Posts

Posted on

Intel believes high-end machines need SSD. What about netbooks?

From fudzilla,

Intel advises its customers that the high end system from Intel should have both SSD and HDD. For $1100 or more Intel propagates that a user should get Core i7 920, X58 motherboard 4GB memory, even that would be hard for Nehalem system that usually feature 3GB or 6GB. X25-M Intel´s mainstream SSD drive, 750GB HDD.

I like the idea of HDD and SSD in a single machine, but I wonder why Intel is still not producing SSDs meant for netbooks. May be they think that the netbooks are good enough with HDDs and they do not have a need for SSDs. Fortunately, there are some netbook manufactures who do not think this way. Take MSI Wind U115 for example, which was the first netbook with both SSD and Hard Disk drives built in. The HDD can be used to store big files while the SSD can be used to drive the OS.

Posted on

Benq to launch AMD Neo-based netbooks in Spring

Benq, third largest netbook maker in China, is planning to introduce a number of thin notebooks based on AMD’s Neo and Intel’s CULV platforms later this spring. The ones on the roadmap include a 12.1-inch and 13.3-inch netbooks notebooks in May, 2009.

However, nothing more is known about the notebooks at this moment. That said, if they stick to the Sempron U210 processor, the price of the notebooks is going to be affordable.

[via digitimes]

Posted on

MyHome – Get Windows Mobile 7 interface

Windows Mobile 7 is still more than an year away from making its debut, but folks at SHBT have come up a software which looks a lot like the sliding panel interface found on the Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphones (non-touchscreen based).

While Microsoft did not being the sliding panel interface in Windows Mobile 6.1, they are bringing it in the Windows Mobile 6.5.

SHBT MyHome is available for 14.95 euros from here

[via solsie]

Posted on

Compal to develop netbook based on Android platform

About a month back, we heard rumors of ASUS to come up with Android based netbooks at the end of this year. Looks like, manufactures are thinking that there is a lot of potential in Android-netbooks. May be that is why Compal Communications, a Taiwanese mobile phone manufacture has plans to develop netbooks based on the Android platform. Right now, it is looking for the vendors that may be interested in Android netbooks.

Whenever I hear about such big manufactures talking about making Android based netbooks, only one question arises in my mind, “What is the need of running a mobile phone OS on a nebtook when it can run Windows XP and Windows 7 so nicely“. If the rumors of Android netbook are really true, then I am pretty sure that we will soon start hearing rumors of netbooks coming from Nokia and Apple.

All of my netbooks either run Windows XP or Windows 7. I do not see the need to run a mobile phone OS on my netbook that has the capability to run desktop OS. Period.

[via digitimes]

Posted on

Redfly Mobile viewer impressions from a netbook and Windows Mobile user [Video]

Redfly recently released a viewer that can run on PCs. This viewer lets you to view and use your device’s screen directly from the PC. Now, Redfly is not the first company to come  up with such solution. Many other companies like SOTI have been offering similar solutions from quite a lot of time. What makes the Redfly different then? Well, it lets you:

  • use different resolutions (800×480, 800×600, 1024×600 and 1024×768)
  • has a projector mode which basically runs the Redfly applications full screen (useful when you are connecting your notebook to a projector)

I decided to load it on my netbook (EEE 1000H) instead of my laptop as netbook is something which I carry almost everywhere I go. Here is a video showing the real-life performance of the Redfly Viewer.

The Opera browser crashed at 1024×600(or x768). Google Maps loaded but did not display the maps. However, Excel Mobile and Word Mobile worked fine. The dictionary application occupied only one quarter of the screen. Contrary to what people must be thinking, it is not Redfly’s fault. Most of the developers just hard code their applications to certain resolutions.

Download Redfly Viewer here

You will also need to download the appropriate device driver. Select and Download from here

Tip: I recommend putting the toolbar in Autohide mode as it takes a lot of ‘vertical’ space.

Posted on

Some Amazing VGA games for Windows Mobile – list

There are many games for the Windows Mobile platform, both freeware or paid-ones. There are few games that offer 3D racing game experience. It is harder to find ones that will work on VGA screens (640×480). Even then, those games have a long way to go when compared to other operating systems. This review/guide is intended to show the games that offer 3D-experience and how they perform on devices that come with VGA display. Although there are few ported games like “Doom” or “Call of Duty”, I will focus on some newer ones.

Flux Challenge

Flux challenge is made by PDAmill. This game is a racing game where you fly in a ship against other ships. In short, you have to go through 24 races and in those races, you get to glide, skid dive in what appears to be underground sewer pipes. Different tracks provide different obstacles. In the end, you get to choose between 6 ships.  You can use either the D-Pad or the screen to move around. To move around on the screen, you just use your stylus or finger and tap the direction you want to go in. The graphics are pretty fluid. There was little stuttering here and there. I tried the game using the game on a Sprint Touch Pro which has the QUALCOMM chip that is known to have issues with graphics. All in all, the game is well worth the $3.00 PDAmill is asking.

Need for speed: Undercover

Need for speed: undercover is made EA games. This is another racing game.  There are 11 cars you get to chose from, where the cars range between Porsche, Nissan. The game is about scoring points. You do this by evading cops; going through the street looking for curves to drift on as well as winning races.  The game can be controlled by either your touch screen or the hardware buttons. The graphics are fluid and run nice and smooth. There is a bit of trick in doing the drift. The game is kind of pricey compared to the others. This came will set you back 10 dollars. But if you’re a racing fan, it’s a must buy.

Asphalt 4: Elite racing

This is just another street racing game. In this game, you get to chose between 10 elite cars ranging between Bugatti Veyron, Ferrari F430 Spider and Nissan GT-R. You also get the chance to race in 6 cities threw out the world each with their own stunning graphics cities include Monte Carlo, Beverly Hills, Shanghai, NYC, Dubai, Paris.  This game also allows you to use either your D-Pad or screen to move around other cars. This game is my favorite one. The graphics are really nice for a windows mobile device. I had no issue while playing the game. There was no stuttering all my turns and nitro boost looked smooth. I also found that using the screen to move around had no lag like the lag experienced in Need 4 speed.

Xtrakt

This game, although not official or even beta provides another type of racing game. The game is pulled from Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. The game had to be modded to make it work on VGA devices as it was designed for WVGA only. The Xperia sports a larger screen with higher resolution (800×400). In this game, you are a girl (maybe) and you have to go through a futuristic city fighting off the robots who are trying to knock you off from your motor bike. With you kill a robot, you earn points as-well-as a diamond. I only managed to get to level 3 so far. Due to that reason, I don’t know how many levels are there in the game. The game recommends that you use a stylus for the game but I had no problem using my finger. Overall, the graphics are impressive and the game play is very fluid and addictive. This game is going to be hit, once it’s officially released. At this point, there is no price or official release date. There is no word, if it would be released for other devices (other than the Xperia).

Like I said in the opening that this wasn’t an attempt to go into extreme detail, but enlist the games that are suitable for the VGA devices. There is a lot of rumbling that iPhone OS has so many great games, but people don’t realize that similar games can also be made for the Windows Mobile Platform.

—

LINKS:

Flux Challenge

Asphalt 4

NFS undercover (handmark link)

Even cheap mobile phones play games, so don’t think you need to get the most expensive phone.

Posted on

Samsung NC20 VIA powered netbook now available

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]

Posted on

Acer to ship a million Acer Aspire One D150 netbooks in a month?!

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.

—

read Acer Aspire D150 review

[via fudzilla]

Posted on

Asus, Acer and BenQ occupy 55% share of Chinese netbook market

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]

Posted on

Netbooks destroying Notebook market?

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:

  • cheap
  • small
  • easy to use

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.