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Acer has unveiled the latest entry to its hot Aspire One Netbook line--this one powered by Intel's new N450 Atom processor.

The newly-launched Acer Aspire One AO532h, driven by Intel's next-gen N450 chip, is designed to offer better performance and longer battery life than older Netbooks. Acer claims the new machine can last up to 8 hours with the standard 6-cell Li-ion (4400 mAh) battery or 10 hours with a high-density 6-cell (5600 mAh) battery.

The N450 processor frees up space by integrating the graphics processor onto the CPU, so Netbooks can be smaller and thinner. The Aspire One AO532h comes in just under an inch thick and weighs a bit over 2.5 pounds while sporting a 10.1-inch screen, according to Acer's specs.

The new Netbook comes with 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a 160GB SATA hard drive, a 10/100 Ethernet port, 802.11b/g/Draft-N Wi-Fi, a media card reader, and a Webcam. Acer also includes a multi-gesture touch pad that lets you use glide, pinch, and swirl your fingers to more easily move around the screen. The keyboard is 93 percent standard size, according to Acer, so it should be less cramped than many other Netbook keyboards.

Like most Netbooks,… Read more

Toshiba and Gateway are early participants in the growing cavalcade of Netbook makers expected to stretch across the exhibition floor at the Consumer Electronics Show.

These Toshiba and Gateway listings at a Canadian reseller follow Hewlett-Packard's leak of its iMini 210 Netbook specifications. All three models from HP, Toshiba, and Gateway are based on Intel's new N450 silicon, aka "Pine Trail."

The Toshiba and Gateway models both appeared on the Canadian reseller Web site Future Shop and both have similar configurations: the 1.66GHz Atom processor, 160GB (Gateway) or 250GB (Toshiba) hard disk drives, a 10.… Read more

With all the crystal-ball-watching over the seemingly imminent Apple tablet, one issue hotly debated around the CNET offices, but infrequently mentioned elsewhere, is the hypothetical device's status as a mobile computer.

There are two schools of thought on this: either the Apple tablet (or iSlate, or whatever it ends up being called) will be a 10-or-so-inch tablet PC with a full Mac OS X operating system; or it will merely be a larger-screen version of the current iPod Touch, which has a closed, limited phone-like OS.

The former would mean it could very likely run any software you'd run on a MacBook, from Firefox to Photoshop, and maybe even install Windows 7 via Boot Camp or Parallels. The later points to a hermetically sealed ecosystem, where apps would have to be approved and sold through an official app store (as in iTunes). … Read more

Consumers who want to watch high-resolution HD video on Hulu on the newest crop of Intel-based Netbooks will have to seek out models equipped with special chips from Broadcom or Nvidia.

Though Intel announced a major makeover of the Atom processor Monday, it's still not powerful enough to handle the highest resolution video.

For playback of high-resolution HD video--such as 1080p--Intel has "validated" an additional Broadcom chip that Netbook suppliers can include in systems, according to Anil Nanduri, director, Netbook Marketing at Intel.

Not coincidentally, on Monday, Broadcom announced the BCM70015 Crystal HD chip for high-resolution video … Read more

In this week's preholiday edition of the Digital City Podcast, we all get ready for our one long break of the year, accompanied by special guest smartphone guru (and new CNET East Coaster) Bonnie Cha.

Scott and Joe have seen James Cameron's "Avatar"; Bonnie and Julie haven't. We also discuss Intel's new Atom Netbooks, 3D Blu-ray on the PS3, holiday smartphones, and upcoming laptops and phones at CES 2010. Best of all, Scott gets a chance to show off his one and only Batjew T-shirt. Watch it on video or you'll miss it. … Read more

Verizon explains its early termination fee reasoning. It turns out it's just trying to help the poor. You see, when they charge these outrageous fees, it SAVES poor people money on their phones. At least as long as they don't mind being locked into a contract for years. We also rage against the Rage Against the Machine number-one non-Christmas song.

Barnes & Noble to compensate for late e-book Readers http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704786204574608100009605442.html http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/21/nook-1-1-update-hitting-now/… Read more

It's an exciting and interesting morning for Netbook fans, as full official details and even system reviews of new Netbooks bearing Intel's next-generation Atom processors have emerged.

However, does the timing annoy you?

While we've known new Atom Netbooks were around the corner for months now, the announcement hits just three days before Christmas Eve and after the last weekend of holiday shopping. Does the new Atom make you want a new Netbook or regret getting one this holiday? On the other hand, do the modest gains from the new Atoms make you want an ultralow-voltage thin-and-light with a faster processor instead, … Read more

The newest version of Asus' popular Netbook, the $379 Eee PC 1005PE, is the first system to reach our labs with Intel's new Atom N450 processor--the long-awaited sequel to the Atom N270 and N280 CPUs found in nearly every other Netbook.

This new 1005 model, thanks to the re-engineered Atom platform, is extremely efficient, and ran for more than 8 hours on our grueling battery drain test. That's extremely impressive, although the N450 was more of a mixed bag in our performance tests, beating other Netbooks in some categories, but matching or falling slightly behind in others.

The … Read more

Intel is launching the biggest makeover of the Atom processor since the seminal chip debuted in the spring of 2008, and consumers can expect a crush of new Netbooks to follow.

As previously reported, Intel's latest N450 processor and NM10 Express chipset--technology that had been previously referred to as "Pine Trail"--will be used in a new raft of Netbooks that will debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Hewlett-Packard, Acer, Dell, Asus, Toshiba, Lenovo and others are expected to either announce new systems before the show or exhibit new models there.

Intel said there will be more than 80 new Netbook designs--typically priced around $350--on the way, with systems coming available by January 4.

The Pine Trail design squeezes the graphics function, previously on a separate chip, onto the central processing unit, or CPU, a first for Intel. The result--by decreasing the number of chips from three to two--is a reduction in the overall chip package size by 60 percent.

"This is the first monolithic processor with the graphics built in and the memory controller built in," said Anil Nanduri, director, Netbook Marketing at Intel, in an interview. The size of the accompanying NM10 "I/O" chipset has also been reduced, Nanduri said.

To the consumer this means better battery life and thinner designs. "We'll see sleeker designs coming into the market and longer battery life," said Nanduri, adding that average power consumption has dropped 20 percent over the previous generation of Atom technology.

"We got more than eight hours of battery life out of this system," said CNET Review's Dan Ackerman, after testing the new Asus Eee PC 1005PE Netbook, which is equipped with the updated Atom silicon.

Atom-based systems will be sold primarily with Windows 7 Starter or Home Basic. "These are the ones that hit the right price points," Nanduri said. "The kind of applications you load up as you go into Home Premium--with a much more richer experience--more performance is needed for that," Nanduri said, referring to higher-price Windows Home Premium.

Windows XP Home and Intel's Moblin Linux operating systems will also be supported. Moblin offers some benefits over Windows. "You will get a very snappy experience on Moblin and faster boot times because it's very purpose-built for this category," Nanduri said.

Intel expects robust growth ahead for Netbooks. Nanduri cited numbers from ABI Research that show Netbook annual shipments reaching… Read more