My personal favorite in the current Ultrabook line-up, the Toshiba Z830, is said to be launching in the USA in late October according to a report by Taiwan News

Interestingly, the report suggests that the entry level model will use a 64GB SSD to keep the price down to $1000. Sales targets were also given at 60 to 70K by the end of the year. Presumably that’s shipped units rather than end-customer sales.

I’m visiting Toshiba Europe next week so will be able to bring you the latest from this part of the world too. WI’ll be hustling for a review model too so wish me luck!

Not in the least bit surprising is the first US$ pricing for the Acer S3 Ultrabook which has broken the $1000 price barrier. One retailer has confirmed an $899 price.

Not only is Acer renowned for setting low price points but if you take a look at the spec sheet for the Acer Aspire S3 you’ll see that it’s missing a few features that could be important to many. No USB 3.0, No Ethernet port. Hybrid hard drive (Not full SSD.)

The price appears to be for a Core i5 version so that’s positive news. (Model number LX.RSF02.079) We’ve found mention of Core i3 variants though and while they could be simple typos, it would make sense to double check before ordering.

Prices are filtering in all over the world now and availability from one Swiss retailer shows a date of 30th Sept so check your local price comparison engine to see if it is showing up. If so, drop above below with models details and prices.

Source: CRN.com

We’ll see these events all over the place over the next few months as all the Ultrabooks filter into the market but given the pricing and specs of the UX21 and UX31, the Asus models could generate the most interest.

Blogeee.net (link below) are highlighting a New York event for the 11th Oct

Read the full story

Dell, HP, Fujitsu, MSI, Samsung, Packard Bell, Sony. There are still a number of laptop manufacturers that haven’t announced Ultrabooks but at next weeks Intel Developer Forum there’s something happening that could reveal devices and add to the list.

Aside from an Ultrabook-focused keynote and a number of Ultrabook technical sessions, there’s an Ultrabook showcase that could be the perfect place to highlight new developments. We’ve seen it in previous years with netbook and MIDs and we don’t expect the Ultrabook Showcase to be any different.

There are very few industry events left this year and precious little time to be getting excitement ramped up before the Christmas sales season so if models aren’t launched by the end of this month with availability in October, it could be too late.

You may have caught our story the other day about the Iconia Tab A100/101 [tracking page] being available for pre-order from Amazon UK with a launch-date set for May 14th. Unfortunately it looks like Amazon wasn’t dead-on with their release-date info. A recent check-up Amazon’s page for the device has revealed that the reported launch-date has been pushed back more than a month to June 30th for both the WiFi-only (A100) and the 3G equipped (A101) versions of the device. Sad news for anyone interested in this 7 inch Honeycomb tablet, and even more sad for anyone who already pre-ordered it.

But hey, at least the larger Acer Iconia Tab A500 is already available on the market, am I right?

Exactly one-year ago today I was in Amsterdam for the Maemo Summit. There was excitement all round as hundreds of developers talked about the future. The N900 was handed out and one of the biggest group unboxings ever took place. This year it’s different, and yet the same. Maemo is now MeeGo and not only are Nokia driving it but Intel and the Linux Foundation are also part of the push. On November 14th I’ll be traveling to the MeeGo Conference in Dublin where I expect even more of a buzz. 600 people from all parts of the ecosystem will be there to learn and code and we hope, we really hope that we’ll see hardware too. MeeGo continues to gain weight and I feel positive that it will be a major player in the future.

When MeeGo kicked-off in Feb I had already predicted that Moblin and Maemo were keywords to watch and strangely enough I even predicted the link-up two weeks before it happened. People still don’t believe that I had no inside information on that one! As MeeGo announced I picked up MeeGoNews.com and within days I started using it as my scratchbook for MeeGo information. Unfortunately, like many side-blogs I’ve started, my time was too restricted and it went stale.

MeeGoNews is Reborn!

Thanks to Dhruv Bhutani [Twitter], a professional tech blogger, MeeGoNews has now re-launched with the aim of bringing news, opinion, reviews and inside information to you about the MeeGo ecosystem. Dhruv is taking the editorial lead and running and writing for the site on a day to day basis. I’ll be doing background work with my contacts to try and source exclusive information, hands-on and reviews. Dhruv has a history of Nokia work behind him and through my work with Intel and other MeeGo ecosystem members we should be able to cover it very well indeed. I’m excited!

We’ve got a bunch of new content on the site already and there’s a Twitter account you can follow too. Our first major job through will be to cover the MeeGo Conference and I’m happy to say that Intel are sponsoring my coverage of the event out in Dublin. I’ll be there from start to finish and hope to bring you a non-stop flow of news and analysis. Question number 1 Show me the products! Second question Show me the App store!

One thing I want to do as soon as possible is pull together a resource list of other MeeGo websites. There’s no point trying to sit on your own in the blogging world so we’ll be reaching out soon. At the very latest I hope to drink a Guinness with other MeeGo bloggers at the MeeGo conference in Dublin. Sláinte!

MeeGoNews.com

Bob Morris, head of the mobile computing division at ARM, is telling us that the Dell Streak is just the first in a line of more tablets that will arrive from various vendors in time for Christmas. I guess if anyone should have the inside info on this it’s Bob so it’s a good sign.

We’re clearly looking at Android as the de-facto Q4/Q1 2011 operating system solution for most of these tablets and although Froyo with Flash 10.1 is a great starting point, there’s still a significant number of big question marks that keep me sceptical. I know Nvidia, ARM and others have talked about waiting for Flash and ‘fall’ but there’s more to it than that.

How about Google Market? This is becoming more secretive than Adsense or Google’s Search algorithm and one wonders just how much money Google are now making from it. The Dell Streak got Market by being a large well-branded company that effectively designed a Android smartphone but what about the others? Every device that didn’t have marketplace/Gmail/contacts/maps so far has been highlighted as an incomplete Android product. Sideloading and 3rd party app stores aren’t the fix either. The second problem is that there needs to be a new suite of >=WVGA, large screen (mdpi-large in Android speak) apps before the first reviews start otherwise the whole Android tablet ecosystem will be tainted with poor early reviews. Bad news never seems to fade from search engine results so Google needs to re-build their app suite for mdpi-large (or even mdpi-maxi as ‘large’ only goes to 5.8 inch screens.) If Android is to have a chance at getting more productive applications in the store (as Apple have already done) Google also need to give developers a chance to prepare new versions of their apps. That can only happen if Google stimulates the developers by announcing Android 3.0 or a new phase of tablet-focused work. Give us a sign Google. Apple gave some devs a three-month head start before the product was launched. Although this was a restricted program, it was instrumental in creating a good day-1, week-1 buzz.

Link: Overview of tablets available, announced and expected

If I was an Android Tablet OEM right now I’d be considering waiting for even more than the above.

• Cheaper Cortex A9 platforms and proven Android hardware builds. Cortex A8 is still good enough but to make a serious marketing splash, dual-core A9 is now needed.
• Clarification on what the hell is going on with Chrome OS (touchscreen support looks likely)
• Concrete information about Android 3.0 (Apps suite, developer take-up, information about ARM-optimised kernels)
• IDF (Sept) and MeeGo 1.1 (Oct) (To asses competing product timescales)

Racing to get a product out for Christmas sales could be too risky and the whole ‘smart’ tablet market could suffer if a big name gets it wrong. Like you, I want products NOW but i have the feeling that the iPad will be a year old before we see any serious competitors.

Not a long story… the Joojoo has had it’s launch pushed back to March 25th. Gizmodo reported the story, but doesn’t have a link to the source (I’ve emailed them and will update when we get it.) Gizmodo quotes the following:

Earlier this month, Fusion Garage’s JooJoo Internet tablet went into full production with an anticipated on-time delivery to consumers at the end of February. Last week, the company became aware of a manufacturing issue involving JooJoo’s industry-first 12.1 inch capacitive touch screen which Fusion Garage was quickly able to diagnose and rectify. The company now forecasts the JooJoo will be sent to consumers on March 25.

The manufacturing issue centers on fine tuning the touch sensitivity of the capacitive screen. Fusion Garage will be providing all pre-order customers with a free JooJoo accessory to compensate for the delay in the delivery of their JooJoo.

Good to hear that they are going to offer a little something for those who put faith in the device and went ahead with a pre-order, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be a USB drive or something!