Posted 09/30/08 at 08:02:46 AM by Pulkit Chandna

The Netbook movement, if it may be labeled as such, has received a shot in the arm in the U.S with the launch of Sprint’s XOHM WiMax network in Baltimore. The launch effectively ushers in the WiMax epoch in the U.S.

Subscribers will have unabated mobile broadband access throughout Baltimore as the XOHM network envelopes the entire city. Sprint is claiming downlinks speeds of 2-4 Mbps, effectively faster than 3G.

Netbooks are expected to become more practical and even indispensable to a fair degree as more cities appear on the WiMax map in coming months. Moreover, netbook are beginning to make much more sense due to the financial meltdown.

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network, Sprint, wimax, netbooks, MOBILE BROADBAND, baltimore, xohm

Posted 09/04/08 at 07:41:11 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Microsoft has revised the cap on hard disk space in netbooks running Windows XP. Now netbooks can have up to 160GB hard drive space, which is double the 80GB space previously permitted. It is anticipated that this increase in storage size will boost netbook sales, though not as significantly as enhanced processing power might. MSI and Asustek have already released the 160GB variants of their Wind and Eee PC netbooks respectively. This move can also dampen the sales prospects of SSD-bearing netbooks, which have comparatively lesser storage space due to current SSD prices.

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microsoft, Hard Drive, hardware, Asustek, ssd, msi, eee PC, netbooks, 160gb, limit, restriction, cap, wind

Posted 09/04/08 at 02:29:42 PM by Florence ion

Dell CEO Michael said Wednesday at the Citigroup Technology Conference that notebooks will eventually become subsidized by wireless telecom carriers, who will no doubt sell the devices with 3G service and capabilities in an effort to profit from the growing mobile market.

The prediction merely came off as an indication of the company’s strategy to stay afloat among the sea of competition infiltrating the notebook market, especially considering that the company has had less than expected profit margins. With the rising popularity of 3G, Dell expects that telecom carriers will take over the laptop market in order to sell the services and prepare for the eventual initiation of 4G. Notebooks will ultimately become netbooks.

At the conference, Citigroup said that netbooks will account for about a third of global notebook sales. Dell agreed, saying that “(Netbooks are) a market expansion,” according to ZDNet. Dell will no doubt follow this strategy as it attempts to reinitiate itself into the notebook market.

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mobile, notebook, dell, netbooks, 3G, Subsidy

Posted 08/25/08 at 04:54:15 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Intel Atom sales have defeated the company’s own expectations and put netbook manufacturers like Asus in a quandary. As Intel finds it difficult to meet the staggering demand for the diminutive Atom, Asus has decided that it is going to use the older Celeron M processors in its lower-end Eee PCs. An unnamed source told PC World that Asus Eee 901, 1000 and 1000H models are going to get top priority when it comes to Atom supplies.

This means that the Asus Eee PC 2G, 4G, 900, 900A, 904HD and 1000HD models are going to feature Celeron M processors. However, it needs to be mentioned that some of the above models already employ Celeron processors. By using the cheaper Celeron M processors Asus also intends to keep costs low. According to PC World, Intel expects to catch up with demand by Q3 2008.

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cpu, processor, hardware, Intel Atom, asus eee pc, netbooks, celeron m, shortage

Posted 08/06/08 at 08:34:17 AM by Chris Moody

Eweek says that Linux will outpace Windows in mobile internet device (MID) market by 2013? Is it any wonder? Netbooks are catching on as a great way to check email and surf the web in out of the way places without having to lug a notebook with you. The netbook credo is cheap, light and small. Mobile internet device market is expected to grow from the expected 305,000 units in 2008, to 39.6 million units in 2012.

MIDs are targeted at cloud computing, which involves checking email, IM, browsing, etc. They do not require Windows to get that done and you don’t need the one thing that Windows brings to the table, which is a large library of software.

Eweek also suggests that another form of MID; smartphones are a market that Linux is going to make inroads into as well. Mobile Linux providers LiMo, Maemo and Moblin are laying out the groundwork now so they can be out front when the market takes off. There are several new phones for LiMo that look really interesting and are sure to shake things up.

In the mobile market things are almost even amongst mobile operating systems. Linux would seem to have an advantage since it is highly flexible, configurable, and has a huge following for developing open source software to expand the usability of these devices.

Will you be picking up an MID for your next gadget, and will it be sporting Linux or maybe you already have one? Fill us in!

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windows, Smartphone, linux, consumer electronics, netbooks, mid, LiMo, Maemo, Moblin

Posted 07/22/08 at 07:43:04 AM by Chris Moody

Just how green can we make a PC? Pretty damn green, although the Cherrypal isn’t very pretty or particularly cheap, although $250 isn’t really bad as far as computers go.

On the technical side it can best be described as the 90 pound weakling. The CPU is a 400 MHz Freescale MPC5121e mobile GT triple-core processor, originally developed to run devices like navigation systems in cars. It has 256 MB DDR2  memory, 4 GB of NAND flash memory which contains a Debian Linux-based operating system and the Firefox web browser. It also sports 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, two USB ports, an Ethernet port, VGA out, and Audio out. It’s just enough to fulfill its purpose -cloud computing.

Basically it allows you to surf, email, watch YouTube, watch Flash animations, and create documents/spreadsheets. Something that does bother me is the claims that the device is secure, because it accesses the Internet through the Cherrypal Cloud. I don’t like that all my data goes through one company like that. There are also many “what ifs” to be answered on that point.

We’ll have to see how this compares to the netbooks when they are actually shipping, Netbooks after all at least look cool. From the picture the Cherrypal looks like a bar of black soap.

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pc, hardware, cloud computing, netbooks, cherrypal, computers, thin client

Posted 07/21/08 at 11:27:21 AM by Chris Moody

Anyone that has used a smart phone for browsing the internet knows that those little screens are just too small to be really comfortable to use. We also know that we don’t like to tote a notebook PC around on the chance that we need to use the internet for something.

The industry has known we needed something between a notebook PC and a smartphone sized device. It has taken several stabs at it, but nothing has quite stuck until a new breed of device has started to hit the market, called netbooks. These power sipping, devices are made primarily for checking email and surfing the internet at a low cost, some selling for $300. The PC industry is set to sell tens of millions of these devices. Good deal for the PC industry, right?

Maybe not. The NYTimes.com reports that industry analysts say that the emergence of this new class of low-cost, cloud-centric machines could threaten big market companies like Microsoft, Intel, HP, or Dell. “When I talk to PC vendors, the No. 1 question I get is, how do I compete with these netbooks when what we really want to do is sell PCs that cost a lot more money?” said J. P. Gownder, an analyst with Forrester Research.

Why are these tiny PCs a threat? Make the jump to find out!

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pc, dell, hp, asus, consumer electronics, eee, notebooks, netbooks