Netbook battery times worse-off using Windows 7

The news is hardly a surprise, but Laptop Mag did a number of battery tests confirming that battery times using Windows 7 are not as good as when using XP. For their testing they looked at three netbooks (Toshiba NB205, Asus Eee PC 1008HA and the ION-powered HP Mini 311) and measured battery life whilst continuously web surfing over wireless.

On all three machines, the battery lasted longer on XP than it did for Windows 7. The Toshiba lasted an extra 33 minutes, the Asus lasted an extra 57 minutes and the HP lasted an extra 51 minutes. Getting nearly an hour extra, as is the case with the Eee PC 1008HA is certainly nothing to scoff at. Read more

AMD outlines next-generation netbook & ultra-thin platforms

AMD yesterday held an analyst investor day and outlined its product roadmaps through to 2011 for its different product lines including desktops, notebooks and servers. It introduced two new processor cores codenamed Bulldozer and Bobcat for release in 2011.

Bulldozer is designed for desktops & servers, whilst Bobcat will mainly be aimed at ultra-thin notebooks. Interestingly, Bobcat will also see processors targeted to the netbook segment for the first time.

AMD made some bold claims about Bobcat, saying that it will provide 90 percent of today’s performance in less than half of the current silicon real estate. This means it is incredibly power efficient, requiring less than a watt of power. Read more

Consumers unaware over Windows 7 Starter missing features

A survey conducted by Retrevo has found that over 60 percent of 1,100 consumers surveyed did not know that Windows 7 Starter lacks some key features. This includes the inability to personalize the desktop, support for multiple monitors and DVD playback, all standard fare on Windows XP.

Once people were informed of these missing features, 56 percent said that they would not be satisfied with Windows 7 Starter. With 23 out of 28 netbooks currently running Windows 7 Starter, it looks like quite a few will be opting to upgrade to Home Premium.

However, this may cause negative sentiment towards Microsoft. “I think most users will feel angry with having to pay the $80 for an upgrade to get those features,” said Andrew Eisner, director of content for Retrevo. To get round this issue you could always buy a Linux netbook and there’s still a sizeable number of XP netbooks around too (for now).

Via ComputerWorld.

Qualcomm to announce first smartbook on 12th November

Qualcomm is expected to announce its first smartbook device tomorrow (12th November) at an analyst meeting in New York. It is unknown whether this will be a prototype or whether it is the finished article and to be announced along with an OEM. For those that are interested the meeting starts at 10AM Eastern Time and you can listen to the meeting here.

Smartbooks are a new category of device that sports an ARM chipset and is always connected to the internet through a SoC (System on Chip) that combines 3G, wireless and GPS. The chips are also said to be highly energy efficient, which means long battery lives. Qualcomm says that 40 Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered products are in the works from 15 different manufacturers.

Via Forbes [via Netbooked].

Competition: Win a Cool Bananas Hard Cover Netbook Case

Okay folks, it is competition time again courtesy of those nice chaps at Gearzap. We have up for grabs a Cool Bananas Hard Cover Netbook Case. This case should fit netbooks with display sizes between 8.9 to 10.2-inches and comes in a navy blue colour. It really is a great case to protect your netbook; you can check out our review of the case here.

As before, to enter the competition all you have to do is leave a comment below. We will pick a winner randomly when the competition closes at midnight (GMT) on Friday 13th November Monday 16th November. Good luck!

Rules: 1) Please leave a valid email address as we will be using this to contact you, 2) once contacted, if we do not hear from you within 24 hours we will draw another winner, 3) only one entry per household (remember we can see your IP address), 4) this competition is open to our readers worldwide.

Update: The closing date for entries has been changed to close of play on Monday due to unforeseen circumstances.

Update 2: The lucky winner is Daniel Chung! Many thanks to all who entered.

Litl Webbook unboxed [Video]

Following on from the Litl Webbook launch last week, we’ve come across the first unboxing video of the device. Now this isn’t just another netbook unboxing video as it’s quite clear that the company has spent a lot of time and thought in both the packaging design and trying to incorporate the company’s ethos into it.

Litl has spent a lot of time keeping the packaging to a minimum and it’s nice to see that the box has been designed so it is easy to return the company, in case of a fault. You also get fourteen illustrated cards, which uses images to get across the company’s philosophies. This includes “less is more” and how they to try to “reinvent the wheel” when it comes to user interface. Check out the video after the break. Read more

Samsung X120 review roundup – poor battery life

The 11.6-inch Samsung X120 CULV ultra-thin has now seen its first reviews. Despite a short 2.5-hour battery life, Cnet UK claimed it was their favourite 11.6” ultra-thin released so far. The liked its portability, nice screen and comfortable keyboard.

TrustedReviews also reviewed the Samsung X120 and found that it was let down by poor battery life, this is despite being well-designed and having good performance. The mouse buttons are placed on either side of the touchpad that is another minor annoyance. Read more

Nokia Booklet 3G review roundup – let down by slow CPU & HDD

Reviews are starting to trickle out for Nokia’s first entry into the netbook segment. It seems that the Booklet 3G has had a bit of a mixed reception. Yes, it has superb build quality and a long battery life, but most of the negatives mirror our initial take of the device back in early September.

Crunchgear found that the Booklet 3G was too generic and underpowered to be considered a great product. Even in general use, the netbook was laggy when it came to rendering web pages and loading YouTube videos. As this netbook will mainly be sold on contract they also felt it was “folly” to be locked into a contract for 2 years given the lack of power under the hood. Read more

Lenovo Ideapad U150 reviewed – great build quality; 5hr battery

Peter over at Netbooked has put the Lenovo Ideapad U150 ultra-thin through its paces and it seems to be well regarded. The build quality is a step above most netbooks, the keyboard is very comfortable to use, it plays HD Youtube videos and even has a reasonable 5-hour battery life.

Other positives included good audio quality and one of the best touchpads he’s used. There were a few annoyances however, including the placement of Ctrl and Fn keys (a staple of most Lenovo laptops), the 6-cell battery protrudes and it was a little noisy. Check out the key review points after the break. Read more

Lenovo Ideapad U150 now shipping in US

Lenovo’s 11.6-inch CULV-powered Ideapad U150 is now shipping in the United States. Two models are being offered, the base model costs $699 and has a 1.3GHz CPU (SU4100), 3GB RAM and a 250GB HDD. A more expensive ($849) model includes a 1.3GHz dual-core CPU (SU7300), 4GB RAM and a 320GB HDD.

However, the cheaper SKU has a wait time of “more than 4 weeks” whilst the more expensive version should ship in 16 business days. The Ideapad U150 sports an 11.6-inch (1366 x 768) display, Wi-Fi (b/g/n), Bluetooth 2.1, 1.3MP webcam, HDMI, two USB ports, card reader and unusually a combo USB/eSATA port.

Via Netbooked.

Belkin launches new netbook power adaptors

Belkin has today launched a couple of new netbook power adaptors. The adaptors appear to be quite slim (61.5mm X 111.5mm X 24.2mm) and have five interchangeable tips that will work with a number of netbook brands including Asus, Acer, Dell, HP, Samsung, and Toshiba. They also include an additional 5V USB power port, that can be used to charge mobile or MP3 devices.

Two netbook adaptors are being offered, a home/office one (F5L064qq/uk) that retails for £39.99 (€49.99) and a travel one (F5L065qq/uk) that costs £49.99 (€59.99). They will be available later this month in the UK and across Europe.

Confirmed: Atom support missing from latest Mac OS X update

After recent reports suggested that Intel Atom support for the latest Mac OS X 10.6.2 update was terminated and then reinstated again, it seems that the official release does not contain Intel Atom support. What this means is that those running Hackintosh netbooks will not be able to install the new update.

At this point, there is no word from Apple on whether this has been intentionally removed or whether support will be written back in a future update. However, as Apple does not manufacture any devices using the Atom CPU, it’s not likely to be in the company’s interests to do this any time soon.

Reports from the MyDellMini forum suggests that users trying to install the update will see an endless reboot cycle. You can see a video of this after the break. However, it can’t be too long before savvy modders will come up with a workaround, but until then it’s best to sit tight. Read more

Impressions of the Asus Eee PC T91MT convertible netbook surface [Video]

The Asus Eee PC T91MT only started to ship in the last few days, however one user has already received his unit and posted his initial impressions. Kubel from MyT91 found that the 32GB SSD performed similarly to the 16GB SSD in the original T91, albeit it was a little slower. Windows 7 was also quite snappy in terms of performance.

Other features were similar to the original T91 and include a well designed 8.9-inch form-factor, a bright display that sits between matte & display and is a fingerprint magnet. It also comes with a firm hinge that is critical for a device that will be switched between tablet & netbook mode often. He hasn’t tested the multi-touch features extensively, but we can see some of those from an official Asus promo video attached after the break. Read more

ZiiLABS intros ZMS-08 1080p-capable 1GHz ARM processor

ZiiLABS, which is owned by Creative, has announced a new chipset based on a 1GHz ARM Cortex processor, capable of full 1080p HD video playback. The processor is expected to be used in smartbooks, tablets and home media hubs.

The ZMS-08 processor can deliver full 1080p H.264 video, accelerated OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics at up to 1 Gpixels/sec, Adobe Flash 10, image processing and advanced Xtreme Fidelity X-Fi Audio effects. The chip is aimed at low-power mobile devices. Read more

Active Media unleashes performance SaberTooth S4 SSD upgrades

Active Media has unveiled a new line of performance SSDs aimed at Asus Eee PC netbooks. The SaberTooth S4 series uses the 3Gbps SATA-II interface and offers sequential read speeds of up to 130MB/sec and sequential writes up to 50MB/sec. The drives use the Jmicron JMF602B controller and MLC flash memory for transfer speeds promised to be two to five times faster than the standard SSD that shipped in many netbooks from ASUS.

The company has posted a detailed Benchmark Report of the SaberTooth S4, tested on an Eee PC 1000 under Windows XP here. The benchmark results show the S4 soaring to read speeds over 120MB/sec, nearly four times faster than the default SSD in the Eee PC 1000. The Mini PCI-E SSDs measure 70 x 32 mm (2.7 x 1.3 inches). Read more

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