Category: NetBook

Microsoft is planning to lay off around 1800 employees in the coming 18 months. And guess what, they are blamming Netbooks for this. The Microsoft has suffered a painful $465 million hit when it comes to licencing OS to the OEMs.

From Microsoft’s 10-Q filing on January 22:

“The decline in OEM revenue reflects an 11 percentage point decrease in the OEM premium mix to 64%, primarily driven by growth of licenses related to sales of netbook PCs

Who is to blame? I would say that the main candidate is Vista. Vista was slapped onto the netbooks and UMPCs, which actually turned the users off as Vista was not even usable on those devices. That is when the Windows XP came into the game and the users became happy again. The reason was simple: Windows XP could run way better on a then weak hardware.

Hopefully Windows 7 will make things better for the Microsoft. We have already seen many reports of how nice the Windows 7 runs on the low-cost netbooks and notebooks. Now, only if the Microsoft does not charge a bomb to the OEMs for Windows 7, the whole scene can see a positive change in coming months.

[zdnet]

The HP Mini 2140 is now available for order on HP’s website. There are 7 different variations to choose from with the minimum starting at $499 and going up to $779 for the top-end model. Interestingly, HP is no more offering an SSD version for the HP mini 2140. There is no linux option too.

All the models are being offered with either Windows XP or Windows Vista Home Basic/Business. Vista models are coming with 2GB RAM as standard, while XP models have 1GB RAM as standard. All the models are powered by 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor.

Visit HP mini 2140 webpage

Thanks to Jimmy for the tip

We mentioned about the HP Mini 2140 few days ago. HP listened to the complaints of the HP Mininote 2133 and rectified them in the 2140. Folks at NotebookReview have given the HP Mini 2140 a good go. Unfortunately, the higher resolution model is not available in the market yet. So, they were able to review only the lower resolution model, which has a resolution of 1024 x 576, which is even less than the those in the market already.

The bigger 10.1″ screen is a better and most importantly, more comfortable to look at, when compared to the smaller, but very high-resolution screen of the HP mininote 2133. The keyboard has not undergone any change, which is a nice thing.

Pros

• Excellent build quality (BEST in class)
• Great keyboard (BEST in class)
• ExpressCard slot offers fantastic expansion possibilities
• Multiple configuration options

Cons

• Base configuration has low-resolution screen
• Strange location for touchpad buttons
• Screen is too reflective due to second glossy protective layer

Suggestion: Wait for the higher resolution model instead. The current lower resolution model has only 576 pixel vertically, which would hide some of the Dialog boxes. The developers expect at least 600 pixels vertically when designing the applications. So, unless you are in some sort of big hurry, don’t buy the 2140. Wait for the higher resolution model instead, which would be a true upgrade to the mininote 2133.

[HP Mini 2140 webpage]

Vista could not make a big splash in netbook arena due to it’s bulkiness. This paved the way for the Windows XP to live for even more years than Microsoft expected. Talking about Microsoft’s expectations, it expected the Vista to fully replace the Windows XP in each field, which actually did not happen.

Windows 7 may get available later this year or in the begining of next year and we have heard great things about the Windows 7 already. Netbooks like MSI Wind U100 are running Windows 7 Beta pretty nicely already. But, the Windows 7 takes nearly 9GB of storage space, which makes it immpossible to use on the MIDs and Netbooks, which come with small SSDs. That is the sweet spot for Windows XP, which has much less space requirements. Also, the drivers of components used with Windows XP are more widely available. That also reduces the overall price of the device.

[fudzilla]

Well, that did not take long. Ever since we came to know about 10-inch version of the Acer Aspire One, we were very excited to hear more about it. Blogeee.net has posted few photos of the 10-inch Aspire One, which is now being called Aspire One 103. We did some analysis of the pictures and here is what we have to say: Acer did closely listened to the requests of people and almost all of them have been fulfilled in the Aspire One 103.

The new Aspire One 103 has left and right mouse buttons beneath the trackpad now although, the size of the trackpad still looks much smaller than the ASUS’ 10-inch netbooks like the 1000H. The keyboard has not gone much change as compared to the 8.9″ Aspire One, which already had a great keyboard.

The Aspire One 103 also makes the upgrading a lot easier than before. Now, you won’t have to take everything apart just to get access to the HDD or RAM. On the top-left, you can see the access door to the HDD. On the bottom-left, you can get access to the wireless card and on the bottom-right, you can find the RAM slot. We really appreciate that the Acer has made it easier for the users to change the HDDs. This will let the normal users to easily change the HDDs without sending them to the ACER service center.

The new Acer Aspire One will be powered by 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor. Nice, that they did not go for the Atom Silverthorne 1.33GHz which seems to be adopted by many companies. Another noticeable change is that the second SD slot is now gone on the Aspire one 103. The 8.9″ Aspire one used to have two SD card slots.  This also indicates that there would not be an SSD version. Also, the RAM remains same at 1GB. The HDD capacity seems to be 160GB.

Stay tuned for more information on Acer Aspire 103!

[blogeee.net]