As I mentioned in the brief post earlier, the Gigabyte S1080 appears to offer some great connectivity. We’ll get it into the database as soon as we can. Here’s the video hands-on. There’s a full gallery here.

I’m following Oaktrail product releases closely and this one, like other Oaktrail products, has some interesting specs.

Its the Pioneer Dreambook ePad F10

Full specifications are now in our database but here are a few highlights that you don’t often see together on a Windows tablet. 15mm, 700gm, 8hrs. Obviously you should Chippy’s  Marketing Correction Factor of 30% on that battery life but hey, even 6 hours would be pretty good for a 700gm Windows tablet with a 10” screen. I don’t know what battery they have inside but 40Wh would be about the maximum size. Also note that there’s an HDMI port. Oaktrail, the platform that this is built on, supports 1080p decoding in hardware.

There’s one other specification that I find even more interesting though – Intel WIDI wireless display technology. It’s currently shown on the specification page at Pioneercomputers.

I was speaking to Intel at CES about wireless display on netbooks and they said, yes, it’s coming but they were quoting requirements that included dual-core Atom and Broadcom HD display module. I wonder if Oaktrail, with its built-in 720p HD encoding, is going to offer wireless display without the Broadcom and dual-core requirement. I sincerely hope so because wireless displays make so much more sense with a tablet than on a desktop or laptop.

We’ve got a query out to Intel on this and hope to bring you confirmation soon.

One other interesting thing about this tablet is that it is possible to buy it without an OS meaning it could make an interesting Meego development device. Or even open-source Android. Wait for details on the touchscreen before buying tho because some of them don’t play well with Linux.

But…The big question remains. Is a 1.5Ghz single-core Atom CPU enough to drive Windows 7 smoothly. With 2GB, a fast SSD and the GMA600 it’s possible but it’s going to take a well-designed unit to pull it off.

Ultra-mobile computing includes daylight usage and despite attempts at high-brightness screens in the mobile computing market, there has never been a truly low-cost mainstream solution on a device larger than about 4”. Transflective screens have been around for years and I vividly remember the Nokia E90 and how it worked so well in the sun so it’s good to finally be seeing transflective screens on a netbook. OK, so the OLPC had a transflective screen too but that wasn’t exactly mainstream!

Thanks to Clover we now have the Sunbook to consider. It’s a 10” netbook running the Pinetrail platform (single core N450) with a high capacity battery. The key feature is the Pixel Qi transflective screen.

You’ve got two advantages to consider. Sunlight readability and battery life.

“Turning off the display backlight cuts the power consumption in half, providing battery life up to 12 hrs. or more.”

In theory, there’s quite a gain to be had from turning off a backlight. At full backlight power on a netbook, a screen can take 2-3 watts of energy. On a netbook that can idle at 4W (screen off) it’s close to a doubling of energy consumption. In practice though you’re using the device when the screen is on and the netbook is draining an average 8W. The screen, in this scenario, is about 25% of the drain. In addition to that, one rarely operates the screen at 100% and rarely stays in the sun for 8 hours! I am sticking to my original estimate that a transflective screen will add about 10% battery life for the average netbook user although I’d be happy to do some detailed testing – Clover! I don’t want to belittle the advantages here because there are definitely users that would get a bigger battery life advantage and given bright ambient lighting, there are indoor advantages too but I don’t want people running out an paying a $300 premium expecting a doubling of battery life. This is a specialist device for a niche customer.

Sunlight readability is the second advantage of the screen and is the real reason you would be looking at buying the Sunbook. Just being able to use a netbook in the sun for 30 minutes is worth a lot to many people. I can think of many vertical markets where this is important. My Solar-UMPC tour would have been much easier for example!

Testing needs to done on the netbook itself to see if it comes up to scratch but if it does, we’ve got a unique and price-breaking product here.

A PDF brochure is available here which mentions some splash resistance. The Clover Sunbook website is here and the current price is $795. We’re trying to get hold of a sample for testing.

Via Liliputing

The average weight of a 6-cell netbook is somewhere around 1200-1300 grams with true battery life of about 6hrs so seeing the specs for the Acer Aspire One 522 (AO522-BZ897) is quite encouraging considering the increase in CPU and GPU processing power that this will offer.

6hrs sounds good but let me send a quick warning out because the power envelope of this device is likely to reach much higher than any netbook. I predict that you could run this baby dry in under 3hrs if you pushed it hard, especially as the 6-cell battery looks to be a relatively low-capacity one. (4400mah)

Still, when you think about the upgrade thoughts of tens of million of existing netbook users that have 3hrs battery life on their 1-2 year old netbooks, this is quite an attractive upgrade in the 10” segment. It’s certainly one that I’m looking at very closely indeed, especially at the $329 price shown on Amazon.com now.

AMD look to be filling the big gap left between Atom and the new Core processors quite well. Let’s see what Intel come up with the for the next generation of their netbook platform (Cedar Trail) which really needs to hit similar performance to the AMD Fusion platform (Ontario AMD C-50 APU) in a smaller power envelope to be competitive. With HD video, HTML5 and Windows 7, the requirements for CPU,GPU and memory have changed a lot since 2008.

Via. Netbooknews

We’re waiting for a price on this productive tablet from Tegatech but if it’s anywhere near what Viewsonic are proposing for the equivalent (we assume same OED) Viewpad 10 – around 550 Euros for an entry-level version-  it will be well worth checking out.

Update: The launch is postponed untilt he 15th due to global Windows Phone 7 launch events.

We tested the Viewpad 10 at IFA last month so we’re already fairly confident that the performance and responsiveness is  acceptable and with Windows 7 Pro, 2GB of RAM, a 32GB SSD and 3G option, it really would make an interesting modular PC. Take it from me, someone that has been using a UMPC and netbook exclusively since March, you will be able to use this as a desktop PC for most day-to-day scenrios.

As with all Windows-based tablets, I tend to look immediately for a docking port and unfortunately, it’s missing on the Tega V2. (and Viewpad 10.) I can not overstate the usefulness of a docking port and docking cradle on a productive tablet, especially when you’re looking at having to charge during the day and with the possibility that 10” in portrait mode makes a superb second screen.

We’ve added the Tega V2 specs, links and images to the database.

With a confirmed (we checked out the hardware at IFA) 4hrs of battery life possible, it’s not bad for an 800gm PC with a 10” screen.

Our only issue is that if you’re using the 16GB drive version, there won’t be much storage space left after Windows has gobbled up most of it.

As for the included Android Open Source build, well, it’s interesting. You might find some use for it. A sideloaded Amazon Kindle app comes to mind if you fancy holding an 800gm book but we don’t see Android as being a key feature here.

As we mentioned, we don’t have prices for the Tega V2 yet but we do know that Tegatech have now expanded operations into Europe and US which is perhaps a sign that the pro-mobile segment is benefiting from the consumer tablet craze.

Our hands-on with the similar (unconfirmed but we suspect the two devices are coming from the same production line) Viewpad 10 is shown below.

Just shown at IDF. This is going to be available later this year.

The frame spins round to reveal a keyboard. We’ll tray and get more pics soon.

The device is codenamed Sparta but will be called the Inspiron Duo.

Update: Viewsonic Viewpad 100 is now in the database

Update (It’s called the Viewpad 10 now)

Following up from my post on the Viewpad 100 the other day, here’s a hands-on video. You’ll see Android is fast alright but again, without the always-on hardware platform and no way to switch quickly between the two operating systems, you’ll probably find your self sticking to Windows 7. As a Win 7 TabletPC this is worth considering. 4.5hrs and good performance for 549 Euros isn’t bad.

Viewsonic Viewpad 100 gallery also available.

Welcome to this week’s netbook roundup. In this space every Monday I’ll highlight netbook news items that might not need their own individual posts but may still be interesting.

• Dell Mini 10 Unboxed, Compared to HP Mini 1000 – A nice unboxing of the Dell Mini 10 [Portal page], and comparison to the HP Mini 1000. I still haven’t gotten my hands on a Mini 10 so this video was quite appetizing.

• Gigabyte Promotional Videos for Upcoming Netbooks – Liliputing points out three videos released by Gigabyte on YouTube which promote their upcoming netbooks.

• Rumor: Verizon and HP Readying Subsidized Netbooks – Cheap netbooks due to subsidizes from cell phone carriers are fairly common outside the US, but it seems like HP might be teaming up with Verizon to offer a discount on a netbook if the consumer wants to start a Verizon contract. If this comes to fruition, we’ll probably see a USB WWAN card offered with the netbook, but I think most of us are hoping for a more elegant internal solution.

• How to: Touch to Eee PC 1000HE – Jkk points us to a video tutorial that shows you how to add a touchscreen to the Eee PC 1000HE [Portal page].

• Asus Eee PC T101H at CeBIT 2009 – A late CeBIT video from Jkk. Jkk gives us the run down on the tablet-netbook, Eee PC T101H [Portal page].