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.
Meet Asus Eee PC 1002H — Jkk shows us the new Eee 1002H which has a slightly faster CPU than the 1002HA, (1.6GHz vs. 1.66) which probably won’t display any noticeable increase in performance. They also put a net chiclet style keyboard on the 1002H. Anything to release a new SKU, right?
Touching Windows 7 — Another video pointed out by the media master, jkk. This one shows how multi-touch support is coming along in Windows 7. It is looking a lot more impressive than what we’ve seen from Vista. Hopefully some of the upcoming capacitive touchscreen netbooks will be able to power these kinds of smooth interactions.
Samsung Netbook Offers Full-sized Keyboard — It looks like in addition to the N110 and N310, Samsung will also be coming out with the N120 which will provide a full sized laptop keyboard while retaining the standard 10.1 inch screen size. This seems counter-intuitive to the very well received keyboard on the Samsung NC10, and may be another blur to consumers who already might have trouble differentiating the difference between the N110 and N310.
It’s the polar opposite of what you usually see on the portal. A mobile PC built around a huge keyboard with a tiny screen tacked on to the side. Obviously this is not quite your mobile productivity box (unless you want a kneck injury) but it’s an interesting option for the home. The video below was shot a few weeks ago at CeBIT in Hannover. After reviewing it, i’m quite sure that the RF ports you see will be for wireless HDMI antennas.
The big question now is what to call this category of devices. Sofasurfer?
Just a few weeks ago, Woot featured the Asus Eee 701 netbook on their Yahoo branded site, shopping.woot.com. Today they are back with more netbooks. The Asus Eee 900 is available from shopping.woot.com today for just $179, available in black or white.
Head over to shopping.woot.com soon if you want to buy one, this deal will only be available through the end of the day or until they sell out!
I thought their description of the product was funny, here is an excerpt:
Seeeeee how weee treeembleee with eeexciteeemeeent? It’s beeecauseee weee’reee eeextreeemeeely eeexhilarateeed to preeeseeent theee Asus EeePC 900 Neeetbook. This sleeeeeek mobileee deeeviceee combineees conveeenieeent, portableee computing with an eeexpansiveee 8.9 inch LCD screeeeeen (feeeaturing a moreee-than-adeeequateee 1024×600 reeesolution), a reeeliableee Inteeel Mobileee CPU, and a deeeceeeent 4GB of fileee-storageee spaceee. Theee EeePC 900 opeeerateees on theee eeesteeeeeemeeed opeeen-sourceee Linux keeerneeel, with an eeespeeecially useeer-frieeendly inteeerfaceee and an eeexteeensiveee colleeection of softwareee for homeee and officeee useee.
We hit the ASUS booth today and WOW! About 30% of it was dedicated to the Eee PC brand. From keyboard PCs to Skype phones and every variation of netbook in between. Quite a sight to see.
Here’s a video of the ASUS T91Go the 3G/SSD version of the ASUS T91 [specifications]. The sky-lighting made it impossible to get a good shot of the user interface but you get to see the device from every angle. JKK does a good job of talking through it too.
Initial thoughts on this news about an a new ASUS EEE device was that it would be just a keyboard, screen and battery ‘shell’ that you could slot an Eee PC module into. I can’t help thinking about a high-end Android MID/Smartphone that slots into the ‘shell’ to turn it into a netbook but i’m sure my thoughts are 12 months away from reality.
In reality (at least in Digitimes’ world) it’s going to be a thin 10″ netbook. If it’s light light light, I might raise an eyebrow otherwise, this will probably be the last you hear of it from me ;-)
My favorite deal-per-day site, Woot.com is selling one of the original netbooks. Well, actually it is its sister site, sellout.woot.com, but the same concept applies.
Today only you’ll be able to buy a refurbished Eee 2G surf which features a 7″ 800×480 screen, 2GB of SSD space, 512MB of RAM, and an 800MHz Celeron processor. You can also choose the color you want, from black, blue, green, pink, or white. Buy soon if you are interested, once it sells out it is gone for good.
Back in October of last year there was some interesting news about a site (WePC.com), made in conjunction with Intel and Asus, that would allow users to submit concepts of their ‘dream computer’ and have it voted on by a large community. The idea was that the best concepts would float to the top and Asus would take these and build a community designed netbook, while Intel would power it.
I took another look at the site today to see if we had made any progress, but from what I’ve found, it seems like we won’t actually see a community designed computer in its own right. I can’t say if this has changed since the initial launch of the website, but the About page seems to set a slightly different tone than the rest of the site.
Imagine your perfect PC. Now imagine top engineers and innovators working around the clock to make that Dream PC a reality. That’s the dream WePC.com is all about.
ASUS and Intel have created WePC.com, a place where users like you come together to share ideas, images and inspiration about your ideal PC. But what if it’s not just talk. Your designs, feature ideas and community feedback will be evaluated by ASUS and could influence the blueprint for an actual notebook PC built by ASUS with Intel inside.
If the words ‘could influence’ weren’t already unlikely sounding enough, you have to consider that they are only talking about a ‘blueprint’ here. While it definitely sounded like WePC was actually going to produce a community designed netbook based on the best ideas, it seems now like the site is just a glorified feedback center for Asus, and a free source of concepts for them as well. There isn’t a lack of advertising either, with one part of the site saying “Buy a dream PC now!” that links to an already existing Eee PC. Wasn’t the point of the site to design our own dream PC? Is it crazy of me to still wish we would actually see a community designed computer that one could purchase come from this project?
Dell files for cancelation of Psion’s “netbook inch 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.
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.
