Nvidia ION 2 benched; performance lags original ION?
February 21, 2010 at 9:01 pm
The Acer Aspire One 532G emerged as the first officially announced Nvidia ION 2 netbook earlier this week. This is despite still knowing very little about the “next generation ION” apart from the evidence suggesting it will be a discrete GPU part, possibly the GeForce GT218.
The 10-inch AAO 532G netbook was on show at MWC in Barcelona this week and NetbookNews managed to do some sneaky testing to see how ‘next-gen’ the new ION really is. They conducted the 3DMark03 graphics benchmark test on the netbook and initial results don’t look too promising for those hoping ION 2 would be a leap in performance over the original. Read more
Acer’s TouchPortal UI demoed on the Aspire 1820P convertible netbook
February 17, 2010 at 8:35 pm
Acer’s much anticipated 11.6-inch Aspire 1820P convertible tablet is due to hit the market next month. It will be powered by a 1.2GHZ dualSU7300 Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM (max 8GB), either 250GB or 320GB HDD. Other features include Wi-Fi (b/g), Bluetooth 2.1, HDMI, three USB ports, card reader and a 0.3MP webcam. The company is also boasting an 8-hour battery life.
Notebook Italia managed to get some hands-on time with the Aspire 1820P whilst at MWC in Barcelona. In particular, they enjoyed playing around with Acer’s multimedia TouchPortal user interface. You can use this to flick through photos, browse your music collection or play videos. It even allows you to print photos just by dragging them over to a print icon. Check out a video of this UI in action after the jump. Read more
MSI Wind U160 caught running Moblin [Video]
February 17, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Back at CES in January, both MSI and Samsung announced that it was planning to release netbooks with the Moblin operating system installed. MSI were planning a Moblin Wind U135, whilst Samsung was prepping the N127 netbook that will primarily go on sale in India and Russia.
Now the MSI Wind U160 has been spotted running Moblin at MWC in Barcelona. The hardware remains the same: 10.1-inch (1024 x 600) display, N450 Atom processor, 1GB RAM, 250GB HDD and a 15 hour battery life. We don’t know whether this was just a demonstration or whether MSI plans on making this a commercial reality. However, you can check out a video of the Moblin Wind U160 after the break. Read more
HP Compaq Airlife 100 smartbook video hands-on roundup
February 16, 2010 at 1:55 pm
HP is showing off its 10.1-inch Compaq Airlife 100 smartbook at the Mobile World Congress tradeshow in Barcelona. The Airlife 100 looks very much like a typical netbook, although it features a touchscreen resistive display and is powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon chipset and Android 1.6 combo.
The touchpad has a few shortcut buttons adjacent to it with key controls for the Android interface, such as the Menu, Home and Back keys. Other features include a 16GB SSD, Wi-Fi, 3G connectivity and a 12-hour battery life. The Airlife 100 smartbook will initially be offered by Telefonica through subsidized contracts. Read more
MeeGo the new OS created by Maemo + Moblin merger
February 15, 2010 at 12:37 pm
Intel and Nokia have merged their respective Moblin and Maemo mobile Linux operating systems to form MeeGo. This is huge news. MeeGo will be backed by two of the largest technology companies in the world and should create a mobile OS that will suit a wide range of devices from netbooks to smartphones.
Nokia recently delivered its first Maemo device the Nokia N900 smartphone and Intel’s Moblin is a credible open-source software platform for netbooks as well as MIDs. The MeeGo project will be hosted by the Linux Foundation. There will be access to both the Nokia Ovi Store and the recently announced Intel AppUp Centre. Read more
Notion Ink Adam tablet specs revealed; sports new design [Video hands-on]
February 15, 2010 at 8:36 am
Hard details of Notion Ink’s 10.1-inch Adam tablet have been few and far between. That has now changed with the company unveiling the specifications over on it its official site. We can now confirm that there will indeed be two SKUs, one including the Pixel-Qi display and one without. It will also come with a HDMI out, a rotating 3.2MP webcam, a 10.1-inch (1024 x 600) capacitive multitouch display and a 3-cell battery that should be good for 16 hours in full colour mode.
The design has also changed since our last look of the device at CES 2010 earlier in the year. The guys over at Technoholik managed to spend some time with the Adam and we’ve included their hands-on video after the jump. Slashgear also has had a pre-MWC play around and shot a video demonstrating Adobe Flash and its rotating webcam. Pricing is still a mystery, but hopefully more details will emerge at MWC that officially starts today. Read more
Modern Warfare 2 on the Samsung N510 netbook [Video]
February 14, 2010 at 4:59 pm
Netbooks aren’t meant for gaming, or so the saying goes. Nvidia has other ideas with its ION chipset that means you should be able to play even recent games as long as you don’t mind sacrificing settings and resolution. To give you an idea of how well an ION netbook can play games, we have a quick video demo of one of the current best-sellers, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 playing on the 11.6-inch Samsung N510.
It is being played at a resolution of 800 x 600 with the lowest settings. We managed to score between 20 to 30fps on average with the occasional drop below that. I’ve tried it quite a few times and it is actually reasonably playable. Obviously it’s not as smooth as my quad-core PC, but for those times when my desktop isn’t around, it gives you a quick gaming fix. Check out the video of my demo playing the game (badly) below as well as a couple of extra videos looking at HD YouTube Flash and 1080p video content. We have also updated our Samsung N510 review with these videos. Read more
Alienware M11x gaming ultraportable gets video tour
February 13, 2010 at 11:28 pm
The Alienware M11x is probably the most powerful 11.6-inch device on the market. Whilst we saw the first review pop up last week, we hadn’t seen any close ups of the M11x. Johannes from NewGadgets.de managed to get some hands-on time with the gaming beast and shot a quick video tour that shows the ports, switchable graphics (not Optimus) and backlit keyboard. It’s well worth the watch if you’re considering the M11x as a future purchase. Check it out after the break. Read more
Samsung NB30 rugged netbook in video unboxing
February 11, 2010 at 5:54 pm
The Samsung NB30 netbook is certainly unique amongst the company’s four Pine Trail netbooks. It has a rubberised lid and deck and water-tight seal to prevent liquid damage. It also has a HDD freefall protection sensor, matte display and 11-hour battery life.
NetbookNews has unboxed the NB30, where it was felt to be similar to the Samsung N150 in the looks department. Check out the video after the jump. Read more
KDE 4.4 with Plasma netbook interface released [Video]
February 11, 2010 at 5:22 pm
KDE has released its latest software compilation (4.4) dubbed ‘Caikaku’. The release includes a range of different built-in social networking features, but more relevant to netbook owners is the inclusion of a Plasma netbook interface specially designed for “ergonomic use on netbooks and smaller notebooks.” Check out a video of it in action after the break. Read more
Samsung N150 netbook in video unboxing
February 10, 2010 at 6:04 pm
The Samsung N150 netbook is pretty much one of the standard Pine Trail netbooks. It comes with a 1.66GHz N450 Atom processor, 1GB RAM, 250GB HDD and Windows 7 Starter. The N150 netbook was reviewed recently and whilst the quoted 8.5-hour battery life was lauded, the keyboard didn’t live up to its predecessors.
Roland from NetbookNews has unboxed one of these netbooks. Whilst the glossy lid is a fingerprint magnet, it’s nice to see it sport a matte display and palm rest. It comes with a 4400mAh battery and a flat-key keyboard. The touchpad looks a similar size to previous Samsung netbooks along with a single mouse rocker bar underneath. You can check out the unboxing after the jump. Read more
Nvidia Optimus automatic GPU switching officially detailed; heading to ION 2 [Video]
February 9, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Nvidia has formally announced details regarding its Optimus technology that allows for seamless graphics switching on netbooks and laptops. We briefly talked about Optimus earlier with rumours that ION 2 may support this technology, but now that the NDA is lifted, there’s a lot more detail on just how impressive this new technology is. We can also confirm that those earlier rumours are true, next-generation ION will have Optimus technology support.
It’s worth emphasizing that Nvidia Optimus technology is different to the switchable graphics that you may be familiar with. Optimus is designed to be invisible, working in the background and automatically switching between integrated Intel graphics or Nvidia discrete graphics depending on the application used. No rebooting, logging out or closing apps is needed here. Read more
Asus Eee PC T101MT interface gets video walkthrough
February 9, 2010 at 1:43 pm
The 10-inch Asus Eee PC T101MT is a mysterious machine, it first made an appearance at CES in 2009 but it still hasn’t been released. Recently, it passed through the FCC and even made an appearance once again at CES 2010 but we’re still no closer to getting any official launch details.
It may not to be too long to wait, however, as Asus has released a video tutorial of the user interface. It shows off some of the software applications including touching up photos, creating photo albums and leaving handwritten desktop memos. I didn’t notice any real differences to that used in the 8.9-inch T91MT. Whilst we continue to wait for the T101MT to show up you can check out the video after the jump. Read more
ExoPC’s 8.9-inch Slate shown off on video
February 9, 2010 at 9:33 am
The ExoPC Slate is an 8.9-inch tablet that comes with Windows 7 HP and a 32GB SSD for $599. We touched on the rest of the specs in our previous post, but we now we get to see the ExoPC Slate in action. Viewing angles appear to be good and the resistive touchscreen seems reasonably responsive. Check out a video of the Slate after the break. Read more
NbC: MSI Wind U135 Unboxed [Video]
February 8, 2010 at 11:15 am
MSI were kind enough to send over the MSI Wind U135 netbook for us to test. Whilst we’ll be putting the 10-inch U135 through its paces over the next couple of weeks, we first shot an unboxing video along with our preliminary impressions.
I have to say I’m impressed with MSI’s efforts in its new range of Intel Pine Trail netbooks. Whilst the Wind U160 may be the head-turner, the U135 isn’t too bad itself. Whilst we’re never fans of seeing a glossy lid, it doesn’t seem to be as much of a fingerprint magnet compared to the other models. The chiclet keyboard also has proved to be comfortable and we really like the textured touchpad. It’s not the biggest, but the tracking is very accurate and the finger scrolls smoothly over the surface. The single rocker bar underneath also has good feedback.
We’re currently conducting our usual round of battery and performance tests and will come back with a review in due course. Until then, check out our unboxing video after the break. Read more
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