MSI Wind U123 to be available in Japan in a couple of weeks

akihabaranews is reporting that the MSI WIND U123 will made available in Japan within two weeks from now. Wind U123 is very capable netbook that comes with an Atom N280 CPU (1.66GHz) on a 945GSE+ICH7M Chipset. Other specs includes a 10” WSVGA LCD, 1GB of RAM (Max 2), 160GB of HDD, Wifi N, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, SDHC-capable SD card slot and web camera.

It will be made available in Japan and will cost 49,800 Yen ($490).

[MSI]

The Verizon Subsidized Netbook is – HP Mini 1000

There were several rumors about the Verizon Wireless Netbook, but now it is confirmed that it would be the HP Mini 1000. This device was listed that will be released via Verizon’s data service package. There is currently no information about its price, but it looks like it would be $99/month to compete with the Aspire One netbook plan by AT&T.

[via]

HP Mini 2140 HD release date

We all know when the HP mini 2140 was unveiled, HP promised that 2140 will come in 2 resolutions: one is 1024 x 576 and other 1366 x 768, where the latter has not been released yet and only the lower resolution version was made available. A person over hpminiforums contacted HP about the release date of the HD version and they have told him that the final release date of the higher resolution and it is April 6.

ASUS to launch the EEE 1004DN in month of April

We first heard about the ASUS EEE 1004DN during the CES 2009. Now, the final release date of DVD-drive totting 1004DN is getting close. It will be launched in the middle of April. It will have the new Atom N280 CPU and GN40 chipset. It will come with 120 GB HDD and 1GB RAM. It will be available for a price of around: $531-590.

ASUS is also planning to launch 1008HA in the month of May.

[via Digitimes]

TIP for Acer Aspire One 8.9-inch users – do not play music through speakers at full volume

If you care about your Acer Aspire One, do not play the songs at full blast when you are NOT using your earphones. The reason is little odd: right speaker causes enough vibration and / or magnetic interference to throw the hard drive into a tizzy, leading to a whole host of errors and even some potential data loss.

This is not a sign of good design. I do not play music at high volumes on my Acer Aspire One and perhaps that’s the reason, I’ve not faced any problems with the HDD. The SSD owners are not facing this problem (as there are no moving parts there)

[via hardwarecult]

Underclock/Overclock Acer Aspire One using A1CTL and get improve battery life

A couple of weeks back, I was offered a deal about Aspire One that I just could not reject. I absolutely love it. Since then, I have been using all the time. My desktop is now biting the dust. However, one of the things for which I am not happy with the Aspire One is its battery life. It shipped with just 3-cell battery. That battery is able to give nearly 2.5 hours. If I use it heavily, it gets reduced to mere 2 hours.

The utility called a1ctl from a geek called Noda is a great way to underclock your Aspire One. By underclocking, you will be able to run your Aspire One’s processor at a slower clock rate. What will you get by that? You will be able to squeeze more juice out of your Aspire One.

If you are doing basic web surfing and office editing, you certainly won’t need all the horse power of the CPU.

Features:
– no installation needed
– small memory footprint (~5Mo)
– complete fan management, with stopped/slow/auto fan modes
– support newest bios, from v0.3109 to v0.3305
– CPU speed management (XP only)
– fast screen resolution changes, with 1024×768 scrolled and downscaled modes (XP only)
– can enable/disable webcam/ethernet/wifi to reduce power usage
– can be started with windows automatically
– option to prevent HDD clicks
– show temperature & battery in tray icon
– customizable icons & colors via .ini file
– integrated ACPIEC driver patching to prevent log writing

[get the fantastic a1ctl utility]