Gateway LT21 netbook series promises 10-hour battery life

Gateway has introduced the LT21 series of Intel Pine Trail netbooks that promises a 10-hour battery life armed with a 1.66GHz N450 Atom Pineview processor and GMA 3150 graphics.

The LT21 series will come with a 10.1-inch (1024 x 600) LED backlit display, a 93-percent keyboard and multi-gesture touchpad (pinch to zoom in/out). The netbook has 1GB RAM on board and you can choose from 160GB/250GB HDD options. Read more

HP Mini 5102: Business Pine Trail netbook announced & reviewed

HP has announced the follow-up to its 10-inch Mini 5101 business netbook with the Intel Pine Trail enabled Mini 5102. As is denoted by the minor change in model number, the Mini 5102 looks largely the same as the 5101 with its sub 1-inch aluminum and magnesium chassis and 95 percent keyboard.

The 5102 comes with either a 1.66GHz N450 or 1.83GHz N470 Pineview Atom. Up to 2GB RAM is included and you also get a fast 7200RPM HDD (160/250/320GB) or SSD (80/128GB), Connectivity is taken care of by Wi-Fi (b/g/n) and Bluetooth. Read more

Lenovo’s Ideapad U1 Hybrid converts from 11.6” CULV to tablet

Lenovo has announced an interesting new form-factor that bears a similarity to Always Innovating’s TouchBook. The Ideapad U1 Hybrid is effectively an 11.6-inch (1366 x 768) multi-touch tablet device that docks into a traditional laptop design. When paired the U1 runs off the Intel CULV processor and when in tablet mode, it is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset.

The U1 Hybrid comes with 4GB RAM (512MB in tablet mode) and can support a 128GB SSD (16GB is used for the tablet). Other features include two USB ports, eSATA, VGA, HDMI, 4-in-1 card reader, and a 1.3MP webcam. The operating system is catered for by Windows 7 when using as a laptop and Lenovo’s custom Linux OS in tablet mode (probably the same that will be used in the Lenovo Skylight smartbook). Read more

Freescale unveils $200 7-inch smartbook tablet reference design

We expect to see a whole raft of smartbook devices at CES this week. Right on cue, Freescale has revealed a 7-inch (1024 x 600) tablet reference design that it is shopping to potential OEMs. The company hopes that its tablet design would be able to hit retail for less than $200 and could appear as soon as Summer 2010.

As with all smartbooks, the tablet is expected to be always-on and have an all-day battery life. In terms of specifics, the smartbook tablet is based on the i.MX515 processor, which incorporates the ARM Cortex A8 chip. It will also come with 512MB RAM and 4-64 GB of flash storage. Read more

Samsung N210, N220, N150 and NB30 Pine Trail netbooks now official

Samsung has officially confirmed its Intel Pine Trail netbook line-up. It will launch four new netbooks under the model names N210, N220, N150 and NB30. Whilst detailed specifications and pricing is still not available, Samsung says that all four models will be available across all territories in early January.

The netbooks will feature a 10.1-inch LED anti-reflective display powered by a 1.66GHz N450 Pineview Atom processor. The designs of the new netbooks don’t look radically different from what we’re accustomed to. They all sport a scratch-resistant lid and webcam. Read more

Lenovo Thinkpad X100e 11.6” ultraportable gets official

Lenovo has outed the 11.6-inch Thinkpad X100e ultra-thin on its own website, ahead of CES next week. There are few surprises given the detailed leaks that we’ve seen to date. The X100e is a landmark device for us, as it’s the first netbook to sport a trackpoint! As a Thinkpad user myself I much prefer navigating with the trackpoint rather than the touchpad.

Thinkpad’s are known for their great keyboards and the X100e looks like it won’t disappoint in this regard. It will come with an ISO full-sized, spill-resistant chiclet keyboard. Personally I would have preferred their traditional keyboard over a chiclet one, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt until I see one in person. As well as a trackpoint, the X100e is equipped with a multi-touch touchpad that lets you zoom, scroll and rotate using two-finger gestures. Read more

Lenovo Skylight smartbook lands in April for $499 with AT&T

Lenovo is set to announce the Skylight smartbook at CES next week. The tipster who gave us a heads-up on the Ideapad S10-3t has given us the first details of the new smartbook.

The Lenovo Skylight is the company’s first smartbook, powered by the ARM-based Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset. It will launch in the US in April, where one will be able to purchase the Skylight on a standalone basis through Lenovo.com for $499 or on a two-year AT&T 3G data contract. The Skylight will then be available in Europe and China later in 2010. Read more

Lenovo Ideapad S10-3t, S10-3 specs & pricing emerge

We have been informed that Lenovo is indeed set to announce the Ideapad S10-3t and S10-3 netbooks at CES next week. That’s not too surprising given the leaks we have already seen, but we also have in our possession first details on technical specifications, pricing and availability.

Lenovo’s third generation of netbooks will be headlined by the Ideapad S10-3t. This convertible tablet/netbook will boast a 10.1-inch multitouch capacitive display. As with other convertible tablets, the display can swivel by 180 degrees to form a touch tablet. Lenovo claims it is built with its NaturalTouch fingertip touch screen technology, versus pressure touch technology. But surely this is how all capacitive displays work? The picture below is the first of the Ideapad S10-3t. Read more

Twenty companies to release smartbooks from Q1 2010

We have been waiting for the smartbook revolution to take hold for some time now. Well it looks like it will kick off in earnest from the first quarter of next year. According to President Kim Yung-sup of ARM Korea, “20 companies in the world are preparing for release of smart book. And we will see them from 1Q.”

He went on to say: “Already one company finished development and is considering time of release. Considering local market which is led by window OS, smart book market will be led by overseas.”

We expect to see the first details of the smartbook rollout at CES 2010, which is kicking off in a few weeks time. We are very much looking forward to seeing exactly what’s on offer.

Via etnews.

Intel Cedar Trail graphics twice as fast as Pine Trail?

Intel’s 2011 Atom chipset platform called Cedar Trail will have twice the graphics performance compared to the upcoming Intel Atom Pine Trail chipset according to Fudzilla. The actual processor part (codenamed Cedarview) will be based on a 32mn fabrication process, compared to the 45nm Intel Pineview CPUs.

Intel Pineview will have a GPU performance that matches what we already have in the market, whilst Cedarview will be twice as good when measured by 3DMark06. Of course, even twice as good is still not good enough. Given that most N270/N280 Atom-based netbooks achieve a 3DMark06 score around 100, twice is that is still useless for most 3D software. However, Cedarview will benefit from the ability to play 1080p video content. Intel Pine Trail is set to launch on January 3rd 2010, with Cedar Trail expected in late 2011.

New Samsung netbook line-up to launch in January 2010

The Netbook World Summit was being held today in Paris and some interesting tidbits of information have been gleaned from Samsung Notebook Product Manager, Jaewoo Seo. He says that a completely new range of Samsung netbooks will be revealed in January 2010 based on the Intel Pine Trail platform.

This is hardly surprising news as we already know that most of the big manufacturers are planning on showcasing their Pineview-powered netbooks at CES 2010 in early January. However, we did learn that these models are expected to incorporate a much thinner design whilst having even longer battery lives. Samsung already delivers some of the longest netbook battery lives so this is great news. Also, at least one netbook with a touchscreen display is expected. Read more

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