Clearly the person leaking the Dell MID information to the NYT has no idea what’s going on there and has probably just walked through one of the research labs at Dell and got a bit over-excited. I’m sure if you got to walk through Apple’s lab you’d see a few Google Android-based devices too.

‘Could be scrapped’ or ‘may begin selling the device later this year.’ That’s called ‘evaluation’ I believe.

‘Dell may use chips based on designed licensed from ARM Holdings PLC.’ Shock!

‘Dell has considered selling the product through cellular carriers’ Now there’s a new idea to consider!

Justin Scheck of the New York Times didn’t exactly get a ground-breaking factual story and yet it got to  #1 on Techmeme

Nokia, Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, ASUS, Acer, Sony and many others will be doing exactly the same as Dell right now and evaluating the market for a non-voice Internet device using Android, Maemo and Moblin with ARM or Intel cores running HSPA or WiMAX technologies for Web, Navigation, Ebook, PMP and Gaming. Mobile Microblogging is a huge topic and the company that makes the first device to dovetail with this market stands to win a good lead. My money is on Nokia for Europe and Apple for US to be the first major players but because of the diversity of users, locations and applications, there’s an opportunity for many others out there.

I was pretty excited back in January when we first glimpsed the Dell Mini 10, the successor to Dell’s first netbook, the Mini 9 [Portal page]. There were several things that got me excited, but by far the biggest was the idea that the Dell Mini 10 [Portal page] would come equipped with a proper 16:9 aspect ratio screen and a native 720p HD resolution of 1280×720. Since the Mini 10 launched, it has only been available with a 1024×600 screen, until now. Dell is now offering if the promised “720p” screen, but it isn’t actually standard 720p format. Strangely, they kept the 16:9 aspect ratio, but upped the resolution from the HD standard (1280×720)  to 1366×768. I couldn’t say exactly why they decided to go with the non-standard resolution (my guess would be that it is an already existing LCD), but at least they kept the right shape. Anyway, the higher resolution screen can be added for just $35 which isn’t bad for 459,264 additional pixels.

Question for the HD media junkies out there: Would you say that native 720p content looks better when 1:1 pixel mapped on a 1280×720 screen, vs. the same aspect ratio, but not 1:1 pixel mapping on a 1366×768 screen?

[Engadget]

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].

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 are still be interesting.

• Dell Mini 10 dissected — Dell support released a guide for disassembling the Dell Mini 10 [Portal page]. Looks like there are some PCI-e slots which will be good for modding, but RAM is soldered to the mobo which will make it very hard for users to do RAM upgrades.

• HP Promises a Fix for Mini 1000 Webcam Woes — HP acknowledges that there is an issue with the HP Mini 1000’s webcam and says that there will be a method to fix it. Apparently the film over the webcam has a lower reflectivity than it should.

• Gigabyte M1022 netbook has a cool dock — Jkk shows us a pretty slick looking dock for the Gigabyte M1022 which has VGA out, USB slots, and some other ports. It’s nice to see a dock for a netbook, but I hope the base is heavy so the netbook isn’t easily knocked over!

• Dell Mini 10 Netbook Officially Available: $399 — The Dell Mini 10 becomes officially available in the US for $399.

• How to fix the dark webcam on the HP Mini 1000 — Liliputing links us to a new video (after the one taken down) that will show you how to remove the film over the HP Mini 1000’s camera, improving brightness.

• First look at the new slim Acer Aspire One — It looks like Acer is planning yet another 10 inch Aspire One, despite the fact that their latest update has just recently been released.

It’s that time again. Lets have a look at some interesting netbook content from this week.

• Asus to Phase Out 8.9 Inch Screens in 2009 — Asus started with the 7″ screen, moved up to 8.9″ and now seems to be on track to settle for 10″. Digitimes is reporting that Asus says 95% of its 2009 netbook shipments will be 10″ models.
• Dell files for cancelation of Psion’s “netbook” trademark — Dell might not be the biggest netbook company out there, but they are clearly interested in the sector. Dell has filed for a cancelation of Psion’s claim to the ‘netbook’ trademark. Dell says that Pison abandoned the term and it should not have the trademark because of its “genericness”.
• Dell launches Inspiron Mini 10 preorders… with QVC — Dell might have made the Inspiron Mini 10 official in the last several days, but the first place you’ll be able to pre-order it is through QVC. This is an interesting partnership and will definitely get the Mini 10 in the sights of those that might not normally come across it.
• Mini-notebooks account for 30% of consumer laptop sales in EMEA — A research firm is saying that 30% of all consumer laptop sales in the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) region are netbooks.
• Meet Gigabyte M1028, convertible netbook — Jkk shoes us the new M1028 tablet-netbook from Gigabyte. This bumps the screen size up from 8.9″ as it was on the Gigabyte M912, and a few specs.
• Gigabyte M912, convertible netbook, gets the needed 6 cell battery — …and speaking of the M912; there is now a 6-cell battery available.
• Asus Eee PC 1000HG with WiMAX gets official — WiMax might not be a highly deployed WWAN technology yet but that isn’t stopping Asus from slapping some letters on to the end of the Eee 1000 and putting out a model with built in WiMax.

We’ve added the Inspiron Mini 10 netbook to our comprehensive Product Portal as well as added a gallery of press shots. I’m looking forward to the Mini 10 and interested to see how it ranks on the Portal’s popularity charts.

Dell Inspiron Mini 10 Portal page

Dell Inspiron Mini 10 gallery

While the Mini 9 [Portal page] was pretty standard fare as far as netbooks good, the upcoming Dell Inspiron Mini 10 (which Engadget had some hands-on time with at CES) throws us a few welcomed curve-balls. Dell has finally made it official for the US and the Mini 10 will be available for purchase on February 26th.

I’m looking forward to seeing the Mini 10 and here are a few reasons why:

• True widescreen — 16:9 aspect ratio (10.1″)
• Macbook-esque botton+trackpad… trackpad — The entire trackpad clicks down and functions like the mouse button
• Custom multi-touch gesture support (via the trackpad)
• GPS + WWAN
• HDMI out port
• WiFi B/G/N

The official page from Dell also tells us of some upcoming options

•  
  • HD capabilities – Enjoy your favorite movies on the optional 720p Hi-def 10.1¨ seamless display.
  • More Storage – Do even more with optional 2GB memory and optional 250GB hard drive.
  • Navigation – Know your way like the back of your hand using the optional GPS with optional internal WWAN support.
  • Design Studio – Personalize your Mini 10 with cool designs from the artist, Tristen Eaton, in Dell’s Design Studio.
  • Long battery life – No need to sacrifice weight for battery life. The Inspiron Mini 10 provides extended battery life while keeping the weight of the system under 3 pounds. 3-cell: approx. 3 hours. 6-cell: approx. 6.5 hours.
  • The New TV – Watch your favorite TV shows with the internal digital TV tuner.

I’m most excited about the screen which will be able to support native 720p HD (1280×720) content with its 16:9 screen; I just hope the hardware is up to the task of playing that caliber of video!

[GottaBeMobile]

Welcome back to another edition of the WRN roundup, here is some interesting items from this week:

• Sony VAIO P - HSDPA mod — Tnkgrl of tnkgrl Mobile, has managed to unlock the VAIO P’s EVDO only 3G to allow for HSDPA as well; all it took was a $1 part and a bit of hacking.

• Dell officially launches Inspiron Mini 10 in France — The Inspiron Mini 10 has been officially launched in France. Still looking forward to trying one of these out for the unique buttonless trackpad and the high resolution monitor.

• Acer Aspire One AOD150 now shipping in the US — Acer’s second generation netbook is now on sale in the US and for only $350! We liked the first one and are hoping that this one will live surpass the quality of the first.

• SSD Test: RunCore Mini PCI-e SATA SSD for Asus Eee PCs — Jkk does a video test of RunCore SSDs for Eee PCs and sees some pretty impressive speeds. Remember though, these aren’t blindingly fast and super-expensive, but rather have a good price:speed ratio.

• HP Mini 1000 accessories — Brad from Liliputing points us to an HP Mini 1000 [Portal page] site with accessories available for the Mini 1000. A few things are available to order today but the VGA adapter and Mobile Mini Drive still aren’t available yet. Check out our Mini 1000 MIE coverage here.

• Sony Vaio P battery life: Standard vs. Extended — Jenn of Pocketables.net continues here thorough coverage of the VAIO P with tests of the 2- and 4-cell batteries. Click through for a full chart featuring the length that the batteries lasted while running different tasks. While the 2-cell battery probably won’t satisfy your daily computing needs, the 4-cell managed to last just over 6 hours browsing the web (with one hour of that taken up by playing a flash video).

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Weekly Netbook Roundup. Lets see the interesting things that have gone on in the netbook space since we last spoke.

• Special edition Samsung NC10 with larger battery available for preorder — Looks like Amazon is selling a special version of the NC10 with a larger trackpad and battery (5900mAh 6-cell) which Samsung says will last for 9.4 hours. The screen on this version will be glossy unlike the original matte version. You can pick one up for $499.

• Sony Vaio P (VGN-P588E) performance and benchmarks — Jenn from Pocketables.net takes the VAIO P for a spin and shows us lots of good stats on how the computer performs. Some people don’t think the VAIO P is a netbook, but for some reason we included it here in the WNR. Controversy!

• Hands on with the Acer Aspire One D150 - Video — Sascha from netbooknews.de has a good hands on video of the Acer Aspire One D150. He doesn’t seem to be thrilled with the keyboard and says he is disappointed at the quality of the Aspire One D150 considering how successful the original Aspire One was, and that this is a second-gen netbook.

• Dell’s Mini 9 selling for just $249 — who needs a subsidy? — Looks like Dell has cut the price on its Inspiron Mini 9 [Portal page] netbook. You can pick up the lowest-speced Mini 9 which has 512MB of RAM, Ubuntu, and a 4GB SSD. Add $50 and you’ll get another 4GB of storage and Windows XP.

• Netbook growth leads to surge in Windows XP sales — Despite many netbook makers offering Linux flavors of their netbooks, XP is hugely popular, effecting OS sales charts on all PC sales, not just netbooks. “In December, 13.7% of all laptops sold, and 11.2% of all computers were running Windows XP.”.

• More rumored Dell Mini 10 details, colors surface — More information on Dells upcoming Mini 10 netbook. Apparently some leaked information (which isn’t confirmed to be true yet) has indicated that the Mini 10 will be available with two different display options, 1024 x 576 and 1366 x 768. Also contained in the leak is the option of 1.3GHz or 1.6GHz CPU, 3 or 6-cell battery, and something referred to as a “DVD slice” which sounds… interesting.

That’s all for this week. Tune in next time to the Weekly Netbook Roundup next monday!

At CES 09, Engadget managed to get some hands on time with the recently announced Dell Inspiron Mini 10, which I am looking forward to. I see now that the mouse buttons are built into the trackpad which adds another unique item to this netbook’s list of features. Engadget had this to say about the Mini 10:

“…much nicer looking than the Mini 9, and more compact than the Mini 12. No wonder Dell’s calling it a “perfect 10.” The multitouch trackpad is really similar to the one on the newest Macbooks, but it’s a little less intuitive”

Have a look at some of the shots here, and head over to Engadget for even more.

What do you do when the Dell Mini 9 [Product page] and Mini 12 just aren’t enough? Well the only logical thing to do is come out with the Mini 10. The Dell Mini 10, shown at CES, has (obviously enough) a 10″ screen. Something that immediately piques my interested is that the Mini 10 apparently won’t run the obligatory 1024×600 resolution, but instead use a properly formatted 16:9 aspect ratio screen with a 720p resolution (1280×720). Some other nice features include:

• Z530 Atom CPU (less typical than most netbooks)
• 802.11N WiFi
• Integrated GPS
• Integrated 3G
• TV-tuner
• A trackpad with what Dell is calling “exclusive gestures”

I have to say that this is shaping up to be a nice 10″ netbook. We’ll see how the pricing turns out, which at this point is not announced by Dell, nor a release date.

[Engadget]

After recently adding a 32GB SSD option, Dell appears to be the first in the US to sell a netbook in the with a 3G radio and an actual data plan through a carrier. While some carriers in other countries are subsidizing the entire netbooks bundled with a 3G modems, you won’t get that sort of discount here. At least it won’t cost you much extra, provided you sign up with a 2 year contract from AT&T. It looks as though the modem can only be added to a Mini 9 configured with XP at this point.

Adding the HSDPA modem to your Mini 9 [Portal page] configuration will also add $125 to the bill, however you can reclaim $120 of that through a rebate if you sign up with AT&T. So an extra $5 for a 3G modem doesn’t sound bad right? Unfortunately it isn’t the hardware that makes up the real cost, it is the data plan, which will run you $60/month from AT&T. Brad from Liliputing points out that for some, it might be more cost effective to use an AT&T 3G USB dongle if you own more than one mobile computer. It would cost the same amount per month, but offer the flexibility of using one piece of 3G hardware on more than one computer.

[Liliputing]

We’ve seen it done to several other netbooks in the past and now it is the Dell Mini 9’s turn. Jkk points us to a video of a Dell Mini 9 [Portal page] that has been modded with a touchscreen. He says that any of the common 8.9" touchscreen kits can be used with the mod, but connecting the necessary components could be tricky. Check out a short video below:

Maybe in honor of jkk’s ‘SSD week’ last week, Dell has recently put an option into their Mini 9 configuration interface that allows customers to select 32GB of SSD storage (previous max capacity offered was 16GB). It will add $100 to your price if you jumping up from the 4GB option, but that price isn’t too bad as long as the speed of the SSD is decent. Be sure to stop by jkkmobile for lots of good info on SSDs with good price:speed ratios. If you are the hardware type, it may be more effective to buy the cheaper 4GB SSD option on a new Mini 9, and upgrade it yourself.

[Engadget]

Asus was the first to offer a quality notebook down in the sub-$300 range and it looks like Dell is following their example. Apparently a leaked advertisement shows that Dell will be offering the Inspiron Mini 9 [Portal page] netbook for just $299 on Black Friday. The most likely thing that you will find is the lowest end model which is configured with an 8GB SSD, 512MB of RAM, and Ubuntu as the OS (check the Portal page for additional specs). Buying a model that is configured with those specs today would run to $349. Happy shopping!

[Liliputing]

For those of you who love OSX, but also love low cost netbooks, it might be your lucky day. Liliputing is linking to a very handy guide for putting OSX on a Dell Mini 9. Over at TUAW, Steven Sande has put together a nice guide compilation that shows everything you need to get Leopard running on the recently released Dell Mini 9 netbook. Sande calls it the "Little Leopard Laptop", which could made the funny acronym of LLL to compete with the EEE.

If creating a Frankenstein’s monster of PC and OSX components scares you, patience may provide useful as Sande says he is "…sure that Apple will announce a low-cost netbook soon", though in all probability that is just speculation.

If Intel can prevent OEM’s from using the Dual Core CPU in their netbook and notebook designs, how come they can’t stop Dell using the Z-Series Atom in a notebook? Just as the Dual-core CPU could damage notebook sales, so to could putting a 12" screen on a netbook, even if it didn’t have a dual-core CPU inside.

I was alerted to this misnomer [hmmm wrong word perhaps. Anomaly?] today via a brief news item today from Tony Smith of The Register who draws the conclusion that the name of a leaked Dell device that will go on sale at UK supermarket Tesco,  the Z530, means it will have an Atom Z530 inside. Actually he’s right because if you look back to the early leaks, you find a 12.1" ‘E-Slim’ device based on Silverthorne. Dell are actually going to throw a device right into the middle of the consumer laptop arena and give it netbook-style pricing. This is the danger zone and possibly the beginning of the end for netbooks as we knew them.

Why the Silverthorne CPU and Poulsbo chipset though? Style, Battery life and video. It’s going to be a normal laptop aimed at ‘pro-sumers’ and the ‘Youth social networking/entertainment’ customers. They are aiming for a cheap, super-slim device with ‘all day’ battery life with high-end video playback support and the only way they can do it is to move to the latest Intel MID silicon. I like the idea myself. I have a UMPC (Still haven’t pulled the trigger on a new Q1 U HSDPA yet though) and a stylish, 12" ultralight with long, long battery life and high-end hardware decoded video playback would suit me as a partner device to take to conferences and to use for hot-desking.

Why am I even talking about this 12" notebook on UMPCPortal though? Apart from it further bluring the edges of the, once well-defined, netbook category, there are a number of other reasons. The main one for us is that it will be running XP and that means drivers! Those of us waiting for drivers for the SC3, D4, SX3, M528 and Aigo MID are going to finally have XP drivers for the chipset. One can assume that if Dell is the customer, the device will have working drivers too! The second point is one that I alluded to earlier and one that I’ve just detailed in an email report to UMPCPortal sponsors and donators. The netbook market is going to be damaging because consumers are finding that they can use a netbook in place of a normal laptop. It IS powerful enough for many. Consumers are truly finding peace with netbooks. When devices like this Dell cross over into the larger netbook market, they bring with them the low-cost pricing and that immediately damages the main notebook market. We end up with a pricing war that, in the long run, reduces funds for R&D, quality engineering and niche products. While the 12" Dell netbook device may look good for consumers now, it could cross over into the danger zone and cause real problems for the future.