Welcome to this week’s netbook roundup. In this space every Monday I’ll highlight netbook news items from around the web.

• Asus Eee PC 1101HA dissected Title pretty much describes this one in full. Spoiler: common netbook parts are found inside!
• Asus Eee PC T91 v Eee PC 1000H photos The recently released Asus Eee T91 [Portal page] gets a little bit of time with the camera and gets compared to several other netbooks.
• Active Media Offers SSD Upgrade Option for ASUS Eee PC Netbooks Upgrading your netbook for a fast SSD is one of the single largest boosts in performance that you can get for your device. Luckily the cheap but fast SSD space is heating up in recent months and that means improved performance at lower prices for consumers!
• GBM InkShow: Thomasin Takes on the Asus Eee PC Tablet Warner Crocker of GBM gives the Asus Eee T91 to his wife and rolls video while she gives her “non-geek reaction inch to the device.
• Video: Dell Latitude 2100 promo video (landing page text in German, video at bottom) The Dell Latitude 2100 [Portal page] is a slick looking education oriented netbook. A cool promo video highlights some of the features that help make it useful for the educational demographic.

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.

Tonight, 07 April, 2130 CEST:

JKK just announced on twitter that he’ll be going live with the DELL Inspiron MINI 10 this evening (2130 Berlin time /CEST) I’ll be there too, as will our podcasting buddy and netbook king, Sascha. Go to http://www.jkkmobile.com/live and you’ll find video, live chat between JKK, Sascha and myself and a live text-chat session for everyone to ask questions in. Naturally JKK will be recording the session too. For a sneak preview, check out his unboxing video that’s just gone up.

Tomorrow, 08th April, 2100 CEST (approx):

We’re aiming for a live MeetMobility podcast recording which will be followed by an exclusive live look at the Gigabyte T1028M touchscreen convertible tablet that’s on it’s way over from Mobilx. That session will also appear on https://www.umpcportal.com/live.

Stay tuned to twitter for late announcements: Check or follow: JKKMobile and Chippy

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 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.
• 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