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"If you think my one-of-a-kind MacBook Mini is great, then you should really see my custom Porsche. It's really just a wheelbarrow, but I've got like four or five Apple stickers on that puppy." [Thanks OMG Ponies!]
It was nearly six months ago when Samsung laid out their plan to manufacture an affordable, super-fast 256GB SSD by the end of the year. It sounded a little bit optimistic at the time, but as of today, they're here. Sort of. Samsung says that manufacturing has begun, but still hasn't let loose on the most important nugget: price. They have, however, elaborated a little bit on their claims of "disruptive" performance: the news SSDs will offer speed "analogous to having a 15,000rpm drive, without all of its size, noise, power and heating drawbacks." They also claim to have decreased the read/write speed gap to about 10% and dropped power consumption to a slight 1.1w. This all sounds great, it's cost that'll win the SSD war. [Akihabara]
The Dell Inspiron Mini 12 is a bit confused. It packs an Intel Atom processor, which makes it a netbook. But it also has a 12-inch screen, which exceeds our definition of what a netbook can be. On one hand it's a natural evolution of the genre in an ever growing screen size arms race, topping the 10-inchers like a razor company adding another blade. On the other, the Inspiron Mini 12 reaches a size and pricepoint that makes it comparable to far more capable systems from Dell in the same pricerange.
I'd thought that the 7800mAh battery for the MSI Wind was absurd, but one netbook fan got his hands on a $US62 12000mAh battery for his Asus Eee. The result, pictured here, adds over half a pound to the machine's weight and an uncomfortable incline to typing on the system. But it should offer 8-10 hours of battery life, too. Here's the more obnoxious closed shot:
You may be wondering why every netbook we write about seems to have the same Intel Atom processor. Some of it has to do with Intel's prominence in the entire processor market at the moment (which makes competition from Via little contest), and some of it has to do with AMD not stepping up to duke it out in the tiny laptop arena. AMD simply has no interest in the mini-laptop market, and CEO Dirk Meyer makes it abundantly clear:
In case you were wondering what somewhat troubled chip maker AMD was going to do in the next few years, the company's now revealed its completely updated roadmap that addresses everything from high end all-in-one desktops to netbooks and UMPCs. Especially interesting is it's treatment of its "Atom-killer"... which it says "won't be going to the bottom where Atom is going."
If you got one of those 8.9-inch Eee PCs and found that the 12GB of included drive space just wasn't enough, don't despair! GreenHouse Japan has released two new SSD modules which sport 35MB/s reading speeds and 15MB/s writing speeds. The modules are specifically made to work with the 901 and 900 lines, and will cost $US143 for a 32GB version and $US292 for the 64GB one. [Greenhouse via Akihabara News]
Yes, the netbook market is tired and pretty jam-packed, but check out this shiny beast: it's a mini-netbook from Korean manufacturer UMID. And it's tiny. There's no official size info, but it looks smaller than a paperback book, and comparable to the old Psion PDAs, if you remember 'em, but far more capable.
Posted by Nick Broughall at 12:30 PM on November 12, 2008
Toshiba's entry into the rapidly-becoming-overcrowded netbook space has landed in Australia, and just like they promised back in July, it adds a bit of a price premium to their similarly specced mini-notebook rivals. The NB100 will set you back $715 and for your coin you get an XP-powered, 8.9-inch laptop with a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB RAM, a 120GB HDD and three USB slots. Considering those specs sound awfully similar to every other netbook on the market, it's natural to wonder where that extra $215 comes into play. The only thing we can spot in the press release or the specs is the 'diversity antenna', which "automatically adjusts signal reception for optimal connectivity to the internet, minimising drop outs and disruption while online". Oh, and the three USB ports will charge your gadgets even when the NB100 is switched off. Does that make up $215 worth of goodies? You tell us...I think we'll leave that up to you...
The suits might fire me for this...but I'm slashing the price on this lovely Dell Mini 9 laptop to $US529. Holy crap, I just blacked out. What did I just say? Did I just say $US529? I meant to say $US1,529! Hell, I meant to say $US10,529! Well no going back now, the Dell Mini 9 laptop is here on QVC for just $US529. These are great for kids, grandparents, baseball players...wait a second...I'm receiving word that you can actually customise this same system for $US449 on Dell.com. Well...I mean...then you'd have to...go online...series of youtubes...and stuff. So, uhh, I'd recommend all QVC fans buy the Dell Mini 9 from us, then go to Dell.com and pick up a second Dell Mini 9 for only $US449. That's two laptops for under $US1000 here on QVC. Damn, still got it! [Lilliputing]
