Samsung Q310 Hands-On (LAPTOP Mag)

Last month, Samsung announced that they would be entering the US market with a wide range of laptops, including the budget-oriented Intel Core 2 Duo-powered 13.3″ Samsung Q310.

LAPTOP Magazine has posted a hands-on with the Q310, including photos and a video. Specifically, they have the Q310-34P:
- Intel Core 2 Duo (2.2GHz)
- 3GB RAM
- 320GB HDD
- Windows Vista Business
- HDMI (Intel graphics)

Things look good for it - they felt it was snappy and got almost 5 hours of battery life out of it.

Amazon (Q310-34P and Q310-34G) and a few other US online retailers are now carrying the Q310s in stock.

Read: LAPTOP Magazine

Samsung NC10 in Stock in US

The new 10.2″ Intel Atom-powered Samsung NC10 netbook has popped up in stock at a few online retailers in the US.

All have:
- Intel Atom
- Windows XP Home
- 1GB RAM
- 160GB HDD

It looks like just the white models were the first to be in stock.

In stock (White):
- Buy.com: Samsung NC10-14GW - $499
- MWave.com Samsung NP-NC10-KA01US (shows in-stock date of Nov 10, but maybe sold through)

Blue models:
- Buy.com: Samsung NC10-14GB (Temporarily out of stock)
- MWave.com: NP-NC10-KA02US (still showing Nov 20)

Amazon is still showing pre-order.

Lenovo IdeaPad U330 Review (LAPTOP Magazine)

LAPTOP Magazine has reviewed a 13.3″ budget offering from Lenovo. It’s the Lenovo IdeaPad U330. It’s not exactly a budget offering, but the current prices, starting at $1,199, certainly push it down there.

While it shares some characteristics of the 11.1″ Lenovo IdeaPad U110, it’s both substantially cheaper, as well as more powerful. It offers the ability to switch the graphics chipsets. It has dual graphics configurations - both dedicated ATI and integrated Intel. You get to pick either performance or battery life. It also has an HDMI port, should you want to hook it up to an external high-resolution display.

While it’s cheaper than some of Lenovo’s other offerings in the 13.3″ and under category, it does have a full magnesium alloy frame, and it provides some of the security features found in other IdeaPads and ThinkPads (including an active system to protect the HDD should it be dropped).

The reviewed model is the U330-2267-2BU: 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD.

Read: LAPTOP Magazine

Windows 7, SSD Netbooks, UMPCs

A couple of more ultraportables have had Microsoft Windows 7 pre-beta installed on them, with information / benchmarks listed.

UMPC Fever has a forum member who installed Windows 7 on a Fujitsu U2010, which worked great, from the included screenshots. They were able to use Vista drivers, and it was supported better than XP. They mentioned it was faster than Vista.

Ultramobile PC Tips had news of another forum user on a Spanish-language site who had installed Windows 7 on a Gigabyte UMPC U60. They reported that it booted faster than Windows XP Tablet PC Edition (SP3) and runs just about as fast overall. It also had no problems with the U60’s WiFi (Vista did). (via SlashGear)
Read more

Apple: Netbooks, Sales, Presidents

Electronista mentions a report by ChangeWave that says the iPhone and MacBook lineup put Apple in a better position to survive any drops in spending over the coming holidays, given the current economic client. ChangeWave makes the claim that 33% of studied notebook buyers in the US plan on buying an Apple notebook, with Dell taking a slight edge (37%). Interesting numbers, to say the least.

9 to 5 Mac mentions an interesting bit of information concerning the recent US presidential elections. With Barack Obama, we will have the first sitting US President that is a Mac user. They also mention that Michelle Obama bought a couple of 13.3″ MacBooks recently for their kids to use for video chatting with their dad when he travels. They also show Vice President-elect Joe Biden working with somebody using a 13.3″ MacBook Air. That’s some pretty high-profile PR for Apple.

Finally, liliputing mentions that some photos/videos floating around, that are labeled as some kind of “MacBook Nano” are really a modified 10.2″ MSI Wind U100 running OS X.

Fujitsu LifeBook T2020 Review (TabletPCReview)

Yesterday, Tiffany Boggs over at TabletPCReview published their review of the new Fujitsu LifeBook T2020, an Intel Core 2 Duo Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) powered convertible. Due to its pivoting display, it can be converted back and forth between a Tablet PC form factor and a traditional notebook form factor.

The reviewed T2020 does have an active digitizer. The 12.1″ display is also an indoor / outdoor display with wide viewing angles. It’s nearly identical to the Fujitsu LifeBook T2010, and shares the same overall design (the differences being “under the hood” so to speak).

With the 9-cell battery, Tiffany was getting 8-9 hours of battery life, but even without, the display is enough to sell the T2020 by itself.

Read: TabletPCReview

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