Velcome, darling! Look what we have for you! Sergey Brin wearing VFF KSOs, CrunchGear’s favorite, as Greg calls them, “crazy monkey shoes.” I’m personally a VFF convert and I’m very impressed that Sergey is willing to walk around in these.

For those not in the know, Vibram Five Fingers are ultralight running/sports shoes with separate pockets for each toe. I wear them running and love them – they fixed quite a few of my running issues after a number of years of abuse. They were popularized by Christopher McDougall’s Born to Run but they’ve been around for a few years. They essentially teach your body how to run barefoot again, just as your ancestors once ran freely through the sylvan woodlands of New Jersey, long, long ago.

My review is here.

They definitely make you look like a freak. However, I suspect the sting of scorn and ridicule is dampened a bit by the fact that the man has billions and billions of dollars. In my case, people just laugh at me when I run and I cry. The sweat hides the tears.

Now this is a Vaio I can get behind. Considerably more usable than the P series this tiny little laptop is clad in carbon fiber and looks amazingly cute and functional. The units they were showing were running Windows 7 and Atom chips.

The guy at the booth pointed out that there was an earlier model, almost as small as this one, made in 2003 (shown in the last two images). It wasn’t powerful, but it predated the MacBook Air by years.

In all, however, this is a great move. It’s ultralight and ultrafun.

11:06 Talking about how Sony is changing.

11:08 The 3d train is on the track. Focus on cinema 3d.

4k digital projectors. Up to 1300 3d projectors in Regal Cinemas.

11:14 3d content coming to Sky in UK and Blu Ray disks. Expect more 3d on tv next year.

Moto Storm on PS3 is pretty hot. 3d changes the experience.

Now talking about video delivery on the Playstation Network. Lots of European partners.

11:19 PSN content coming to other devices – not just Playstation/PSP. Huh.

New global brand message. Make.Believe.

Contribute content to Sony. Connects designers and engineers.

Seriously not sure what it means. It’s weird. It will connect brands, services, and content.

11:25 Fujio Nishida now on stage. President of Sony Europe. He says people are watching less TV.

TV programming is for sit back watching. Much more enjoyable if online content could hit the tv. Bravia tvs with new Bravia Internet Video.

Triple HD tuners for satellite users.

Blu Ray players will have built in wifi.

11:30 Exmor chips better low light video and stills. WX1 and TX1 are the flagship cameras. Sweep panorama mode creates a stitched image in a second.

Party Shot device for parties.
Pans and zooms as guests pass by.

Now talking about Alpha DSLRs.

Planning Twilight Football games. Games played at twilight in multiple countries.

11:41 Now for Sony Xperia X2 with winmo 6.5.

Sony readers. We’ve already seen them. Meh.

Walkmen. OLED touchscreens. Wearable walkmen. Boring Sydney booring.

Now Vaio X series. Sony ultralight. 11 inch screen. All day battery. Released next year.

11:48 All done.

But now we learn that Dell might be making a MID and that Apple is planning a bigger Touch. These two rumors are fairly concrete – I’d give the Tapplet a 75% chance of happening and a Dell MID about 80% – but there’s a big problem: people don’t like MIDs.

Archos knows this. They’ve been making MIDs since we were all in diapers – at least it seems that way. They’ve made touchscreen media players and mini computers for years. Samsung made a few. OQO made one and then died. People just don’t like the size and shape of MIDs. Their value is not immediately apparent to most people and devices like the Nokia N810 and the Samsung Mondi have no clear audience.

Robin pointed out that we’re also talking about the Crunchpad. It’s definitely in the tablet realm but it’s not really supposed to act like a Tablet PC – the OS is designed to lead you into browser sessions rather than apps. It might scratch an itch we all have – the tablet that stays on the coffee table or bedside table and let’s us surf – but that’s all wait and see right now.

If Apple makes a tablet people will buy it. They’ll line up around the block. Why? Because it won’t be a tablet. It will be a good media device with some cool tricks. It will make sense, in some way, to have an Apple Tablet. The trick is that the device has to replace two devices. The iPhone replaced your smartphone and your media player. The netbook, in a sense, replaced your big laptop and your pricey office suite. Apple needs to replace two things. I suspect, for example, the Tapplet – with a streaming device that will connect to your TV – will replace the media center PC and the netbook in the home and the netbook and Kindle on the go. This is all speculation, but it sort of makes sense.

As for other MIDs I doubt there will be any traction. Ultralights will replace netbooks and MIDs will remain niche products unless Microsoft gets really smart about Windows for Tablets, creating something like a mini-Surface.

Generally, however, the year of tablets will never come – at least not in the next decade. The keyboard is an old, tested construct and it will be hard to wean us netheads away from it. Some day we’ll all be typing in the air and gesturing on paper-thin screens to bring up our Google Excel 2059 spreadholograms but that’s a way off.

Do you use MIDs daily? Tablets? In what field?

HP announced the Mini 5101 back in late June and we just got one into the ‘Gear office for review. As John noted back when it was announced, the 5101 isn’t a netbook and it’s fallen into the relatively new category of ultralights. I really liked the Mini 1000 and 2140, but the 5101 might be my new favorite.

Here’s a quick rundown of the specs for the review unit we were sent:

• Windows XP
• 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 processor (512KB L2 cache, 533MHz FSB)
• 1GB of RAM
• 160GB HDD
• 10.1-inch LED WSVGA
• 6-cell battery

HP tells me this particular setup runs about $425 with the 6-cell battery, but I haven’t been able to replicate it on the HP site.

First Impressions

The all black magnesium and brushed aluminum shell is gorgeous. However, it appears to be prone to smudges so you’ll want to keep a cloth handy to wipe it down. The (almost) full sized keyboard is leaps and bounds better than the Mini 1000 or 2140. I love the keyboard. Love it. I dislike the trackpad at the moment. It’s a bit too sticky for my tastes, but better than other HP laptops that I’ve had in the past. Two quick launch buttons (Internet, E-mail) are located near the power button, which is now located above the keyboard.

So far, so good. The 5101 ultralight is a gorgeous little laptop. It’s lightweight despite the 6-cell battery and HP really nailed it in the looks department with this one. We’ll have a full review in a week or so.

Ah, the netbook. Back in 1999 or so I remember one of my co-workers spent over $3,000 for a mini Sony Vaio PCG-C1, the kind with the tiny keyboard and woefully underpowered processor. Fast forward a decade and we’ve come full circle with the netbook. These still woefully underpowered laptops still have tiny keyboards but they cost a pittance and, for a certain subset of users, they’re some of the most compelling pieces of hardware to come out ofTaiwan and Japan in years.

Origin Story

The netbook was supposed to save the PC industry. Cast your memory back to 2007. We were just on the edge of the global financial precipice. Desktop sales were flat and laptop sales were soaring. All seemed fine. But there was a problem: the laptop market was considerably different than the desktop market. Desktop PCs sat comfortably in a den and were upgraded over time. Junior wanted to play The Sims so he installed a new graphics card. Sis wanted a scanner – she added an all-in-one. Dad was going through a mid-life crisis so he bought a new case. PCs generated sales in peripherals and, once the PC was maxed out, it was relegated to the basement and a new one purchased. PCs cost a pittance to make and could be sold at a slight profit.

Laptops, on the other hand, were stagnant. You bought a laptop and held onto it. For many it became a main computer, but one you never upgraded. You could add some memory and plug in a printer, but you weren’t purchasing overpriced graphics cards or hard drives.

In the years preceding the netbook, laptop manufacturers played with a few possible upgrade paths. First, they stuffed desktop hardware into laptops to create the Desktop Replacement. These massive laptops weren’t portable, had horrible battery life, and were prohibitively expensive. They knew that this was the wrong route towards riches.

Then they played with mini-PCs for the living room. These PCs fit in teeny-tiny cases and were supposed to sit next to your TV. Windows Media Center promised a 10-foot TV computing experience for all. I doubt many of us have actively used Windows Media Center – let alone Apple’s Front Row experience on the Mac Mini – in the intervening years.

These two branches of hardware manufacturing looked like dead ends. However, by learning how to stuff more technology into a tiny package, laptop manufacturers were able to use fairly low-power desktop chips inside tiny cases.

In about 2007 the OLPC suddenly appeared. The OLPC, if you’ll recall, was the proto-netbook. It was a woefully underpowered laptop for developing countries with a hand crank to charge it. It was great for kids who have never seen a computer but not so great for power-hungry Americans. I once saw a man who could be charitably called a massive geek – in a good way – whip out an OLPC at a conference. He started it up and its speaker began to quack like a scalded duck. It was, in general terms, useless as a real laptop.

Then Asus, a heretofore unknown PC company, hit upon an idea. Why not take cheap processors, stuff them into some of the small motherboards they had been working on, add a laptop screen and keyboard, and make a mini-laptop? They could stuff in Intel’s cheap new Atom processors and make something that is essentially a peripheral laptop. In a strategy that can be attributed to Pimp My Ride, laptop makers knew that consumers loved laptops so they decided to add a laptop to their laptops. The larger, more expensive laptop would sit quietly in the den while the netbook would scoot around the Internet, while you were on the couch watching TV or in the kitchen making pizza bagels.

Thus the eee PC was born. It was amazing. Laptops were now less expensive than some graphics cards. A $400 laptop was something the average consumer could stand behind. Sadly, manufacturers didn’t stand behind the consumer.

The Terrible Truth

The netbook will die soon. They were a cynical play by an industry in panic. They knew they couldn’t get people to buy expensive hardware so they sold inexpensive hardware at a massive discount, hoping against hope that they would sell enough units to make a profit. And profit they did. But, almost three years later, people are discovering the awful truth: netbooks are horrible. Devices like the Macbook Air, for example, are on par with hardware that came out at the turn of the century and the tiny notebooks we tested were fine for most purposes but try to get any real work done and you run into a wall. While they are striking, they’re unacceptably slow for most applications.

But, in a way, it doesn’t matter. You’re not supposed to run desktop apps on your netbook. In fact, you can bypass most of the major issues simply by focusing on web-based apps like Gmail and Zoho Office.

Also, try telling a cash-strapped consumer not to buy a netbook. It’s futile. Nintey-nine percent of computing time at home is spent on the web. Unless you’re a gamer, you probably fire up the laptop for porn or recipes and little else. So, on the aggregate, netbooks are just fine. But woe betide the netbook user who suddenly wants to do some video editing. Interestingly, many netbooks are going back to the store for exactly this reason: consumers feel conned by their relative uselessness.

What’s Next

The next logical step in the netbook world is the ultralight. These ultrathin laptops – think a better MacBook Air rather than eee PC – appeared briefly in about 2006 but disappeared when folks realized they still wanted optical drives. I remember bringing a Gateway ultralight to an IT shop once in about 2006 and the team thought it was an “old” notebook because it didn’t even have an optical drive.

Now, however, optical drives are all but useless. Streaming and downloading are the way to go. Therefore, expect to see ultralight laptops with screens 12 inches or bigger. The netbook will turn into what can only be described as an iPod Touch and manufacturers will fall over themselves trying to replace their mid-tier laptop line – the kind that you’d carry with you on a business trip – with ultralights that can actually do a little work. The prices will rise and crap notebooks like the Cloudbook will blow away.

Think ChromeOS will appear on netbooks? Think again. It may appear on devices similar to the CrunchPad but the netbook as we know it will soon be running Windows 7 and liking it.

Where Does That Leave Us?

It leaves us on the edge between notebooks and ultralights and so we dug up the best of the current crop of what we’d still call notebooks yet can actually run a few apps. The current MacBook Air is much more powerful than its predecessors and new processors from AMD and Intel will supplant the runty Atom with something like the Athlon Neo, a more balanced chip with a bit more speed.

However, the days of $200 laptops are numbered. There’s no profit in it. This race to the bottom has to stop and, although you will see laptops like the Lenovo Ideapad S10, below, netbooks will slowly migrate to faster – and more expensive – hardware. If this year’s COMPUTEX was any indication, this is the year of the ultralight.

This is not to say that $200 laptops will go away. Manufacturers have already opened that Pandora’s Box and can’t close it. But they will be marginalized by manufacturers and distributors.

That said, here are a few hotties that we played with over the past few weeks. N.B. Apple didn’t get back to us about the 13-inch MacBook or new Air in, but I’m sure Apple makes fine hardware, right?

To test we ran an AVI movie on repeat for a full battery cycle and then ran PrimateLabs Geekbench.

But I’m Shopping for a Netbook

What should you look for? Lots of memory – 2GB at least, and a 2GHz or better processor. A Core 2 Duo is probably your best bet at this point. Unless you’re absolutely sure you won’t even be watching video on your netbook, anything less is a waste of money. I’ve seen some netbooks that can barely surf YouTube let alone run Final Cut Pro.

Don’t be fooled by price. The cheapest netbook is the worst one. A laptop manufacturer can’t sell something for $350 and still add in any bells and whistles. Windows itself takes up a large percentage of a laptop’s cost.

Avoid Linux, at least the pre-installed versions. Sorry, Linux nerds, but it’s true. Buy an XP model and install Ubuntu or whatever later, but don’t get the Linux netbook because it’s cheaper. Maybe Chrome OS will change all that, but Linux-based netbooks are usually running some wonky, kiosk-oriented installation, making them nigh-on unusable.

Go major manufacturer. If there’s anything China is good at it’s creating OEM devices and badging them for sale in the US. All of those Sylvania, Everex, and CloudUnicornNotebooks you see online are exactly the same netbooks with a different sticker on the front. It may look like a bargain but it’s garbage.

Reviews

Click to read

Lenovo Ideapad S10-2

Price $349.00
Screen Size 10.2″
Processor Intel N270 1.6 ghz
Memory 1 GB
Benchmark 861
Battery Life 4:05
USB 3
Display out 1 VGA
Keyboard Tiny, but usable
Mouse A bit too small, side scroll
Bottom Line Priced to move. B

This small netbook uses its patterned gloss top to add a little pizzazz to an otherwise standard appearance. Despite its light weight (2.65 lbs according to Lenovo) it feels very solid, not flimsy or delicate.

Like all notebooks, its keyboard is rather small. However, it’s surprisingly usable. The key layout is very standard feeling, and with a little practice, or small hands, it would be just fine for any daily use. The touchpad is also cramped, though it also is intuitive after the first few minutes. It makes up for its small size by being sensitive. Not only that, it has some multi-touch features as well as standard side scrolling. The 1.3 Megapixel camera also works as a facial recognition system for logging in. An interesting feature sure to wow the ladies.

Hardware wise this machine is pretty standard, based on a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom, it packs 1 gig of RAM for pretty standard netbook performance. Its battery life at 4:05 minutes while watching a movie also seems standard. Its 10.2” screen is very readable, and the colors are acceptable. The included Windows XP works great for its OS, and it will already be familiar to almost any purchaser.

MSI XSlim X340

Price $899.99
Screen Size 13″
Processor Intel U3500 1.4 ghz
Memory 2 GB
Benchmark 1248
Battery Life 2:18
USB 2
Display out 1 HDMI + 1 VGA
Keyboard Flimsy, standard size
Mouse unremarkable, no scroll
Bottom Line Nice styling, underpowered. B

Although this is an ultra-thin very light laptop, and it’s definitely sleek, I couldn’t help my immediate impression of cheapness. With plastic chrome accents on its ports that seem to have been put there in an attempt to distract from its ultra-bland, uniform gloss black finish, to complete its blandness all of its status lights are plain white. It almost looks like a laptop I could buy in a shady market somewhere in China. In the interest of fairness I tried to look past that. Aesthetics, after all, have little impact on the utility of a laptop, and it is weight and thickness are definitely impressive, especially at its price just under 900$. It may be the only sub-grand ultra-thin out right now.

Unfortunately I was immediately disenchanted again when I attempted to open it. A magnet holds the lid shut, and to open it, you have to grip the lid by the narrowest of lips, then suddenly, its vaunted lightness is working against you because the bottom wasn’t heavy enough to separate the magnet. I had to use my fingernails to open it the first time. After the first time though, the problem seemed to get less and less extreme every time I opened it. Now it seems to open just fine. So again, I forgive it, after all everything has a break-in period.
Once opened, I like the screen, its colors are 13.4” screen looks good. Its colors are bright and vibrant, brought out by the glossy screen. The keyboard looks good with large un-crowded keys. Unfortunately they also have a problem. The whole keyboard flexes alarmingly. While unsettling, and in general adding to my impression of cheapness, it doesn’t actually interfere with typing. The keys are large, and have a satisfying amount of resistance, which makes up for the flex after the first few minutes of typing. The touchpad is acceptable, its smooth plastic finish is very usable and familiar, and the uni-piece button has a satisfying press and subtle click. The pad itself seems to be missing any scroll features though, no side scroll or 2-finger, it brings back fond memories of Windows 98 when I had to click and drag the scrollbar down.
On the hardware side, this laptop runs on a single core Intel Ultra Low Voltage processor, which along with a much better than netbook integrated Intel GPU means it benchmarked significantly higher than a netbook. Along with this comes higher power consumption, and when your keeping it as light as this (2.7 lb) that means short batter life. In our test it lasted 2:18. Honestly, despite its shortcomings, using this laptop was fine. It’s definitely quicker than a netbook, even running Vista. Its large screen and keyboard make it feasible as your main computer, while still maintaining great portability. The price is even pretty good, and if you are want a netbook supersize, they even make a model that runs on an Intel Atom.

Dell Adamo

Price $1,998
Screen Size 13.4-inches
Processor Intel U9400 1.4 ghz
Memory 4 GB
Benchmark 2010
Battery Life 3:07
USB 2 + 1 eSata/USB
Display out 1 Displayport
Keyboard Backlit, Large, good
Mouse Nice pad, bad buttons, side scroll
Bottom Line Amazingly slick, expensive. B+

This sleek ultra-thin laptop looks great. Its black-brushed aluminum body is accented by a strip of high gloss plastic. When you open it, the first thing you notice is the large backlit keys with huge futuristic font glowing at you. When you type on them they are satisfying, and probably my favorite feature of this whole machine. The touchpad also is really nice, one of the best textures I’ve come across. It’s an ultra fine-brushed metal that feels incredibly smooth. The mouse buttons I am much less sold on. They click loudly, and require a deceivingly firm push, deceiving because of a slight play in the buttons. The high-gloss, 13.4” screen looks great, very vibrant, but that’s inside. Its so shiny, I suspect if you tried to use this in the sun, it had better be to do your make-up. That’s not the only problem with this laptop. It’s all about the appearance. The hardware inside it is less than exciting, especially for the base model’s starting price of just under $2000. Its processor is an Intel Core 2 duo running at 1.4 GHz. Although it has 4 gigs of RAM, it acts sluggish constantly. Its battery life is its most impressive performance point, and in our test it lasted 3:07 hours. This laptop was clearly designed to look good, and it definitely does, but for the kind of money you have to pay for it I would have expected better performance.

Lenovo Thinkpad T400s

Price $1,599
Screen Size 14.1″
Processor Intel P9400 2.4 ghz
Memory 2 GB
Benchmark 2753
Battery Life 2:22
USB 2 + 1 eSata/USB
Display out 1 Displayport + 1 VGA
Keyboard Very standard, good, Top lit
Mouse Nice texture, satisfying, 2 finger scroll
Bottom Line Excellent build quality, speed. A

This laptop looks just like Thinkpads for years. It does because that look is utilitarian, logical, and well thought out. Its keyboard feels perfectly standard, requiring no getting used to, my one small complaint is that the control key is not the bottom corner, it is one in from the corner, and as a result I have hit the function key accidentally often. The touchpad has an interesting texture that I like, a fine grid of tiny bumps. It makes using the touchpad very tactile. The touchpad also allows you to 2-finger scroll. There is of course also the ThinkPad’s signature “trackpoint” nub.
An interesting feature is the built in keyboard light, which makes so much more sense to me than backlit keys. With the LED keyboard light you get some ambient light that you could read by or whatever you need. The 14” monitor looks fine, it can get quite bright, to the point it hurts my eyes inside, but that combined with a matte finish screen makes this laptop feasible to outside use on a sunny day. Those combine to make this a laptop that is useful virtually anywhere I would normally be. Combine that with its light weight (3.9 lb) and you have one of the most useful laptops available. Hardware wise it’s also very capable, based around a 2.4 GHz Intel Core2 Duo, it has 2 or 3 gigs DDR3 of memory. Of course running all that while keeping the weight down means that the battery life is less that phenomenal, and during our tests died after 2:22 hours. This laptop is the one for you if you need a powerful easily portable laptop you can use almost anywhere.

with Berkeley Beyers

We’ve been sitting things out today as our brothers at TC pant over ChromeOS, the latest OS based on Linux to impress, however lightly, upon the synapses of our country’s journalistic elite. ChromeOS can’t beat anything. In fact suggesting that ChromeOS will beat Windows or even OS X is like expecting Coby to come up behind Sony and Samsung next year in Blu-Ray player popularity. As a wise man once said “Ain’t the same ** ballpark. It ain’t the same league, it ain’t even the same ** sport.”

ChromeOS is a specialized version of Linux designed for netbooks. It is more like Android than anything else and, as Fake Steve notes, no one will use it. Oh, manufacturers will pay lip service to it and maybe someone will install it on a few million machines but it will be a drop in the bucket compared to the powerful web OSes called Windows 7 and OS X.

ChromeOS, like Android, is a bargaining chip. OEMs can wave ChromeOS in Microsoft’s face and reduce they price they have to pay per PC for installing Windows. It won’t work, but they’ll try. Die-hard Linux users will stick with Linux and the average consumer, when presented with Chrome, will ask where the Start menu went.

Google can use ChromeOS to scare Microsoft and move more people to GMail and Google Office apps. That’s about it. And the people that move will be limited to the very few OEMs who will install ChromeOS on new machines. Netbooks are going the way of the Dodo and the race to the bottom will cause them to disappear, replaced by more powerful ultralights that will fill out the middle of the laptop market. These ultralights will be running Windows 7, not Chrome.

Fake Steve explains it all thus:

To put it another way, have you ever met anyone who said they’d really like to try out that Interwebs thing, but they’re just put off by the low-quality operating systems and browsers that are available at this time, so they’re sitting it out for now? Or like maybe they’re on the Internet now but they would just be soooo inclined to spend soooo much more time on the Web, and they’d be soooo much more likely to actually click on the ads, if the OS and browser made it somehow less onerous to, um, type in a URL and go to a page? Nah, the only point in Google giving away a free browser and OS is somehow to fuck up Microsoft. (And/or to do some sneaky shit that helps Google screw users a little bit more efficiently. See Point 8 below.) But on the anti-Microsoft angle, take it from someone who has spent the past 10 years selling a superior operating system and getting only 4 percent market share — as obsessions go, battling the Borg is waaay overrated.

And he’s absolutely right. Anyone can make a Linux install disk, call it “Super Google Linux” and rock out. There even was a Google OS – albeit an unofficial one – called gOS. And we all saw how well that went. Hell, you can even make Hanna Montana Linux for newbies but that doesn’t mean newbies will install it or manufacturers will use it. There’s no reason.

Android I’m bullish on. Android is a real threat to Windows Mobile and the HTC Hero put the first chink in Microsoft’s Mobile armor. But the HTC Hero isn’t a Google product, Google gets no cash from it, and, you’ll notice, HTC has modified Android to an extent that makes it closer to the Palm Pre than anything else. HTC took Google’s free operating system and stripped out the Google.

ChromeOS isn’t a threat. In fact it’s not even on Microsoft’s radar. It’s nice that Google is offering their philanthropic OS for all and sundry (incidentally, what are the tax implications of this kind of project?) But can it beat Windows? No and never.

The S10-2 has three USB port, VGA-out, and bog standard audio-in and -out. Most interesting is the delicate polka dot styling on the laptop’s cover, perfect for nights on the beach or a weekend at the glue refinery.

We’ll do a little testing of this laptop this week – look for our bonanza netbook/ultralight blow-out shortly – and get back to you on performance and fun-itude.

I’ve been rounding up a lot of ultralights – I wouldn’t call this a netbook – and this looks to be one of the purdiest of the bunch. The 5101 will cost about $449 and runs an Atom processor. It has a 10-inch screen and full keyboard.

Look for more of these “ultralights” to pop up this year. Notebook manufacturers have realized that selling a tiny laptop for $5 and a few bottle caps was not a very good strategy and so they’re rethinking this whole “netbook” moniker. You’ll see ultralights – smaller notebooks with more powerful hardware – and MIDs like the iPod Touch or whatever Nokia is planning.

HP Blends Functionality, Durability and Style with New HP Mini PC

PALO ALTO, Calif., June 24, 2009 – HP today unveiled its top-of-the-line Mini PC for on-the-go professionals who demand a stylish, yet durable fully functional companion PC.

The HP Mini 5101 features a sturdy, lightweight anodized aluminum display enclosure with a black, brushed finish. Complementing the aluminum is the use of magnesium alloy in the lower case of the Mini frame. Soft-touch paint on the base and palm rest further advance the PC’s look and feel. This combination of materials, an industry first in the netbook category, not only delivers an eye-catching design, but also improves durability.

Furthering the stylish look of the HP Mini 5101 is a newly designed, spill-resistant keyboard that is 95 percent of a full-size QWERTY keyboard. It features a visually open and spacious keyboard design with keys raised from the surface. HP DuraKeys, a clear coating over the keys, makes the keyboard 50 times more resistant to visible wear than keyboards without it.(1) In addition, the mouse buttons are located in the traditional space below the touchpad, making for a familiar user experience.

“HP Mini PCs have no equal when it comes to industrial design, use of innovative materials and overall feature sets,” said Ted Clark, senior vice president and general manager, Notebook Global Business Unit, Personal Systems Group, HP. “The HP Mini 5101 is truly a work of art, a sophisticated companion PC crafted for the trend-savvy mobile professional who needs functionally, durability and style.”

Starting at 2.6 pounds,(2) the fully functional and durable HP Mini 5101 is an ideal companion PC for the on-the-go professional. It features a large 10.1-inch diagonal LED display available in either WSVGA or high-definition (HD)(3) resolutions. Customers can also choose either the four-cell battery for lighter weight or six-cell battery for longer battery life. When configured with the optional six-cell battery, the HP Mini 5101 delivers up to eight hours of battery runtime.(4)

Mobile professionals can stay ultra-productive with the HP Mini 5101 PC’s small, low-power Intel® Atom processor, which enables the unit to run cooler, use less power and improve battery life. A fast-performing 7,200 RPM hard drive comes standard with the unit. Alternatively, an optional Solid State Drive (SSD) is available in either 80 or 128 gigabytes.

An optional, integrated Gobi-powered HP Mobile Broadband module allows users to conveniently access the Internet, corporate intranet, email and other critical information around the world.(5) Other wireless technologies include integrated Wi-Fi Certified WLAN(6) and optional Bluetooth® 2.0. An integrated 2-megapixel webcam allows for easy still-image capture, web-conferencing or video-enhanced instant messaging(7) with no additional hardware.

HP QuickSync software, planned to be available as a web download in September, allows quick synchronization of the HP Mini with notebooks or desktops so users can avoid maintaining multiple documents, media files and email. Information also can sync to portable storage devices.

The versatility of the HP Mini 5101 can change how students learn and is the practical answer to providing each student continuous access to a PC in one-to-one computing. Its suite of wireless, (6) multimedia and security capabilities allows students to learn wherever they have Wi-Fi access – from the classroom, to the library, to their homes.

The HP Mini 5101 is built to last, featuring HP 3D DriveGuard, which offers a three-axis digital accelerometer chip that sends a signal to shut down the hard drive upon sudden movement or shock. The HP Panel Protection System includes a scratch-resistant acrylic LCD cover and magnesium hinge bracket for added durability in demanding environments.

The HP Mini 5101 has been engineered for reduced impact on the environment by eliminating or reducing substances of concern, using fewer resources and reducing energy consumption. Configurations of the HP Mini 5101 are ENERGY STAR qualified and are identified as HP Mini 5101 ENERGY STAR on HP websites and on www.energystar.gov. In addition the Mini 5101 is EPEAT Gold registered in the United States.(7)

New accessories designed for use with the HP Mini include a USB 2.0 port replicator that adds a variety of audio, networking and USB ports to allow greater productivity. A lightweight, functional messenger bag designed specifically for the HP Mini or a neoprene slip case offer added protection for professionals while on the go. Other accessories available for the HP Mini include a USB 2.0 docking station, external optical drive and USB-powered external speakers.

More information on HP Mini 5101 product specifications, images and other HP mobility solutions is available in an online press kit at www.hp.com/personal.

Pricing and availability
The HP Mini 5101 starts at $449(8) and is expected to be available in late July.

via Giz

Gartner and IDC are reporting that netbooks, those ultralight PCs everyone loves, have taken Europe by storm, hitting about 10 percent of the PC market. These mini-PCs are essentially a brave new world for PC makers who have been facing falling prices, profits, and demand in standard laptops and desktops.

Asus and Acer are winning the race and many of the sales come through cellphone suppliers who sell netbooks along with WWAN service.

via Reg

So welcome to CrunchGear’s Back to School week. We’ll try to produce a few stories this week that will offer tips on buying gear and gadgets for school. We won’t pretend that you have money to burn or that you need a 42-inch TV in your dorm room. We know you probably already went shopping last week but here’s what you should buy when mom and dad are exhausted on the couch and they tell you to go get a laptop, a cellphone, or some software – after all, you know this stuff better than they do anyway.

Some folks have convinced an MSI Wind that it is a Mac Pro and that it can run Leopard like a champ. Using Kalyway 10.5.2, a Leopard install, some Spanish hackers installed and ran the OS with no issues. Ethernet and Bluetooth both work sans problems. Our own experience with the Wind seems to point to an amazing machine without peer in the ultralight category, so maybe it deserves a little credit.

via

The 2.6 lbs Wind features 5+ HR battery life, Windows XP, ergonomic keyboard, and 80G hard drive all for under $500 

CITY OF INDUSTRY, CA – June 3rd, 2008 – MSI Computer, a leading manufacturer of computer hardware products and solutions, is excited to announce the official launch of the much anticipated Wind Notebook. The Wind, an acronym for “Wi-Fi Network Device,” is the first 10” notebook to feature the speedy new Intel Atom™ 1.6GHz processor

“Intel is excited to collaborate with MSI to usher in the next generation of mobile computing devices,” said Steve Dallman, Intel VP Sales and marketing Group and GM, Worldwide Reseller Channel Organization. “The Wind’s user–friendly design, combined with the low power and 45nm High-K process of the Intel Atom processor, makes for an exceptional netbook.”

Weighing in at just 2.6 lbs, MSI designed the Wind to be lightweight and ultra mobile, without sacrificing convenience or performance.  The Wind features an ergonomically designed keyboard that is only 20% smaller than of a full sized keyboard, with keys spaced a comfortable 0.68 inches apart.  Business travelers will welcome the extended battery life available with the Windows based version, which provides up to 5.5 hours of untethered work time. 
 
The Windows version of the Wind features an 80G / 2.5” SATA hard drive, which further sets it apart from other ultra portable notebooks, whose manufacturers have compromised memory capacity to save space.  The Wind’s display features embedded LED power-saving backlight technology, which provides superior color quality and brightness.  This innovative notebook also comes standard with a 1.3M webcam, Bluetooth capabilities, 3 USB ports and a 4-in-1 card reader.
 
The Windows version of the Wind is priced at $499 MSRP, and will be available for purchase starting June 16th, 2008 at www.msimobile.com.  The Linux based models of the Wind will be available at the same site later this summer for $399 MSRP.
 
MSI WIND NOTEBOOK SPECIFICATIONS  
 
Windows Version
CPU
Intel Atom 1.6 GHz
Operating System
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition™
Chipset
Intel 945GMS, ICH7-M
Display
10″W (1024×600) LED
VGA
UMA
Memory
1GB DDR2/ 667MHz
Hard Drive
80G / 2.5” SATA
Battery
6 Cells / 5.5 hrs
WLAN
802.11b/g
Bluetooth
Yes
Webcam
1.3m
Dimensions
10.23″ x 7.08″ x 0.748″ ~1.24″
Weight
2.6lbs
Available Colors
White, Black, and Pink
MSRP
$499

Although it’s not “officially” released, folks have been playing with X300s like they were candy. Candy, I tells ya!

Here we find a blown up X300 exposing it’s ultralight innards. The dissector reports that the laptop is quiet and very light, which we expected from an “ultralight.”

Thinkpad X300 taken apart for your viewing pleasure-pictures [Thinkpads.com]

In further news, there will be a fully rugged notebook next month as well as a 3-pound laptop about half-an-inch thick. The source estimted that they had 14 “Opti’s and Lat’s” coming up and will have over 40 new models by summer.

Finally, Dell wants to be the greenest laptop manufacturer in the world and will be aiming its marketing towards green concepts and, interestingly enough, away from the face and name of Michael Dell. Apparently the “Michael Dell” issue is a massive internal struggle for these kids, much like the Ingsoc resisters hate/love Big Brother. Who knew?

Given the trustworthy nature of the source I’m giving the Dell phone a 70% chance while the tough and thin notebooks about 95%. I don’t even know what to say about the Dell issue.

But this is Apple. They are a media darling. The Apple TV might have sucked in 2007 but Take 2, the new software, looks like it might be the behemoth that knocks out everyone from Blockbuster to Vudu. Here’s why.

Apple knows iPods. They’ve sold millions of them, iTunes is everywhere, and people know — generally — how to get movies onto their iPods. Some of them know better than others, but most DivX downloads are going straight into MPEG4 and onto iTunes for later consumption.

So now this new $229 Apple TV is waiting in the Apple store. Whereas before the Apple TV seemed like a glorified USB drive, now it offers interactive features including movie downloads and rentals. It’s got HD content, a fat hard drive, and quick streaming. It’s waiting patiently for iPod fans who might want to watch Ratatouille on their HD TV without buying an HD disc player.

In short, this is the beginning of the end for disc formats. Apple didn’t invent the MP3 space that took down the record labels. It made it accessible to everyone and dumped very sexy hardware on the world. The Apple TV has a nice interface, it plays well with iTunes, and it costs about the same as competing devices. Blu-Ray/HD DVD are dead, long live downloads.

As for the MacBook Air, laptops have been pretty ugly for a few years now. Lenovo dropped a few nice notebooks but anyone who is still getting their laptops from IT knows that laptops, on the whole, are ugly and big. The Air is pretty and light.

Again, these are not breakthroughs, they are refinements. Sony and the rest did ultralights years ago — Apple made them drool-worthy. Netflix and TiVo and Amazon all serve up video, but Apple made it as easy as plugging in some cables. Don’t believe me? Watch the space under your cable box for an HD DVD player or Blu Ray. When it doesn’t arrive by next Christmas — “Meh, I never got around to buying one” — then we’ll talk about next steps and, for many people, that next step will be Apple TV.

Apple TV with an LCD screen? Small iPhone memory upgrade? Apparently the Goldman guys have been snorting a bit too much nose candy at their holiday parties and are spouting all sorts of nonsense about Apple’s 2008 plans. Their first prognostication?

Among them is a second-generation iPhone currently in the “final design phase,” the analyst said. The handset is expected to “have a similar form factor as the current version although it could have a different look and will probably include 3G capability.”

Hokey smokes! Stop the presses. Then they’re suggesting that the Apple TV will get an LCD screen and the ultralight will not appear, citing “design issues.” Most importantly, Apple is now a buy according to Goldman, so give them a call and send them some red-hot brokerage fees.

Second-gen iPhone in final phase; Apple TV update planned – report [AppleInsider]

Remember the old, white rotary phone that your grandma had hanging in the kitchen next to her ficus plants? All it takes is $49 and a pack of Benson and Hedges Ultralight 100’s and you’ll be connected to the old timey gossip network in no time.

Or maybe you’d prefer the rotary-dial handset that used to sit on the table next to Grandpa’s favorite scotch-soaked chair. It’ll set you back a measly $67.

Seriously, folks. There’s a fine line between old-school nostalgia and 1,000-percent markup. If you’re really into old phones, though, this might be a great site for you. But I mean really into old phones.

FrillFreePhones.com

Nokia knows intelligent design. Not unlike God, who apparently formed bananas to fit gracefully into the human hand, Nokia pays close attention to its product life cycle. While many of the N-series phones are similar, they are often improvements on previous products that offer amazing functionality in a smaller, more elegant package.

The Nokia N95 is Nokia’s latest media phone. This ultralight phone has a 5-megapixel main camera, 150MB build-in memory, a mini video conferencing camera on the front, and QVGA screen. Add in a MicroSD slot with a 2GB card in there — not sure if that’s a standard offering, but it should be — and a music player that rivals most others and you’re in business. GPS and WiFi? That’s just gravy.

I’ve only had the phone for two days so I haven’t had time to really dig into the network features, but I’m happy to report that design-wise this is the best N-series model I’ve seen so far. Going around the edge of the phone we fine a 3.5mm jack, a hot-swappable MicroSD under a little hatch, a mini-USB jack, camera button, and volume control. When you slide the phone up, it reveals a keypad. When you slide it down it reveals track control buttons. Best of all, the phone is clad in a soft rubbery plastic and weighs about four ounces. It’s like they took everything that made their phones horrible in the past — proprietary USB ports, odd flash hidey-holes, and heavy batteries — and made something that truly stands out.

Series 60 phones aren’t for everyone. As a smartphone platform, S60 is a difficult beast. It’s not quite a real smartphone OS yet there are a number of powerful features hiding underneath. I’ve been consistently disappointed with the email clients in S60 phones, and this phone is no different. Fortunately, the N95 has some amazing UI improvements including a very cool rotating menu system and “3D ringtones” that turn regular ringtones into an odd stereo wall of sound with just a quick button click.

If you like S60, however, my initial impressions of the N95 is that it is a great improvement over earlier N-series phones, even the N80. With a beefy CPU and great graphics processor, the N95 shows the value of a small, light, and intelligently designed smartphone. More to come.

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