Chad O.

VIA and Nvidia: Ultramobile VN Platform

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NVidia and VIA Technologies are working on a new platform, the VN Platform, targeted towards smaller laptops and UMPCs, and competing against Intel’s nettop, netbook and Mobile Internet Device (MID) initiatives. It will use VIA’s existing C7 CPUs, as well as VIA C8 CPUs, and … Read more

Asus 2GB Eee PC Surf in Hong Kong

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DigiTimes is reporting that due to strong demand, a version of the Asus Eee PC, the 2GB Eee PC Surf, which was originally slated to be sold in Hong Kong only in a contract-capacity, is going to be made available through normal channels. The 2GB … Read more

Laptop Batteries: Safer, 30% More Energy?

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Within the near future, a new development in Lithium-Ion batteries could improve battery life for laptops, or it could create a situation where batteries are smaller. The researchers are talking about a 30% increase in energy, not to mention safer, and longer-lasting.

When you look at Intel’s efforts to reduce power consumption (and to be fair, AMD and VIA), as well as the increase in backlit-LED displays, in theory, laptop/notebook and UMPC manufacturers could go one of two ways: Devices similar to some of the designs we now see, but with a 30% (or more depending on CPU/chipset) increase in battery life. Alternatively, they could design devices quite a bit smaller or thinner, but with the same battery life we see these days (say reduce the battery size by 30%.

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Dell to Produce 8.9 – 9-inch Mini Notebook

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Dell Mini Inspiron Update: May 28, 2008 – it is now called the Dell Mini Inspiron. The HP 2133 Mini-Note PC and Acer’s upcoming Aspire offering won’t be the only small/ultra-portable laptops joining the Asus Eee PC 900 and Fujitsu LifeBook P1620 in the 8.9 – 9-inch range for netbooks/subnotebooks

Dell appears to be on its way to producing a machine in this range – lost in the hoopla over HP’s indtruction of the 2133 Mini-Note this week, are a few tantalizing bits of news coming straight from Michael Dell himself.

The Austin-American Statesman reported that in reference to Asustek’s Eee PC and Hewlett-Packard’s Mini-Note, CEO Michael Dell said yesterday, while on a trip to Israel, that Dell would be producing a similar model sometime in the next three-six months and that it would be running Linux.

San Jose Mercury News quoted Michael Dell as saying:

“We will introduce a similar laptop…We do see opportunities for very interesting products that are smaller and lighter and address the more mobile users in a very cost-effective way….”

“Stay tuned……We will have some interesting products coming in that space over the next two quarters.”

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HP 2133 Mini-Note PC Round-Up

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A quick round-up of HP 2133 Mini-Note PC news, since a lot of information came out today. Some of the HP pages allow you to add one of the models to your cart, however you are unable to check out at this point. There appears … Read more