- Author: admin
- Filed under: Laptops
- Date: Feb 9,2010
What do you do if your netbooks are starting to look so last season? Well if you’re ASUS, you hire a leading industrial designer like Karim Rashid to revamp it, of course. The Eee PC 1008P’s snazzy new design and removable battery certainly caught our eye at CES, but now so is its $499 pricetag.
Positioned as a designer netbook, the 1008P is a mixed bag of specs — it has got the now-typical Intel Atom N450 processor, boasts 2GB of RAM and larger 320GB hard drive, as well as a disappointingly small three-cell battery. So, are the 1008P’s slimmer body and eye-catching design enough to make you shell out $100 more than the typical netbook?
And how does the the smaller capacity battery compare to the $380 Eee PC 1005PE’s that lasts for eight hours on a charge? Follow on past the break for some answers. Read the rest of this entry »
- Author: admin
- Filed under: Laptops
- Date: Jan 27,2010
Michael Dell may not be a fan of netbooks, but you wouldn’t know that from the newest Mini 10. Joining the current Mini 10v, Dell’s completely overhauled the chassis and added Intel’s new Pine Trail processor.
But that’s not all: come February the little laptop will be available with Broadcom’s Crystal HD accelerator, which promises full HD playback on a high-res 1366 x 768 display. But does the $425 package rid us of our tireless complaints that Atom can’t handle HD, and does it rival netbooks based on NVIDIA’s Ion platform?
And perhaps more importantly, can we count on the Mini 10 to be a valuable member of the growing Pine Trail netbook fraternity when it comes to battery life and ergonomics? Read on to find out! Read the rest of this entry »
It has been months since Lenovo announced that its IdeaPad S12 would be the first netbook (or borderline notebook) with Nvidia’s Ion, but it has since been MIA. Lenovo says, the system will now ship during the Windows 7 timeframe.
On track to ship at the end of October, the IdeaPad S12 with Intel’s Atom N270 and Nvidia’s GeForce 9400 graphics will be $50 more than the standard Intel Atom version and will retail for $550. Though more than the average netbook, we expect it to be worth it, especially if it truly performs like we’ve seen.
However, Lenovo’s delay may prevent the company from being the first to market with an Ion powered netbook. Samsung’s N510 has been confirmed to ship in the U.S. next month for $599. And we have also been told that HP has plans to release an Ion system of their own in the coming weeks. HP would not comment on the rumors.
Nevertheless, Lenovo hinted that the experience of Windows 7 on the S12 would make it more compelling than the Vista version it was originally planning to sell.
- Author: admin
- Filed under: Laptops
- Date: May 11,2009
Toshiba’s 10.1-inch netbook — the Dynabook UX — hasn’t been on our radar terribly long, but already it’s beginning to make the review rounds.
Portable Monkey’s just gotten their hands on one and while they are fans of the design, think the over all build quality is a bit better than many netbooks, and also found the battery life to be pretty good (they got about 3.5 hours per charge), there are also a few drawbacks.
The keyboard is cramped, the built-in scrolling is none too responsive, and the volume of the speakers is extremely quiet. Read the rest of this entry »
