek’s response with their Eee PC line.

It’s four pages long, but well worth a read if you are interested in some of the behind-the-scenes type of stuff or in seeing where they think the market is headed (hint: some PC makers won’t be happy).

Among some of the topics it touches on:
- Why many of the early netbooks/ultraportables had Solid State Drives (SSDs)
- How Asustek thought the Eee PC line would be bought mainly by kids, senior citizens, and folks in India and China
- How PC Makers either didn’t realize or ignored the fact that most mainstream computers and laptops on the market today are much more powerful than anything needed by the typical user.
- How in a single year, netbooks went from being 0% to 7% of the entire world’s laptop market.

The article covers how many of us ended up buying computers or laptops/notebooks that perhaps we didn’t really need:

For years now, without anyone really noticing, the PC industry has functioned like a car company selling SUVs: It pushed absurdly powerful machines because the profit margins were high, while customers lapped up the fantasy that they could go off-roading, even though they never did. So coders took advantage of that surplus power to write ever-bulkier applications and operating systems.

What netbook makers have done, in effect, is turn back the clock: Their machines perform the way laptops did four years ago. And it turns out that four years ago (more or less) is plenty….
For most of today’s computing tasks, the biggest performance drags aren’t inside the machine. They’re outside. Is your Wi-Fi signal strong? Is Twitter down again?

Netbooks are evidence that we now know what personal computers are for.Which is to say, a pretty small list of things that are conducted almost entirely online. This was Asustek’s epiphany

The article also touches upon what scares the PC industry the most:

The great terror in the PC industry is that it’s created a $300 device so good, most people will simply no longer feel a need to shell out $1,000 for a portable computer. They pray that netbooks remain a “secondary buy”—the little mobile thingy you get after you already own a normal-size laptop. But it’s also possible that the next time you’re replacing an aging laptop, you’ll walk into the store and wonder, “Why exactly am I paying so much for a machine that I use for nothing but email and the Web?” And Microsoft and Intel and Dell and HP and Lenovo will die a little bit inside that day.

Read: Wired Magazine.

Lenovo ThinkPads Meets Semi-Rugged Requirements

This kind of came out of nowhere. We all knew that ThinkPads had a reputation for being tougher than a lot of other laptops/notebooks in the market.

Lenovo has now announced that the following eight ThinkPads have been designated by Lenovo for use in semi-rugged environments, as well as various field conditions:
- Lenovo ThinkPad X200
- Lenovo ThinkPad X200s
- Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet
- Lenovo ThinkPad X301
- Lenovo ThinkPad T400
- Lenovo ThinkPad T500
- Lenovo ThinkPad R400
- Lenovo ThinkPad SL300

The X200 series is Lenovo’s first widescreen 12″ ultraportables in the ThinkPad X series line; the X301 is a 13.3-inch widescreen, as is the SL300. The T400 and R400 are 14″ laptops, and the T500 is a 15″ laptop.

This is surprising in that usually when laptop manufacturers try to meet certain military or field specifications (utility work, construction sites, law enforcement), they offer a special model/version, with various changes from their normal line. As the press release points out however, these ThinkPads come with protection for the hard drive, as well as a sturdier chassis and display than some.

Via: SlashGear

Press Release:

Lenovo Puts ThinkPad Laptops to the “Tough Test”: Meets Military Specs for Semi-Rugged Computing

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC – February 24, 2009: Lenovo today announced that it is designating eight ThinkPad laptops for use in field and vehicle semi-ruggedized computing environments such as in public safety, utilities, construction and the military. The ThinkPad X200, X301, X200s, X200 Tablet, T400, T500, R400 and SL300 laptops meet a barrage of military specifications tests and are enhanced with specially-designed durability features such as an air-bag like protection system and a roll cage in select models. Because field computing requires excellent screen viewability, Lenovo is also adding a new optional 680-nit high brightness panel to its most popular laptop, the ThinkPad T400 laptop.

“ThinkPad is well known for quality, reliability and innovative security technologies for business computing,” said Tom Ribble, executive director, Worldwide ThinkPad Product Marketing, Lenovo. “The truth is we’ve always built tough laptops that can weather extreme conditions from hiking the rainforests of the Amazon to flying in space. You don’t need a PC that looks like a tank to excel in harsh environments, and unlike many of our competitors, we don’t put an extra charge on toughness.”

Read more

Lenovo to go With NVIDIA Ion, VIA, Launch 11″, 12″, and 13″ Netbooks?

For now we’re going to file it under rumors, but DigiTimes is reporting on an article in the Chinese-Language Commerical Times that Lenovo will be very busy in the netbook/ultraportable market as far as larger displays and non-Intel chipsets and even non-Intel CPUs..

They mention that Lenovo plans to launch 11.6-inch and 12.1-inch models based on the NVIDIA Ion platform which provides a huge boost to graphics processing and HD video playback. It will still be utilizing an Intel Atom CPU, and both devices would be manufactured by Winston. They are also reportedly looking at a 13-inch NVIDIA Ion device.

They are also saying that Lenovo would be launching a VIA-based 12-inch netbook, which would put them in direct competition with the Samsung NC20.

The target is the second quarter of 2009 for the 11.6″ and 12.1″ NVIDIA Ion-based devices. If that’s the case (and we need more information before saying it is), Lenovo would be joining Acer as far as known NVIDIA Ion customers.

Read: DigiTimes

Next Page »