MSI Wind U115 Honored Among this year's Top Ten Gadgets

At the CES 2009, we came to know about plethora of great products. Among one of them was the unveiling of the MSI Wind U115, which the first hybrid netbook. By hybrid, we mean that it has both SSD and a normal Hard Disk under it’s hood.

Last year, MSI was the dark horse of the IT industry. This year, MSI hopes to become one of the world’s top ten notebook brands through its strong product R&D and global marketing. During the CES, which took place from January 8 to 11, MSI not only continued to promote the latest Wind Netbook, entertainment series, and gaming series, but also introduced the X320 of the aesthetic X-Slim series and four new Wind NetOn All-in-one PCs.

The hybrid storage design of the Wind U115 Hybrid allows you to choose between 8GB and 16GB for the SDD, and 120GB or 160GB for the SATA HHD. The SSD operating system provides efficiency, stability, and cuts down power-up time, while the SATA HHD hard drive provides large storage space. We are pretty excited to get our hands on these hybrid devices as-soon-as they hit the market. What about you?

ViewSonic netbook LinkPC is debuting this March

After so many months of waiting, the ViewSonic would finally be launching the ViewSonic netbook LinkPC. But, don’t get your hopes too for this netbook as it’s specfications as-well-as looks are pretty basic. The price is qutie high at $400, which is not a wise desicion as the competition in the netbook market is getting fiercer and fiercer day-by-day.

ViewSonic netbook LinkPC is debuting this March

Infact, we had some hopes have that ViewSonic would come up with a netbook to rival the new hybrid netbook from MSI U115, but ViewSonic has let us down. Here are the quick specs of it:

1.6GHz Atom processor
1 GB of RAM
160 GB HDD
Wi-Fi
Window XP Home

It will be available by the end of March.

AT&T's $99 Dell Netbook plan now confirmed – dell mini 9

Want to get that sleep Dell Mini 9 for just $99? Now you can because AT&T has now confirmed to offer $350 mail-in rebate, if you get a two year AT&T contract. The Mini 9 is originally available for price of $449, but thanks to this sweet mail-in rebate, the deal becomes irrestitible. For $99, you are getting a quite powerful netbook, which not only has the AT&T coverage, but also WiFi via which you can connect the netbook to the nearby WiFi hotspots.

Hurry as this offer is valid till January only!

Gigabyte to launch 3 new Netbooks in Second Quater in 2009

The Gigabyte is planning to launch 3 new netbooks in the second quarter this year. Out of 3 netbooks, two will be manufactured by Quanta, which is a popular manufacturer of notebooks and Windows Mobile smartphones. All three netbooks are rumored to have prices around $400, although the folks at Gigabyte are trying to get one of them at around $300 for the emerging markets.

I hope the netbooks made by Quanta won’t have hardware problems like the MWG had with the Atom Life. I have personally owned Atom Life once and had to sell it at a ridiculously low price. Not only me, but countless people complained about the hardware issues of Atom Life and the original Atom (then known as O2 Atom).

[digitimes]

ASUS unveils EEE PC T91, T101H and S121

At CES 2009, Asus has announced their three new devices EEE PC T91, EEE T101H and EEE S121 Netbook. The EEE PC T91 is the first official EEE which has a 8.9-inch swivel touch screen. It will come with Windows XP Home edition. It comes with an optional TV-tuner or GPS. EEE PC T101H looks similar to the T91, but sports a bigger 10-inch screen and sports a better keyboard where there is more space between the keys. The EEE PC S121 looks a lot like Asus S101 Netbook, but with new powerful specifications, especially the use of 512GB SSD:

  • Intel Atom Z520 processor
  • 512GB SSD
  • 12.2-inch slim chassis
  • whooping 8-hours of battery time
  • dimensions: 11.7×8.3×0.9

I’m really excited about the one with the 512GB SSD. I am still wondering though how ASUS will be able to keep the price of the S121 low since a 512GB SSD won’t come cheap for sure.

New Netbook from Velocity announced

VelocityMicro have released a new netbook, NoteMagix M10. It has the same specifications as any other netbook in the market like an Atom processor, a gig of RAM and 10.1-inch screen. Velocity is targeting this netbook at the students, who want to carry a fully-capable computer with them on the go running Windows XP. It will be shipping at an expected price for $379.

Features:-

  • 10.1” screen, the perfect size for web browsing, email, and viewing documents.
  • 4-cell lithium ion battery for extended run times– up to 5+ hours
  • B+G Wifi and integrated webcam to stay connected with friends and family
  • Extremely lightweight chassis weighs just 2.6 pounds with battery
  • Microsoft Windows XP for a true computing experience
  • Custom carrying case made of wet suit-grade neoprene

In case you don’t know about VelocityMicro, it is a famous North-American Desktop PC maker.

Visit VelocityMicro website

2GO Convertible Classmate PC – CTL's new Touch-enabled Classmate PC

CTL today officially announced the new 2go Convertible Classmate PC. It will be the one of the first touch-enabled netbooks to be available in the US. There are other players in the market too like Asus and MSI, who will also be launching their own touch-enabled netbooks worldwide soon.

The difference however is the target audience. While rest of the netbook makers are targeting the grown-up individuals, the CTL’s Convertible classmate is for the purpose of education and for the new youth generation. It has a light weight of 2.8lbs (1.27kg), which makes it easy for the children to carry it in their backpacks. Although, at $549, I doubt how many parents will let their children carry such an expensive gadget with them to the school.

Specifications of CTL 2go Convertible Classmate PC :-

  • 1.6GHz Intel Atom 270 processor
  • 1GB RAM
  • shock-mounted 60GB HD
  • 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi
  • 6-cell battery
  • 8.9 LCD screen (1024×600) with accelerometer
  • supports stylus for touchscreen navigation
  • resistive touchscreen technology

The specifications are nothing spectacular, but hey, this device is targetted for the children and the young students and they don’t need a device with lots of horsepower. But, the highly limiting factor again is going to be high price of the device. They need to keep the prices down to let the parents buy it for their children.

Dell Mini 10 – Another netbook from Dell

Dell has come up with another netbook to add to it’s Dell Mini range. The new Dell mini 10 has built in TV tuner, a 3G WWAN, 10-inch display. It is powered by an Intel Atom Z530 processor. Just like any other netbook manufacture, Dell has not forgotten to put in a multi-touch touchpad with which you can do some exclusive Dell gestures like going back to homescreen, auto-scrolling and my Favorties

There was a gap for a 10-inch netbook from Dell. Dell mini 10 is perfect for those who found the Dell Mini 9 too small and Dell mini 12 too big. It features an excellent edge-to-edge keyboard which provides great typing experience. It comes with 802.11b/g/n and GPS too. The display has a 16:9 ratio, which makes it great for HD movies.

The release date and pricing is unkown at this moment

Palm Touchstone is not just-another accessory!

Palm Touchstone is a exclusive Palm Pre accessory which allows WIRELESS charging via induction process. It’s design and color matches the style of the Palm Pre.

Although charging wirelessly sounds great, but it would take nearly 4 hours to full charge a dead battery, which is more than what the wired charger would take. Also, keep in mind that if you buy Palm Touchstone, you will also need to buy the Palm Pre back cover to make it work.

Palm Touchstone link