OLO is showing a mysterious device on its website that appears to be an iPhone-powered subnotebook. There are no details to speak of, but there are two options:

1. All the guts are in the iPhone. This is the approach of the Redfly, which lets the mobile device do the thinking and it just extends your toolset. This limits costs but also functionality.
2. The iPhone merely augments a full laptop setup, acting as a source for input and applications.

The second option seems more likely from the picture, as you can see they’ve put a full OS X desktop up there which couldn’t possibly be being served from the phone. That said, the cost of the hardware and software required to run OS X (in addition licensing issues like those faced by Psystar at the moment) would make it much less of a compelling product, as it would likely cost as much as a regular laptop.

Novell, the company that markets SUSE Linux, an enterprise-oriented commercial Linux distro, has a lot at stake in the coming netbook wars. After all, the little machines are overwhelmingly running various flavors of Linux (with the notable exception of Eees pre-loaded with XP and the like), and if Novell can get in on the ground floor, that’s not only cash in hand but a hugely increased presence in the market. Others, like Red Hat, are also trying to join the game, and they’re finding it relatively easy since the machines are suited to their flavors of Linux.

Plus, this way, consumers will only see the friendly and usable face of pre-installed, pre-configured Linux and not the freaky underbelly that scares so many people off (including yours truly). Good for business!

Whether you call them ultraportables, subnotebooks, netbooks, or tiny laptops, you’re talking more or less about the same thing: small and light form factor, limited capacity and capability, and (hopefully) less than or around $500. There are so many out there, though! Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, MSI and more are all in on the game, and with such a flurry of options and feature sets, it’s easy to forget to take stock of what we want fundamentally from these things.

This little guide is a good cheat sheet for what we need in a netbook. It essentially comes down to: decent build, decent keyboard, small but good screen, capabilities and hardware in line with what it’s intended for, and a fair amount of built-in connectivity. Sounds about right, but you’ll probably find that even your favorite netbook will fall short in one or more of these areas. Venezuela doesn’t seem like they’re willing to wait, however, having just ordered a million classmate PCs from Intel. “Good enough” might be good enough for them, but you can afford to be a little more picky.

People have found that their little Minispirons are sporting 3G capability that was unadvertised and is at the moment unsupported. I don’t know whether this is sketchy or cool. On the one hand, they’ve included a part in a computer that has no functionality and you have to assume that you’re paying for it. On the other hand, they didn’t BS the world and try to sell it up when they don’t have a service ready for it. Either way, it’s nice that the thing is there, but I think we can all agree it would have been better if they had A: been honest and B: made use of the 3G from the start.

They say they’ll “be announcing [the 3G card] in a couple of weeks.” Dell, the horse has left the barn, you may as well leave the door open.

Update:
Apparently the Minis being sold in the US don’t have the 3G radios. I guess the quote from the general manager of small-screen devices &mash; “There’s an integrated 3G radio that we’ll be announcing in a couple of weeks” — is Europe only. Kind of misleading!

It seems that tucked away in the folds of IFA, there is a tiny laptop taking the ancient Commodore family name. Some enterprising Norwegians wrote it up, and included in the post what appears to be the hottest girl I have ever seen. I don’t know if you can tell (I’m really good at photoshopping) but she’s not actually holding the Commodore — I just craftily made it look like she is so I could put her on the front page. I think she works for Siemens (giggle). Click below for more and better pics of Commodore’s baby lappy.

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I’ve got one of these sitting in my apartment right now, and we’ll have a review for you soon — but if you’re already convinced of the usefulness of these little smartphone symbiotes, now would be a good time to pick one up. They’ve just dropped $100 in price and now they support a dozen more phones — Treos, Touches, Tilts, and a ton of other WinMo smartphones are all under the umbrella. The full list is after the jizzle.

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The “exquisite,” “elite,” “extreme slim” Eee model, the S101 (as seen in the pyramid o’ Eee) has been caught in the wild. I think I’ll let the Google translation do the talking:

ASUS held on the 6th of that meeting, ASUS CEO Jerry Shen Xue on Apple with a paper bag containing Eee PC S101, the imminent end of a sudden display market, the law says that it will become the climax. This Taiwan Eee PC S101 works with samples such as Apple Mac Air’s ultra-thin body, piano paint thickness of only 16 ~ 25mm, the main boutique market.
It is understood, S101 will adopt 10.2-inch LCD screen, processors still use Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz/512KB L2/533MHz FSB) match 945 GME chipset, will have 32 GB and 64 GB SSD configurations, priced at $ 699 and $ 899 U.S. dollars, is expected to Listed in mid-September.

The climax!
[via Tech Report]

Seeing as every other laptop maker worth its salt is making some kind of subcompact notebook or netbook or tiny laptop or what-have-you, Lenovo has decided to get in on it. Who’ll be providing the hardware is up in the air, though Pegatron (love that name) is an option, having made Lenovo’s Ideapads, and Wistron is as well, having put together nearly a million X-series Lenovos.

I’d bet on Wistron personally, since they seem to have the volume thing down, and Lenovo is going to need to make a lot of these if they’re trying to hit the sweet spot between enterprise and consumer.

If you’re in Japan and don’t have the scrilla to lay out for an Eee (really though, is it that much?), head over to a Kojima store and pick yourself up one for ¥100, and get a free 3G USB modem. That’s about 75 cents to us Americans. What’s the catch, apart from it only being available in Japan?

Well, first of all it’s the original, 7-inch, 4GB Eee — not exactly a powerhouse, but even the new ones aren’t taking it to the limit are they? Secondly (this is the actual catch), you have to sign up for their service to make that modem go. It’s not really that expensive ($30-60, depending), but unless you know you’re going to use the hell out of it, you might as well just go get an “unlocked” Eee for a song on eBay.

Qualcomm is betting that its Snapdragon chipset (see a hands-on we did at CTIA) will taste better with Windows Mobile 7, especially when it comes to tiny notebooks. The company is looking to make a move into the inexpensive laptop arena with the added twist of having the devices run Windows Mobile 7 instead of Linux or Windows XP/Vista. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chipset, which includes a 1GHz processor, will also be able to connect to 3G mobile networks.

According to IDG,

One advantage for mobile phone chip makers is that they have worked from the start to create low power products that give off little heat, because mobile phones are small and people want handsets with long battery life. Now that they’re moving into bigger products like laptop PCs, the advantages become clearer in longer battery life and more streamlined designs– since they don’t have to include heat sinks for hot-running chips.

That makes sense, too, as Windows Mobile (and any other mobile operating system, for that matter) is designed to be used on devices where long battery life is a key feature. So who knows? Your next mini laptop might be running Windows Mobile.

The impending Eee 901 has been spotted at the WiMax Expo in Taipei and is expected to be formally announced and launched tomorrow. We saw some early details a couple of weeks ago, but here’s some more information.

IDG News is reporting that the Eee PC 901 will have a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, and will ship with a 12GB SSD and Windows XP or with a 20GB SSD and Linux, depending which option you choose. The 901 will feature Bluetooth and future versions will contain a WiMAX chipset once the technology becomes more ubiquitous.

The 901 will come in black or white (see black version here) and apparently battery life is pretty solid at four to six hours. IDG says that pricing wasn’t disclosed, but earlier reports pegged the machine at “under $650,” which sounds reasonable.

CNET’s UK office got a special hands-on with the forthcoming MSI Wind notebook and they like it so much that they said it “could take the throne from the Asus Eee PC as the best mini laptop on the planet.” The 10-inch screen is apparently better than the one on HP’s Mini-Note 2133, and the overall design aesthetic and keyboard on the Wind is better than the Eee but not quite as nice as the Mini-Note.

One really cool feature is that the CPU can be overclocked by about 20% by hitting Fn + F10, which kicks MSI’s “TurboDrive Engine” into gear. More photos after the jump.

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Hot damn, boys and girls. Either that’s a hilariously large novelty pencil or we’ve got ourselves an Eee-sized Dell notebook to look forward to. To which to look forward. Which to whom we will forwardly look. Grammar is hard.

Anyway, Michael Dell was spotted carrying this little guy around at All Things D by Gizmodo. Details are pretty murky but early photos seem to present a pretty standard miniature laptop. Hopefully it’s got a big enough screen and keyboard.

More details soon, hopefully. In the mean time, hit the jump for more photos.

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To quote the lovely and vivacious Susan Powter, “Stop the insanity!” Apparently ASUS is getting set to announce a 10-inch version of the super-popular Eee subnotebook on June 3rd at Computex 2008 in Taiwan.

According to an invitation received by UMPC Fever,

“ASUS is looking forward to welcoming you during Computex 2008 in Taipei, Taiwan, for the ASUS’ 08 Computex Trilogy of launch events. We would also like to specially extend an invitation to you to attend the official global launch of the new Eee PC™ 901 and 1000 series.”

So it’s not set in stone that “1000 series” means “10-inch Eee,” but if ASUS’ naming conventions are any indication, that may be exactly what it is.

via Gizmodo

Dell will join the likes of Asus, HP, Acer, and whichever other computer companies jump on the tiny laptop bandwagon between now and June to offer low cost, ultraportable notebooks to the masses. Dell will be teaming up with China’s Compal Electronics “to launch low-cost notebook computers…as early as June,” according to a Compal official. June is going to be an exciting month for tiny, cheap laptops.

Dell’s apparently initially ordered up between 200,000 and 300,000 computers per month from Compal and should receive between 1 million and 2 million by year’s end.

Welcome to the tiny, inexpensive laptop game ECS. You’ve made an intriguing entry with your G10IL, although that name could use a little work. The keyboard looks pretty nice and the inclusion of 3G wireless (HSPDA 7.2) is a good idea. There’s also a built-in webcam, three USB ports, Ethernet, and even a 56K modem.

Unfortunately, there’s not too much other information on this little guy yet other than it’ll cost under $500. Close-up of the keyboard after the jump.

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