Posted 10/16/09 at 06:10:52 PM by Paul Lilly

The busy guys and gals over at Acer have put the final touches on the company's revamped AspireRevo R3510-U9012 "one-liter nettop." Kicking things up a notch over its predecessor, the refreshed PC now sports an Intel dual-core Atom 330 instead of a single core Atom 230.

It also comes built around Nvidia's Ion platform, 2GB of DDR2 memory, a 160GB hard drive, six USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI port, eSATA, WiFi, and Windows 7 Home Premium, fast becoming an obligatory OS in any new OEM setup. Not a bad spec sheet for a $330 nettop.

"The AspireRevo is a practical and highly adaptable nettop for the home -- powerful enough to take on games but so thin, it can be neatly hidden from view," said Susan Hu, Desktop Product Manager for Acer America. "It's also energy-efficient and quiet."

One of the coolest features of the AspireRevo is its ability to connect to the back of an LCD or TV panel with a VESA attachment. In essence, you could turn your swank LCD HDTV into a respectable all-in-one. And did we mention it's only $330?

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Posted 10/16/09 at 10:13:57 AM by Paul Lilly

To kick off the new year, Intel plans to start shipping its Atom N450 processor clocked at 1.66GHz, which is slightly faster than the 1.60GHz Atom N270. At $64, it's also slightly more expensive by a couple of Hamiltons.

But if you're holding out for a faster Atom chip, you may consider waiting until March when Intel starts selling its Atom N470 chip for $75. The upcoming part will kick things up a notch with a 1.86GHz clockspeed, or 200MHz faster than the N270. That's a pretty significant boost in the Atom world, even if the amount of cache (512KB) remains unchanged.

Both new chips will fit in the same FCBGA8 socket that current netbooks use. That means you can also expect some new desktop Atom chips in the pipeline, though details are scarce at the moment.

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Posted 10/05/09 at 02:00:48 PM by Paul Lilly

Forget about underpowered netbooks and nettops, Vstone may have the best idea ever for Intel's Atom platform. Meet Robovie-PC, a new hobby humanoid robot kit built around Intel's Atom Z530 processor (1.6GHz). Armed with a highly scalable embedded PC, the Atom-powered robot can connect to the Internet and be programmed to take shots with its 1.3MP camera.

Fully assembled, Robovie-PC stands about 15 inches tall and weighs a little under 5 pounds. It (He?) boasts 20 degrees of freedom, plus pretty good mobility thanks to the gear interlock parallel link mechanism used in the legs. But should Robovie-PC walk right off your desk, the squishy polyurethane foam that makes up the exterior body should keep it from shattering like Humpty Dumpty.

Other specs include VGA output, USB ports for mouse and keyboard, wireless LAN card, and compatibility with Windows XP, Vista, and Linux, with support for Windows 7 coming soon.

The only place you can pick one up right now is in Japan, where Robovie-PC runs about $4,440.

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Posted 09/30/09 at 01:15:24 PM by Paul Lilly

Now here's something we never expected to see: a dual-processor netbook! A dual-core netbook, sure, but two physical processors? That concept hasn't even caught on with power users on the desktop segment, so how can Haleron, maker of the two-chip Swordfish Net 102 Dual Netbook, expect it to be a hit with mainstream users who value battery life above all else?

Price, for one. At $450, the 10.2-inch netbook manages to stay within netbook pricing territory, even if it does rock out with two Atom chips. The rest of the specs are about what you'd imagine from an upper-tier netbook, including 2GB of DDR2 memory, a 160GB hard drive, WiFi, built-in 3G module,1.3MP webcam, and Windows XP.

Haleron doesn't make any claims towards battery, and with just a 3-cell battery, we don't expect a whole lot. Even still, color us intrigued, if not mystified.

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Posted 09/22/09 at 09:12:24 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Intel showed off a new version of Moblin today for use in Atom-based mobile phones. Moblin is Intel’s compact Linux distro for netbooks. This tweaked version of the OS, Moblin 2.1, is said to have heavy social networking integration (and what doesn’t these days?), widgets, and a panel based interface. Intel claims to have heavily modified the user interface specifically for mobile phones.

The demo today was done on a MID and an Acer netbook. Those in attendance were not allowed to actually try the OS, but visual impressions were good. There are currently no Atom based phones available, and no specific devices were discussed.
 
A smartphone powered by an Atom chip would likely be considerably faster than today’s handsets. There is no information on when one of these phones might actually ship. So you’ll have to wait with bated breath.

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Posted 09/22/09 at 08:32:27 PM by Ryan Whitwam

If you’re in the market for a luxury car in the next few years, they might try to upsell you an Atom-based “infotainment” system. BMW and Mercedes-Benz expect to get the units in cars sometime in 2012. Mercedes-Benz will make the systems available to buyers of its S-Class and C-Class vehicles. BMW will have them in the 7-series.

Intel’s Paul Otellini said these would be just the first of many in-vehicle entertainment systems based on the Atom platform. It’s possible this is the beginning of a trend. Maybe these carputers won’t be relegated to luxury models for long. This is yet another creative use for the Atom chip, but will anyone be interested?

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Posted 09/18/09 at 09:31:41 AM by Paul Lilly

According to news and rumor site DigiTimes, Taiwan-based netbook vendors have started slashing prices for their netbooks built around Intel's Atom N270 and N280 processors as demand shifts over to ultra-thins. This includes the major players, such as Acer, Asus, BenQ, and MSI.

It isn't clear whether price cuts loom for U.S. shoppers as well, but if you're on the fence about picking up a netbook, it might be worth your while to hold out and see how the market shapes up this holiday shopping season. While the average selling price of netbooks in Taiwan has dropped from around $490 to below $460, some specific models have seen much sharper price cuts. BenQ's 10-inch Joybook Lite U101, for example, used to sell for about $550 but can now be had for around $325, or 40 percent less than its launch price.

And it's not just BenQ. Asus' Eee PC S101H, originally priced at about $525, now sells in the vicinity of $415. MSI-'s 10-inch Wind U100 can now be found for around $340, while Acer's Atom N280-based Aspire One D150 sells for a little over $350, DigiTimes reports.

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Posted 09/03/09 at 07:00:40 AM by Paul Lilly

Acer's overhauled Aspire Revo 3600 nettop picks up where its predecessor left off. Like the original Aspire Revo, the new 3600 model supports HD video courtesy of Nvidia's Ion platform, but the latest iteration trades in the comparatively anemic single-core 1.6GHz Atom 230 processor for a 1.6GHz dual-core Atom 330.

Right off the bat, doubling up on cores will come as a boon to anyone, um, aspiring to do more than basic tasks with the Aspire Revo. Other specs include 4GB of DDR2-533 memory, an HDMI port, and VESA mount compatibility.

No word yet on price or availability.

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