In case you didn’t know, Apple refreshed its notebook lineup a few weeks back and rebadged the 13-inch unibody Macbook as a Pro model. Apparently the masses like it as that model now occupies the top spot in Amazons best selling laptop computer list and number four overall. It wasn’t that long ago that netbooks ruled that second list and the white 13-inch Macbook was the top selling Apple computer at number 14.

I’ve been rounding up a lot of ultralights(more about that next week) – 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.

Netbooks are getting cheaper and Woot! is here to push their prices even lower. The get-it-while-it-last site currently has an Eee PC 900 Netbook up for only $169. That, folks, is cheap for a quality netbook but that deal won’t be around forever.

Nec Japan today announced two netbooks [JP], the BL100 and the BL300/310/350, which are completely redesigned and come with Windows XP pre-installed. The new netbooks are part of the NEC LaVie series and are labeled “LaVie Light” because of the BL100 weighing just 1.07 kg and the BL300/310/350 models weighing 1.14kg or 1.32kg, depending on the model.

Late last year we reported that a company named Psion was gearing up for some legal action in order to defend products it had called the “Netbook” and “Netbook Pro” back in the early part of the decade.

Psion initially sent out cease and decist letters to various websites in the UK, demanding that references to “netbook” or “netbooks” be removed, and then later got into a legal scuffle with Dell, Intel, and others who had been using the term “netbook” in marketing literature.

It looks like this whole situation may finally be behind us now, as an “amicable agreement” has been reached between Psion and Intel:

Psystar, the crazy folks that have stood up to Apple’s legal behemoth and continue to produce Mac clones, might be working on a netbook according to MacRumors. Apple has been very quite on the netbook front, and seems to not want anything to do with the niche market — although rumors state otherwise. But there is nothing stopping Psystar from producing its own OS X-running netbook. Chances are it would be very similar to the hackintosh netbook mods that have become somewhat popular.

Windows 7 is a speedy little bastard, even on an Asus Eee PC 1000HA as this video shows. Spoiler: it’s quick but not OMG fast.

Another day, another netbook. This time around is the 10.1-inch Toshiba Mini NB200, which seems like it could be a high-end or even professional netbook if there is such a thing. An 1.6GHz N270 or 1.66GHz N280 Intel Atom is at the core and Intel 945GSE provides the graphics juice. Those commonplace specs alone do not bump this notebook up in our book, but the integrated 3g modem and Toshiba’s Sleep and Charge does.

During its earnings call today, Apple COO Tim Cook (who is leading Apple day to day with Steve Jobs out on medical leave) fielded a question about netbooks. The market for the small notebooks is red hot, yet Apple hasn’t entered the field yet. Cook attempted to explain why, and Apple’s thoughts on the trend for the future.

Notably, he reiterated Apple’s stance that netbooks, as they exist today, are basically crap. He called their keyboards “cramped,” and their hardware “junky.” “This is not something we would put the Mac brand on,” Cook said. He believes that if people want a small, very portable computer, they should perhaps look at the iPhone or iPod touch. That comment will likely make a lot of people annoyed, but if you think about it, with the increasing numbers of things that those devices can do (and will be able to do with the upcoming 3.0 software), it’s not an entirely ridiculous thing to say.

Someone in Sharp’s R&D department must have been paying attention when the Internet started mumbling about the MacBook Pro’s potential LCD trackpad. The new Mebius PC-NJ70A netbook comes packing with just that, along with standard, underwhelming netbook-type specs: 1.6GHz Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB HDD, WiFi, & a multicard reader. The screen however, bumps this otherwise boring computer into the sweet-ass range not normally occupied by netbooks.

Said screen embeds a 854 x 4850 resolution LCD display right into the palm rest and acts as a secondary display. Only time will tell if developers will actually program for this tiny screen, but at least Sharp loaded some interesting demos onto the launch rigs. Thankfully, we have a video of the display in action, which easily shows off how cool LCD displays are as trackpads and further cements our desire for them in every notebook. After the jump.

Of the many flavors of Windows 7, due out this summer, the Starter Edition has received perhaps the most flack. It’s limited to running only three applications at a time, something most computer users find absolutely ludicrous. Microsoft isn’t targeting Starter Edition for your everyday desktop PC, though: they’re targeting it at netbooks.

There have been around 1,736 (give or take) Apple netbook rumors in the last year. The latest rumor to add to that count comes from Digitimes and is a little lite on details,

Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) is in the running to land orders for a netbook from Apple, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report citing sources from the component supply chain.

Could be a Netbook, huge iPod touch, or something only Steve Jobs type invisionaries dream about. We’re bound to find out sooner or later though.

If you’re ready to jump head first into the pool of netbooks then consider HP’s Mini 1000 line. They’re comparably priced and spec’d out to compete with the rest of the lot, but if you’re still a little uneasy about the whole thing then read on for a list of pros and cons for the machine I’ve been lusting over since last year.

HP’s 2140 was supposed to start shipping with a HD display sometime last month and quick check on the site reveals that it’s still not available. Some of the personal reviews state that the low-res displays caused them to return the netbook. It makes me wonder if there’s some manufacturing issue over in China with these high-res displays. I bring this up because it appears that Dell is now offering the Mini 10 with a 1366×768 resolution screen for an extra $35, but will it actually ship on 4/15 like it says it will?

A Hong Kong OEM, Shenzhen Ltd. has just launched an “Apple” netbook with 10-inch display, VIA Nano processor, and Windows or Linux built-in. Best of all we have an excellent write-up by tech.163.com:

Do you have high blood pressure? Well, you’re about to get a huge chunk of salt for lunch. Smarthouse is claiming that a source working in the confines of LG have revealed that Apple is working on an OLED touch-screen netbook and a new iPhone/iPod Touch. Sure, we knew about the 10-inch panels weeks ago, but this lends a bit of credence to that rumor. It’s no secret that Apple tapped LG a while back to produce screens for them, but a leak of this nature could spell disaster for the partnership.