netbook

Computer sales on Amazon.com are not exactly a proxy for the broader retail market. Still, I do think it is noteworthy that of the top 20 best-selling laptops on Thursday evening, just one was running Windows Vista.

That one is an HP mini-notebook that ranked No. 18, trailing behind a gaggle of Macs and Netbooks running either Windows XP or Linux.

On the plus side for Redmond, 10 of the top 20 machines were running some flavor of Windows. And, as I mentioned, Amazon is not a true barometer.

Apple's market share, while growing isn't exactly neck … Read more

Consumers itching for something to spend their money on this holiday season--all two of you--may be interested in Hewlett-Packard's continued touch-screen aspirations.

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that HP plans to release a touch-screen-enabled laptop by year's end. Price and exact release date were unavailable at this time.

Last year HP released the TouchSmart IQ770 and this year the IQ506. Both are touch-screen desktops that were HP's first major forays into the technology.

According to the article, the new laptop is only the latest in a series of touch-oriented devices, including an upcoming line of … Read more

NEC has joined the Netbook party with the LaVie Light. The 8.9-inch Netbook will be released--in Japan--on November 6, and when it is, the Sylvania G Netbook can rest easy because the LaVie Light will likely carry the mantle as the lamest Netbook in the land. The NEC LaVie Light serves up the typical Netbook specs--Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, and XP Home--but wraps them in what appears to be a plain, unappealing, boxy black plastic shell. It weighs 2.6 pounds, and the 8.9-inch display features a 1,024x600 resolution. … Read more

When I wrote an introduction to Netbooks a couple days ago, I mentioned some of the cheaper models but didn't include any from Asus. From what I'd read, their keyboards were on the smallish side, so that ruled them out for my adult fingers.

But I just ran across two Linux based Asus Eee PCs, model 900, selling for only $300, a price that forgives a multitude of sins.

There are too many Eee models for me to keep straight, but suffice it to say the 900 is last year's model. In the Netbook world, "last … Read more

Worldwide PC shipments were up 15.8 percent in the third quarter, slightly lower than expected.

Just over 80 million PCs were shipped around the globe during the third quarter, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker report released Wednesday. The popularity of Netbooks helped to disguise an industry that looks to have continued tough times ahead. Budgets for buying PCs were constrained as the quarter progressed, and IDC says there's more where that came from.

"IDC expects the ongoing economic woes in the U.S. to further impact consumer and commercial PC spending during the holiday … Read more

Despite the success of Linux, and particularly Ubuntu, in ultraportable netbooks, Ars Technica is reporting that Linux netbooks have a dramatically higher return rate than Windows-based netbooks, and for some very good reasons.

Ranging from "It's not Windows" to hardware compatibility problems, Linux netbooks are off to a rocky start. True, as Novell's Nat Friedman tells Ars Technica, it was to be expected that there would be "some hiccups on what is essentially the first large-scale consumer rollout of Linux desktops to new Linux users." That these are new Linux users is in and … Read more

Nothing is much of a secret about Apple events these days.

Turns out, a high percentage of the rumors and leaked images of the notebooks announced Tuesday were right on target: The price drop, the aluminum casing across the entire product line, the new unibody construction process, the black bezeled displays were all mentioned on Apple rumor sites and gadget blogs before CEO Steve Jobs took the stage Tuesday.

But, as would be expected, several of the most widely circulated pieces of speculation proved false. In brief comments after his keynote speech, Jobs did something he doesn't usually do, … Read more

Despite the volatile economy, the PC industry overall appears on the surface to be doing fine thanks to the influx of cheap, underpowered notebooks.

Overall, worldwide PC shipments rose to 80.6 million units during the third quarter this year, a 15 percent increase over the same quarter a year ago, according to a new quarterly report issued Tuesday by research firm Gartner. In the U.S. however, the picture is not so rosy.

Perhaps because of consumers' economic worries, a lot of sub-$500 computers sold in the third quarter. Whether it's a new worldwide Netbook market that'… Read more

After months of rumors, Samsung has finally made it official: The company will be bringing its NC10 Netbook to the United States.

The 2.8-pound minilaptop's white case toes the design line established by the Asus Eee PC, Acer Aspire One, and others. So it's no surprise that the NC10's configuration is fairly typical as well, with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of 800MHz RAM (upgradeable to 2GB), and Windows XP, plus a large, 160GB hard drive. (With computers as with apartments, a lot of storage is always welcome.) The 10.2-inch screen features … Read more