netbook

The proliferation at Computex of ultra-small, inexpensive netbooks poses this pesky question: why are traditional ultra-compact laptops so expensive?

The Asus Eee PC 1000 debuted this week with a 10-inch screen, 40GB solid state drive, and Windows XP. Pricing has been rumored at between $600 and $700.

Features and size threaten to push the Eee PC 1000 netbook into a category traditionally referred to as subnotebooks--with one glaring difference: price.

Subnotebooks like the 11-inch Lenovo IdeaPad or Sony Vaio TZ series typically start at above $1,500 and go up from there, ranging up to $3,000.

But as netbooks … Read more

Intel is ready to ship the latest edition of its Atom processor family, this time going after the emerging market for low-cost subnotebooks.

The N270 and N230 are processors designed for what Intel calls "netbooks" and "nettops," and the company plans to unveil them Tuesday at Computex in Taiwan. The new chips are basically the same chips as the earlier Atom processors released for mobile Internet devices, but they have been tweaked slightly for use with bigger Internet access devices, said Erik Reid, director of Intel's Mobile Platforms Group, on a conference call.

While the … Read more

The Eee PC launch went so swimmingly, now everyone is jumping into the pool. Dell's looking ready to make a splash with a mini Inspiron netbook, seen in the hands of Michael Dell himself at this week's All Things D conference. (Dell offered virtually no details on the product, except to say it is the "perfect device for the next billion Internet users.") Acer seems to be dipping its toes into the shallow end, with the rumored Aspire One netbook. MSI's Wind mininotebook sat poolside for a photo shoot. And champion swimmer Asus confirmed to … Read more

We didn't think we'd miss much by skipping All Things D, the conference hosted by grandfatherly tech journalist Walt Mossberg, but we were clearly wrong.

Head Gizmodo guy Brian Lam ran into Dell founder Michael Dell at the show and caught a glimpse of what appears to be a not-so-top-secret prototype laptop. With a bright red shell and a body that reminds us of the Asus Eee PC and the HP 2133 Mini-Note, this mystery laptop is very intriguing.

Does it have an Intel Atom CPU? Is it a surprise back-to-school model, or is it just a prototype … Read more

With Intel's new low-power Atom CPU for Netbook-style laptops (and other ultraportable devices) just starting to see the light of day, industry watchers are already pointing to that chip's successor.

According to rumors first reported on the Web site Fudzilla, "Intel plans to launch its first dual-core Atom-based CPU in Q3....The new dual-core Atom will end up branded as the Atom 330, and just as the single-core Atom 230, the dual-core CPU will end up at 1.6GHz....It has 1MB cache memory, which is twice as much as the single-core Atom 230."

That's … Read more

Canonical will announce Netbook Remix, its version of Ubuntu Linux tailored for mobile devices, in two weeks, Chief Executive Mark Shuttleworth said.

"We're announcing it in the first week of June. It's called the Netbook Remix," Shuttleworth said in an interview with the Guardian. "We're working with Intel, which produces chips custom-made for this sector."

Ubuntu has been working on a mobile version of its operating system for months. In an April interview about the release of the new Hardy Heron version of Ubuntu, Shuttleworth said the mobile version is sufficiently important that … Read more

With all the attention we lavish on Netbook-style laptops such as the Asus Eee PCand the HP 2133 Mini-note, it's easy to forget that all these systems owe some of their DNA to the One Laptop Per Child project and founder Nick Negroponte's dream of getting a low-cost XO laptop into the hands of any student who needs one.

The original XO ended up having more impact as an influence than an actual product, as it was plagued by delays, price increases, and lowered expectations. But even if there are more Intel Classmate PCsand Eee PCs in the … Read more

MSI put out a vague news release today that details some, but not all, of the specifications of its upcoming and unfortunately named Wind mininotebook. At the top of the release, it states the 10-inch notebook will "feature the new Intel Processor," but it fails to explain what that processor might be. An Intel Atom processor is a safe bet; the chips are expected to be released this summer.

The only mention of pricing in the release states that MSI Wind configurations will start at less than $500 in early June. The MSI Wind is available, however, for … Read more

The postman brought us a late-afternoon present on this rainy (here in NYC, at least) Friday--the much-anticipated new 9-inch version of the Asus Eee PC netbook-style laptop.

At first glance, it's easy to mistake this for the popular 7-inch version, as the two share a nearly identical footprint. The 9-inch is bigger by maybe a quarter inch, and weighs 2.2 pounds, compared to the original's 2.04 pounds. Opening it up, you can see the display now fills more of the available space, moving the speakers away from the side of the screen.

As we mentioned a few weeks ago, … Read more