Author: Tarandeep Kaur

BYD Electronics, a huge company which manufactures manufactures and sells handset components to many cell phone companies including Nokia is now going to start producing  netbooks for the OEMs. However, it may use the R&D from TCL to give them a hand in producing netbooks.

BYD is now following the suit of many other netbook manufactures who previously used to produce only handsets and now have jumped into production of white-box netbooks for OEMs. Another interesting fact is that the Chinese netbook makers are able to drastically cut down the price of producing the mold cost of netbook from nearly $230,000 to mere $44,000.

BYD making netbooks for the OEMs is a great news for the netbook market, which can futher reduce the price of netbooks without much effect on quality. Future is getting even brighther for the netbook OEMs and of course, us – the consumers

[BYD Electronic] [via digitimes]

ASUS today quitely unveiled their new netbook, EEE 1000HE, where “E” means extended. The new netbook features the new Intel Atom processor (N280) running at 1.66GHz, which is whopping 60Hz faster than it’s predecessor. It also features a HD-capable Intel GD40 chipset. But, here is the more interesting part: ASUS claims that it manages 9.5 hours of battery life! Smokes!

Specifications:

Intel Atom N280 processor @ 1.66GHz
160GB HDD
1GB RAM
10GB EEE storage (read more about it)
WiFi b/g/n
Bluetooth 2.0

The EEE 1000HE features the new improved chicklet style keyboard, which features bigger right shift key. To make the package more attractive, folks at ASUS have also thrown in a 10GB EEEstorage. It is quite funny that in the press release they’re calling the combi of HDD and EEE storage a hybrid storage. Hybrid storage in netbook world means usage of both HDD and SSD in the same machine. EEE storage (reviewed here) is nothing but a online storage scheme by ASUS

more commentary: Although the ASUS claims 9.5 hours of battery life, but under what conditions? Here is the extract from their press release:

Estimated maximum battery life under Windows XP is measured with BatteryMark 4.0.1 (in Eee PC Super Hybrid Engine Power-Saving mode, 40% LCD brightness, Wi-Fi off, BT off, and camera disabled).

In actual conditions, where the user would be using WiFi, one should be able to get 4.5-5 hours, which is still a great achievement nevertheless.

LB-F1500W netbook from the house of Mouse Computer, where LB stands for “Luv Book” has been spotted in Osaka. As mentioned before, it has a 10.2-inch screen and other standard netbook features like 160GB HDD and 1GB RAM, but it comes one non-standard netbook feature: a built-in optical drive. Price-wise too, it way more costlier at $729.

Features:

• Atom N270 processor
• 1GB of RAM
• 160 GB HDD
• Battery 5.2 hours
• 2 USB ports

Shower your comments, if the netbooks with built-in DVD drives have a big market? I personally do not feel the need as they were meant to be light, cheap and easy to carry around. [Slashgear]

More pictures after the break:

We were all very impressed when the OQO Model 2+ was released. Although the price $1499 put it out of the scope for many people. Although the base model costs $999, it does not come with inbuilt 3G.

If you own a 3G Nokia phone or a 3G Windows Mobile, you can emulate your mobile as a Wifi hotspot by using these utitlies:

• JoikuHotspot (for Symbian)
• Walking Hotspot (Windows Mobile)

Note: You can also use Bluetooth or the standard data cable to connect your device to Model 2+

The difference of $500 is quite huge. The base model comes with 1.33GHz Atom Z520 processor rather the 1.86GHz processor, but it comes with Windows XP tablet, which would fly on the 1.33GHz processor anyway.

[oqotalk]

Venturebeat had an opportunity to have an interview with the CEO of Nvidia. He told them that they are very optimistic about Intel allowing the netbook vendors and manufactures to use the Ion platform along with their Atom processors.

We also personally feel that use of Ion platform will open new fields and areas which have so far been beyond the scope of Netbooks like watching HD videos (1080p). The main boost will be seen among the consumers who yearned more from their PMPs. By using Ion, they will be able to play some great games and will be able to watch movies in HD format.