Other Mfrs

Announced: Acorn Revived! To Produce Notebooks

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In a very surprising move, Acorn Computers is making a comeback, this time in the area of notebook computers. According to Reg Hardware, Acorn will produce, among other notebooks, a 12.1-inch ultraportable notebook, the Acorn Solo Note that will have a widescreen display, run Windows XP, and include Sun’s Star Office. That’s all we know for now – the rest of the details will be revealed on May 10th, 2006, when the Solo Note, as well as Acorn’s other offerings, are revealed publicly. In addition the company(s) or individual(s) behind this will be revealed as well.

Announced: Rock Pegasus 330 (UK)

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Rock (RockDirect.com) announced the Rock Pegasus 330 last week. The Pegasus 330 is an Intel Core Duo based ultraportable laptop with a 13.3-inch widescreen display. It weighs around 4.5 pounds, comes with an internal optical drive (an 8x Dual-Layer DVD Writer comes with some models), and uses either a 1.66 T2300 Intel Core Duo, or the 1.83GHz T2400 CPU.

It’s got a few unique features that make it stand out for its class – it comes bundled with a USB Digital TV tuner, and it has an “Instant On function for playback of DVD, Video, MP3 etc”, meaning that it doesn’t have to boot all of the way into Windows to play media (which saves on battery life). Speaking of battery life, it has a “Silent mode button for silent running and improved battery life”, which presumably turns everything way down.

VoodooPC – “Scott Speed Notebook” version of Envy a228

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VoodooPC has announced a limited-edition version of their VoodooPC Envy a228. It’s the “Scott Speed” Edition, and features a different case than the normal Envy lineup. It’s kind of surprising or interesting (or both) that they chose an ultraportable rather than one of their large gaming notebooks. Scott Speed is an American Formula 1 driver (somewhat of a rarity) and with a last name like Speed…you can’t beat that. The Envy a228 is a 12-inch widescreen notebook powered by an AMD Turion 64 CPU and weighs in at under four pounds.

Top 10 Ultraportable/Small Laptops of April 2006

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Once again it’s time for the Top 10 Ultraportable/Small Notebooks of the month, for April 2006. This list is based on reader interest (which is in turn based on page views, links, etc.). Not the most scientific, but surprisingly it’s been fairly consistent. The only major changes occur when a new notebook is released, but unless it’s an outstanding notebook, the list goes back to what it was before.

Announced: Sotec’s WinBook WS334

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Sotec has announced the Sotec WinBook WS334 and WS334B ultraportable notebooks. These are not to be confused with the WinBook notebooks that are produced/sold in North America (although they may work together). It is powered by a Intel Celeron M 380 (1.6GHz) CPU, has a 12.1-inch non-widescreen display, and weighs in at around 3.5 pounds (with an internal optical drive no less).