Acer prepping ultra-thin with touchscreen keyboard and glass lid?

Acer is getting ready to launch a new type of ultra-thin notebook that promises to be one of the thinnest around. It will feature a frameless display and touchscreen keyboard. The lid will be made from the back of the display panel’s glass substrate according to Digitimes.

Doesn’t sound too safe to us, but apparently the company is planning on using Corning’s reinforced glass substrate and print a colour on the back allowing it to be used as a traditional lid found in normal notebooks. The move is being made to reduce thickness and material costs. If this thing ever comes to fruition it is rumoured to launch in H2 2010.

Via Engadget.

LG X300 ultra slim hits the streets later this month

The super-skinny LG X300 that boasts an 11.6-inch display will be launching in selected regions in March according to an official press release. Europe and US are out of the equation for now, the only regions mentioned are Asia, Middle East and South America for an undisclosed price.

The LG X300 won’t come cheap, it measures just 17.5mm in thickness and weighs only 970g. It eschews a bezel and comes with a fancy reflective keyboard and borderless touchpad. It will be available in both shiny white and light brown colours. Read more

DIY Pixel Qi screen kits due in June 2010

Mary Lou Jepsen has confirmed over on her blog that Pixel Qi will be shipping do-it-yourself screen kits for their 3Qi hybrid displays at the end of Q2 2010, meaning a likely June launch date. She rightfully says that many people do not realise how easy it is to change their display, going on to say that it’s only slightly more difficult than changing a bulb.

“It’s basically 6 screws, pulling off a bezel, unconnecting the old screen and plugging this one in. That’s it. It’s a 5 minute operation”, says Jepsen. Pricing and netbook compatibility remains a mystery for now.

Fujitsu LifeBook UH900 reviewed – positives outweigh negatives

The Fujitsu LifeBook UH900 is one of the more powerful 5.6-inch UMPCs on the market that comes with options for a 2.0GHz Intel Atom processor, Windows 7, 2GB RAM and a SSD. Jenn from Pocketables has been reviewing one for the last few weeks and found the UH900 to be a joy to use overall.

Getting the negative points out of the way first, the UH900 had quite poor battery life (2.0 to 2.5 hours of web browsing over Wi-Fi) from its 2-cell 1800mAh battery. Build quality also felt ‘toy like’ and the multitouch felt more to be a gimmick than of any real use. Read more

Samsung Go N315 Pine Trail netbook outed

The Samsung Go N310 was one of the more striking netbook designs from Samsung with its bold coloured lid, large embossed Samsung logo, flush glossy display and chiclet keyboard. Samsung is set to launch a Pine Trail update with the Samsung Go N315 according to the official Samsung US site.

The Samsung Go N315 has a 10.1-inch (1024 x 600) matte display powered by a 1.66GHz N450 Atom Pineview processor, 1GB RAM, 250GB HDD and Windows 7 Starter. Other features include a 1.3MP webcam, Wi-Fi (b/g/n), three USB ports and a 4-cell battery good for 4.5 hours of runtime. It also comes with The New York Times newsreader application. Amazon already has pre-orders up for $429. Check out the full list of specs after the jump. Read more

Microsoft Courier details leak: Dual-screen Tegra 2 ‘Digital Journal’

Details on Microsoft’s Courier device has been under tight wraps since the first rumours started to appear. Now Engadget has managed to get a whole host of details from a trusted source. Apparently the dual-screen device will function as a “digital journal” and will be less than an inch thick and around the size of a 5×7” photo when closed.

The Courier will feature the Tegra 2 chipset and the same operating system as the recently announced Windows Mobile 7 series i.e. Windows CE 6. Other hardware features include a built-in camera and headphone jack. The UI will be pen-based and will focus on drawing and writing. There’s no suggestion on pricing but the release date is said to be at some point in H2 2010.

Viliv S10 Blade unboxed and video impressions

The Viliv S10 Blade convertible netbook recently saw pre-orders open and whilst we wait for the device to ship, Chippy from UMPC Portal has received a final pre-production sample and given a video walkthrough of the device.

As such there’s no formal retail packaging, so it’s not a traditional unboxing video par se. Initial impressions are that the S10 has good build quality, a fast SSD and very good 3G reception. He suggests turning off Windows Aero as it seriously affects the performance of the netbook. Check out the video below. Read more

Alienware M11x gets video unboxing

The Alienware M11x is probably one of the most advanced 11.6-inch ultraportables on the market right now. Whilst we have already seen a very positive review, we were yet to come across an unboxing video. Slashgear has stepped up to the plate and have shown exactly what you get packaged with the M11x.

The model tested comes with a 1.3GHz SU7300 Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB DDR3 memory and a 256GB SSD. Graphics is taken care of by a GeForce GT 335M with 1GB of dedicated memory. Initial impressions are that it is all solidly built but the casing is a real fingerprint magnet. Battery life is said to last for 8.5 hours although this hasn’t been tested yet. Check out the video after the break. Read more

Asus Eee PC 1005PR netbook to come with Broadcom Crystal HD?

The Asus Eee PC 1005PR was already spotted at CeBIT earlier this week and comes with a high-resolution (1366 x 768) display. Notebook Italia has now spotted that this netbook may end up coming with a Broadcom Crystal HD media crystal accelerator card pre-installed.

The 10.1-inch netbook comes with a 1.66GHz N450 Atom processor, 1GB RAM and 250GB HDD. The Broadcom Crystal HD card means 1080p video content should be no problem, although don’t expect the same performance with gaming. Check out a video of this in action after the jump. Read more

Apple iPad pre-orders start March 12, shipping on April 3

Apple has finally given official word on when it will start to ship the iPad. US pre-orders will start on March 12, with availability from April 3. This is for the Wi-Fi model initially, with the 3G models shipping in late April.

Other regions including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK will ship in late April. Pricing in these countries will not be announced until April. The Wi-Fi iPad models will be available for pre-order with US prices starting at $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, $699 for 64GB. The 3G models will have prices starting at $629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB and $829 for 64GB.

Jolicloud’s final ‘Robby’ release due in weeks; web apps switched to Chrome

Jolicloud has announced that its final ‘Robby’ build will be released to the public by the end of the month. It has also announced that it will be automatically switching its web application platform to Google Chrome from Mozilla Prism that it has been using currently.

The move is said to bring a faster browsing experience, more efficient use of memory, better performance on ARM smartbooks/tablets, HTML5 as well as Chrome extensions support. Despite the switch, Firefox will still be the default browser used. It claims that Firefox on Jolicloud is 10 percent faster than on other Linux distributions due to optimisations carried out. Read more

Gigabyte M1000N netbook comes with 10” HD display and next-gen ION

We have already heard that Gigabyte is launching a Pine Trail update to its Booktop M1022 netbook called the M1000. We are receiving word on the different models under the M1000 series, the flagship of which will be the M1000N that comes with a flush glass display with 1366 x 768 resolution.

This particular model will also come with next-generation ION graphics, most likely the 8-core version since it is a 10-inch netbook. As it is a Booktop model, it will include a docking station that has a HDMI port and DVD drive. It will also come with a 6-cell battery with a price point estimated at €450 – €500. Read more

Samsung N220 ships with Broadcom Crystal HD media card in UK

This is a strange one. Apparently, the UK version of the Samsung N220 netbook ships with a Broadcom Crystal HD media accelerator card, enabling 1080p video playback out of the box. Up until now, the only perceived difference between the N220 and N210 was that the N220 came with a two-tone coloured lid and subwoofer.

What is strange is that there is no mention of this inclusion anywhere on the Samsung site or retailer listings. Given that this is quite a marketable bullet point, it’s difficult to understand why Samsung didn’t want to sing 1080p compatibility from the rooftops, unless it is a very late addition. This only appears to be on the UK version, although we’d love to hear if any other Samsung N220’s have the Broadcom Crystal HD card elsewhere in the world. Check out some photos of the “HD Playback” sticker after the break. Read more

HP Mini 210 Vivienne Tam Edition now official

HP has officially launched the Mini 210 Vivienne Tam Edition netbook that first made an appearance last September. The netbook is adorned with a butterfly design clearly appealing to the female consumer, along with a gold keyboard.

The specs are the same as the current vanilla Mini 210 netbook, including a 10-inch display, 2GB RAM, up to 320GB HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium and a 3-cell battery good for 5.5 hours of runtime. For those looking to make a fashion statement, the Mini 210 Vivienne Tam Edition will set you back $599 when it launches on March 19th.

Via Engadget.

Sony Vaio M netbook unearthed

Sony is set to launch a budget netbook series under the Vaio M name. The specs are nothing to get excited about, it has a 10.1-inch (1024 x 600) display and is powered by a 1.66GHz N450 Atom processor, 1GB DDR2 RAM and a 250GB HDD. Other features include Wi-Fi (b/g/n), Bluetooth 2.1 and a webcam.

The Sony Vaio M will be priced around the £320 mark when it launches later this month. It is cheaper than the Sony Vaio W as it doesn’t have a chiclet keyboard and high-resolution display.

Via Engadget.

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