I honestly expected to see more, and better netbooks at CES. The Cedar Trail platform is a solid one and there’s absolutely no reason why netbooks need to fade away because with a bit of a re-design (thinner, SSD, better connectivity, hi-res screens) they could still control a good segment of the market.
Asus were showing their ‘flare’ netbook in three variants (1025CE, 1025C, 1225B) and the X101CH. The X101CH provides some interesting mobility for the cost but as with the Flare netbooks, there is little attempt to push any other boundaries. It’s the same story with the Toshiba NB510. Lenovo announced the S200 and S206 which come with Cedar Trail or AMD C60. The S200 can be specified with a 32GB SSD but there’s a small battery inside which means you’re looking at 4hr runtime. I suspect this will be a lightweight device although it has an 11.6” screen. (I am a big fan of the S205, the AMD E350 powered version from 2011)
Gigabyte has upgraded the netvertible with the T1006M but again, the design remains thick although credit to Gigabyte for offering easy upgrade ports for memory and hard disk, a high-res screen, pre-wired 3G antenna and a capacitive touchscreen.
The only small laptop-style device I did see that was pushing the boundaries was the Novero Solana.
An SSD, convertible touchscreen and 3G are on offer here but there’s no indication of battery life or price yet. Availability is said to be Feb 2012.
My feeling is that by reducing focus on netbooks, some manufacturers will be missing an opportunity to offer very lightweight, low cost sub-ultrabooks with SSD, high-capacity sealed batteries and other features that the ultra-mobile user could benefit from. Right now though, it looks like laptop manufacturers have dropped everything for Ultrabooks.
Check out the videos below though for a look at the latest netbooks and don’t forget there’s the Lenovo S110 (10”) HP Mini 210 (10.1”) and MSI Wind U180 (10”) that are going to be available with Cedar Trail too. We’ll get all these in the database.
In this show recorded on Friday 20th August 2010, Chippy, JKK and guest, Joanna Stern (Engadget) attempt to round-up 6 weeks of mobile computing news and talk about the netbooks and tablet possibilities for Q4 2010
This is the forth report on key trends in PCs below 12” screen size appearing in the German market through the popular price comparison engine, Geizhals.at . (Based on SKUs, not model families.) The last one was done in November 2009
In this report you’ll see the big jump in numbers coming from the new Pinetrail devices. Below the graphs I highlight some key numbers.
Number of SKUs in the market.
The big jump in numbers is clear to see from the top graph. Total numbers jumped by 115 with Pinetrail making up a large portion of that number. A bigger trend I’m seeing is the introduction of 1366×768 displays. Nearly all of the 101 devices with hi-res screens have appeared in 2010.
Other ‘trends’ that are clear from the data provided in the comparison engine:
78% of the devices are running on Intel Atom. Remember that the segment includes some devices running laptop-grade CPUs. This is not just an analysis of netbooks.
The percentage of devices in the 10% segment dropped but the number of devices still rose.
There were percentage increments in the 5”, 8”, 9” (iPad) segments. Previous reports showed decline in these segments.
Only 5% of the devices are offered with Linux.
There’s a 3:2 ratio of Glossy to Matt screens.
Only 10% of the devices weigh 1KG or less.
Very few Nvidia ION devices have reached the market. Only 3% include the ION option and all of these are ION V1. Devices with Pinetrail + ION are expected in the next snapshot so this number should increase.
The cheapest device (based on lowest price offered) is still the Hercules E-Cafe EC800 is more expensive now – 183 Euros (up from 151) but the cheapest Intel Atom netbook isn’t far behind at only 188 Euros. (lowest price.)
One thing I note every time I do this is that there are a lot of end-of-life PCs still being offered. For example, the EeePC 701 is still hanging around. It’s difficult to measure but it looks like up to 100 of the devices in the market are remnants.
When we look again in June I expect we’ll see a much smaller increase in numbers. The first ION2 devices will appear though and if the ‘tablets’ and MIDs start flowing into the market as promised, we should see growth, albeit very small, in the sub 1KG and sub 10” segments with a corresponding increase in non-Windows numbers.
Back at IDF in September we heard a lot about how Intel would be bringing an app store to Windows and Moblin-based netbooks. The Apps store is due to launch early in 2010 but if you want to get a head start on writing apps for a potential 30 Million plus customers (!) then today is your day. The software development kit has arrived.
The goal of the Intel® Atom™ Developer Program Software Development Kit (SDK) is to provide programming framework and libraries that enables the interaction with the Intel® Atom™ Developer Program processes and infrastructure.
The SDK (available here) allows you to program in either C (on Moblin) or C or C++ on Windows.
I’ve written a lot about the IADP on MIDMoves so check this article out (and this one) to find out the IADP and about how to win prizes that include an all-expenses-paid trip to CES!
Intel have set up a big range of resources that you can use too.
Follow the IADP Community Manager on Twitter. @mungara
And don’t forget one of the most important aspects about Moblin – During 2010 you will see the platform extended to handhelds too. The potential market for Moblin is rather large!
UMPCPortal have been fortunate enough to be able to build some good relationships with resellers over the last few years which means there’s a nice two way channel for information that can go to and from potential customers.
For example, yesterday I contacted Gigabyte about the rumored 912, 8.9" netbook and I should be getting some official news very soon. In the other direction, came the following information for UK and Australian customers…
I honestly expected to see more, and better netbooks at CES. The Cedar Trail platform is a solid one and there’s absolutely no reason why netbooks need to fade away because with a bit of a re-design (thinner, SSD, better connectivity, hi-res screens) they could still control a good segment of the market.
