If you still consider a 12-inch notebook-size netbook portable, then you will find this one interesting. Samsung NC20, powered by VIA Nano processor is now available at newegg at $549.
It comes with Windows XP home edition, 1GB RAM and 160 GB HDD. The VIA Nano processor is clocked to run at 1.3GHz. It runs at notebook-ish resolution (1280 x 800) and comes with a 6-cell li-ion battery.
[newegg link for SAMSUNG NC20] [via GBM]
Acer Chairman, J.T. Wang is pretty sure that Q1 will be better than the Q2 and that the waiting period for some components has already increased, which is an indication that demand is indeed growing. Acer is pretty sure to ship nearly a million of the Aspire One D150 netbooks every month from now.
Looks like, their forecast about shipping 12-15 million netbooks in the year 2009 was pretty true.
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[via fudzilla]
All the three Taiwanese netbook manufacturers: ASUS, ACER and BENQ occupy nearly 55% of the total netbooks market share in China. ASUS has 30% followed by ACER at 16% and then Benq at 9%. Although, I’m not surprised to see ASUS and ACER at the top of the list, but I did not expected BENQ to be selling that well.
Although Samsung and HP are also selling their netbooks in the market, but they are not selling like hot cakes and thus have much lower market shares.
[via digitimes]
Everyday, we hear about netbook manufactures adding more and more features in their netbooks, which is now putting them in the category of low-end notebooks. According to the President of The Information Network, Intel is earning not much from the Atom chips and so is Microsoft. We all already know that the Microsoft sells XP licenses to the netbook manufactures for cheap prices.
Anyway, remember the original concept of netbook? The netbooks were supposed to be:
With the numerous addons that the netbook manufactures have started including like bigger displays; bigger keyboards and even DVD burners(!), the word cheap is now out of equation. In fact, some of the top-end netbooks cost more than the entry level notebooks.
In netbooks’ infancy stage, end-users did not see netbooks as media players and full fledge laptops. Now, they do. Why? The reason is simple: people wanted to do much more on these little devices, which the netbooks manucatures like ASUS did not expect to happen. People wanted to see HD video on their netbooks and yearned for bigger screens. This ultimately gave birth to netbooks equipped with bigger screens and huge HDDs. It also made it clear that people want to store a lot on their devices. This decreased the demand for the SSDs as it offered much less storage compared to the HDDs at the same price.
The processing power of the netbooks is now enough to let you see HD content (720p videos can be played easily on almost any netbook). It is only a matter of time that there will be a little difference between the processing power of netbooks and atleast entry level notebooks.
Only few of us had expected that the lines between netbooks and notebooks would get blurred so soon. Consumers want their netbooks to everything and the netbook manufactures are doing everything they can to make the netbook do more and more.
Conclusion: Future looks very bright for the netbook manfactures, but same cannot be said for the only notebook manufactures.
Netbooks have become very personal devices now. We carry them with us everywhere we go. This makes backing up data extremely important. Sandisk provides an excellent solution to this problem. From outside, it may look like a normal flash drive, but what makes it different from the rest of the flash drives is its easy-to-use backup feature. Its massive capacity of upto 64GB makes it ideal for storing huge consumer files too. Do we recommend it? Read the review and find it out yourself.
Who does not like free stuff? ASUS is giving away 4 mystery EEE PCs for free. Winning is simple. Simple visit EEE PC group in Facebook and leave a valuable feedback on the four products. To know about these four products, you will have to visit their YouTube channel, Facebook profile and Myspace page. The products will continue to appear till April 10, 2009.
Please note that this contest is open for only those who are living in the US.
[via]
Plethora of Taiwanese LCD manufactures are readying themselves for the Windows 7’s multi-touch feature. Young Fast Optoelectronics, a Taiwanese company has already started manufacturing capacitive screens for the notebooks and will soon start manufacturing for the netbooks. Resistive touch screen makers like Mildex Optical will also start production to give some competition to the capacitive screen manufactures.
Windows 7 will probably be launched later this year (or early next year) and most of the netbook manufactures will FINALLY make switch from Windows XP to Windows 7. The reason is simple: Windows 7 offers some great multi-touch features which can change the way we use our devices and it will result in bump in demand of touch panels in netbooks/UMPCs.
[via fudzilla]
HTC TOUCH HD sports a huge 3.8-inch WVGA screen which is simply amazing to look at. Now, HTC and EA are bringing together Need For Speed Undercover for the racing enthusiasts. The gamer will be able to change the directions of the car with the G-Sensor of the Touch HD.
Also, Monopoly will be coming to windows mobile. Wait. Windows Mobile already has monopoly (made by handmark). But need for speed finally coming to Windows Mobile is a great news. I hope the HTC cooperates with Qualcomm to make the video drivers availble to the NFS team so that they can use the unused hardware acceleration present in Touch HD.
Here is the official press release:
Double Bonanza for Gamers! ! !
EA Mobile’s Need for Speed Undercover
and MONOPOLY HERE & NOW on HTC Touch HD
Fancy going undercover in the world of street racing or building a real estate empire on your mobile phone? Look no further to engage these gaming actions with EA Mobile’s Need For Speed Undercover and MONOPOLY HERE AND NOW* that NOW come bundled together for the first time on the Windows Mobile platform in Asia on the HTC Touch HD.
Get into your racing gear and rule the streets with the number 1 car racing franchise, Need For Speed Undercover. Racing enthusiasts get to experience gaming like never before with the vibrant TouchFLO 3D user interface on the HTC Touch HD while they race against ruthless gangs running an international crime ring and test their racing skills in bounty challenges. What’s more, the G-Sensor on HTC Touch HD will auto-detect your movement of directions and even change into the landscape mode to provide a wider view when drifting through every tight corner of the streets.
With MONOPOLY HERE AND NOW, aspiring property moguls can buy and sell assets around the world. With unique player icons, sound effects, graphics and easy-to-use controls, the modern makeover of the world’s most popular board game will be more enjoyable with the HTC Touch HD, which comes with a pixel-packed 3.8” WVGA.
There is no better time to get started on your gaming adventures with such irresistible double bonanza on gaming treats, all packed into the HTC Touch HD!
OCZ has made the DIY Neutrino netbook official. This is not just another netbook. OCZ believes that the customer should be allowed to choose the memory, storage and the choice of OS that they want on their netbook. Every DIY netbook comes with:
10.1-inch screenThe user has the choice to configure their DIY netbook with upto 2GB RAM and upto 250GB HDD/SSD. I hope they make the battery also configurable as it is not much when compared to the competitors.
This is a good move by OCZ as this will allow them to get the netbooks according to the configuration they desire. The name is also apt. DIY = DO IT YOURSELF. Should not it be CIY = CONFIGURE IT YOURSELF?
Remember the Seeqpod that released a Windows Mobile application for searching and playing music online? Well, Seeqpod has been sued by a number of companies like Warner, EMI, and Capitol Records. Here is the statement from Warner Bros,
unlawful music service that directly engages in, encourages, and facilitates the mass infringement of Plaintiffs
We knew from the very beginning that it is very hard for a company like Seeqpod to stay in the market as it makes no efforts to filter the illegal content. This is going to be lesson for similar websites who distribute illegal content.
[via techcrunch]
