Everex follows Asus Eee to announce 9in sub-notebook
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Unreleased CloudBook follow-up named Not content with mounting a serious challenge to Asus' elfin Eee PC, US manufacturer Everex this week said it will follow up its 7in CloudBook sub-notebook with larger models later in the year.â¦
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Meanwhile, Japan's getting a 16GB version Asus' elfin Eee PC is coming to Japan and it's going to get 16GB of solid-state storage, it has been claimed. Meanwhile, in the UK availability has reached Wii-like limits, according to insiders.â¦
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But bigger displays and WiMax coming in Q2 CES Asus today committed itself to expanding its Eee PC line-up not only with WiMax wireless broadband-enabled versions but also machines with 7, 8 and 8.9in displays. They'll appear in Q2, Asus said.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Via TechnologiesÂ has developed an ultraportable notebook reference design that will soon hit European markets. The Via NanoBook, which will be unveiled Wednesday at the Computex exhibition, uses the company's 1.2GHz C-7M processor and has a 7-inch LCD (liquid crystal display) touchscreen and Wi-Fi. The small notebook PC is intended to ship with either a 30GB or 60GB hard disk, and can run either Windows XP or Windows Vista. The notebook weighs less than 2 pounds, or 900 grams, and has a battery life of up to five hours. The NanoBook is aimed at the same market as theÂ Ultramobile PCÂ (UMPC) reference design developed by Microsoft and Intel, but has different specifications. For instance, the UMPC is designed around an Intel microprocessor and does not include a full keyboard. Via trails far behind Intel and Advanced Micro DevicesÂ in the microprocessor market and is counting on reference designs like the NanoBook to win more business from hardware vendors, said Richard Brown, the company's vice president of corporate marketing. The strategy appears to be working. On Sunday, Taiwanese contract manufacturer First International Computer (FIC) leaked details of a NanoBook produced by the company. That device is being made under contract for Packard Bell, which will put the device on sale in Europe during the third quarter, according to a source familiar with the deal. A similar device will be made for sale in the U.S. but will not be sold under the Packard Bell brand, the source said. Via's NanoBook reference design includes at least one feature that will not appear in the device sold by Packard Bell. Because the screen is smaller than the notebook's lid, there is space for a removable module that sits next to the display. Via has developed three modules that can be changed by users to suit their needs. These modules include a world clock, a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver, a VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) phone, a DVB television receiver, and a 3G (third-generation) cellular module. Â
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Processors specially developed by Intel for&#160;Apple&#39;s new MacBook Air laptop&#160;will soon be used by other PC vendors in systems, possibly creating competition for what Apple calls the world&#39;s lightest and thinnest notebook.Two PC makers will use the miniaturized Intel Core 2 Duo processors used by Apple in MacBook Air, said a source familiar with Intel&#39;s plans. Systems powered by the chips will be released soon, the source said.The companies&#39; names weren&#39;t revealed, but the chip could bring smaller and lighter notebooks that could compete in size and performance with the ultra-thin MacBook Air, which weighs 3 pounds (1.3 kilograms) and measures 0.16 inches (0.4 centimeters) at its thinnest part and 0.76 inches (1.93 cms) at its thickest part.Apple asked Intel to develop powerful chips for MacBook Air that are 60 percent smaller than the normal size, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said during a keynote address at the Macworld Conference and Expo earlier this month. Intel obliged, which led to the development of smaller Core 2 Duo processors.&quot;All you have to do is check out the size and shape of the MacBook Air to see what the shrink enables -- smaller, lighter form factors that were physically not possible before,&quot; said Connie Brown, an Intel spokeswoman.The MacBook Air comes with miniaturized Intel Core 2 Duo processors running at either 1.6Ghz or 1.8GHz, with the Intel 965GMS chip set and integrated graphics. Manufactured using the 65-nanometer process, the chips belong to Intel&#39;s Merom family of processors.Intel shrunk the CPU and chip set for a 60 percent reduction in total footprint to comparable Merom processors, Brown said. While delivering similar performance, the chips use 20 watts of power, lower than comparable Merom chips that use 35 watts.The miniaturized chip was designed for Apple, but other PC makers can use it, Brown said.PC manufacturers could adopt the miniaturized Merom CPU in mini desktops or subnotebooks, but the Mac OS X Leopard operating system gives MacBook Air an advantage, said Nathan Brookwood, an analyst with Insight 64. Other systems could be based on Windows or Linux.Apple also has a leg up in product design, which potential MacBook Air competitors will find hard to emulate, Brookwood said.&quot;What has resulted from Apple&#39;s move to Intel chips is its forcing other OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] to pay more attention to the styling of their systems, which is clearly an advantage for users,&quot; Brookwood said.This was the first time Intel developed a small form-factor chip from a normal-sized mobile processor, Brown said.However, Intel has talked about developing chips with smaller form factors in the past.At the Intel Developer Forum last year, Intel talked about shrinking the size of chips by up to 60 percent for its next-generation Montevina mobile platform, which will include the new Penryn processors manufactured using the 45-nm process. The small form-factor chips will be released shortly after the normal-sized chips, due to ship by the middle of this year.It&#39;s not a coincidence that both Intel and Apple have talked about a 60 percent size reduction in chips, Brookwood said. Apple has taken a step ahead by adopting the Merom processor for the MacBook Air, and a natural path of progression is to upgrade to the small form-factor Penryn processors that will be part of Montevina, he said.Apple doesn&#39;t comment on future products, a company spokesman wrote in an e-mail.
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Asustek Computer&#39;s Linux-based Eee PC laptop will soon be on sale in North America and Europe, and the company plans to offer a version running Windows XP by the end of the year.The Eee PC is a&#160;low-cost laptop&#160;designed primarily for children and emerging markets such as India. It weighs less than a kilogram, has a 7-inch LCD (liquid crystal display) screen and can connect to the Internet wirelessly. The&#160;first version went on sale earlier this month&#160;in Asia, including in Hong Kong and Taiwan, where it&#39;s priced at about NT$11,100 (US$340)On Nov. 1 the Eee PC will go on sale at stores in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Vancouver and Toronto, and also through e-commerce Web sites in North America, Asustek officials said Tuesday. It will then be rolled out gradually in Europe, starting in Germany on Nov. 9. Major Chinese cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, will follow in mid-November.The first Eee PCs run a Linux operating system from Xandros. By the end of the year, Asustek will also offer versions running Microsoft&#39;s Windows XP.Pricing for the laptops in Europe and North America hasn&#39;t been announced. In Taiwan, the price difference between the XP and Linux versions will be about NT$1,000, Asustek said in a statement.Asustek has shipped about 100,000 Eee PCs so far, and by the end of the year it&#39;s targeting 400,000, said Jerry Shen, Asustek&#39;s president, at an investor conference Tuesday in Taiwan. Next year it expects to ship 3.8 million of the laptops.&quot;We&#39;re in talks with a few governments and we have already confirmed orders for 1 million units next year,&quot; said Sunny Han, global marketing director.Asustek reaffirmed its commitment to push the price of the Linux-based Eee PC down to US$199, nearly the same price as the XO laptop developed by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Project. OLPC is pricing the laptops at $200, according to its Givemany and Laptopgiving donor programs.One of the biggest costs for the Eee PC is taxes, Shen said. VAT (value added tax) and other taxes have a big impact on price. Governments interested in buying Eee PCs for education could get a better price by waiving such taxes, he said. An Eee PC sold to a government without taxes factored in would cost around $199, while the price increases to about $300 with taxes.The configuration of the laptops also affects the price, with the amount of flash memory and DRAM (dynamic RAM), the camera and battery having the biggest influence, he said. The price of the kind of flash memory Asustek is using for data storage in the Eee PCs has gone up recently.Earlier this month, Asustek announced four Eee PC laptop configurations it planned to sell in stores and online, all running Linux software.The least expensive was the &quot;Surf&quot; with a 2GB flash memory drive and 256MB of DDR2 (double data rate, second generation) DRAM, to retail for NT$7,999 when it comes out around the end of November. Another version of the Surf included a 4GB flash drive and 512MB of DDR2 DRAM, and will cost NT$9,999 when it comes out in mid-November. Both laptops have an Intel microprocessor.Two higher-priced Eee PCs were also launched. The NT$11,100 version included a built-in camera and speakers, and can carry out simple voice commands such as &quot;computer, access the Internet,&quot; or &quot;computer, make a phone call.&quot; It contains a 900MHz Intel Celeron M processor, 512MB of DDR2 DRAM and a 4GB flash drive. The other laptop, at NT$13,888 and due out at the end of November, carries an 8GB flash drive and 1GB of DDR2 DRAM in addition to features similar to the NT$11,100 version.At the launch ceremony, Asustek also showed off one Eee PC running Microsoft Windows XP Professional, version 2002, Service Pack 2. The hardware on board was the same as for the NT$11,100 Linux-based Eee PC. The Windows XP-Eee PC included Office 2003 versions of Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
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Taiwanese company E-Ten doesn't have much brand recognition in the US yet, but it received some notice last year for releasing the "world's thinnest pocket PC" with its Glofiish X500. Now it's adding one more for the value tier.
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Better spec, higher price Fancy Asus' tiny Eee PC but put off by the equally diminutive spec? Monitor specialist Belinea's s.book micro laptop may be just the ticket: it's got the same 7in screen as the 4GB Asus, but comes with double the memory, 20 times the storage capcity and a 1.2GHz CPU.â¦
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The recent word from The Inquirer that Apple may be hoarding all of Intel's new 45nm Penryn processors -- and possibly paying for the privilege -- has prompted a lot of speculation about the future of Apple's Mac Pro desktop lineup. Apple's professional machines, which now use Intel Xeon Cloverton chips topping out at 3GHz, are called workstations by Apple and offer quad- and eight-core configurations. They're fast, and they sport professional prices to match with top-of-the-line eight-core units starting at $3,997.The latest generation of Mac Pros, although radically restyled on the inside when Apple jumped to Intel chips in 2006, look pretty much the same on the outside as they did when they sported PowerPC chips. But the expected move to Penryn -- at or before the next Macworld show in January -- could mean the first major change in Mac Pro design in years.Penryn is Intel's first chip under 45nm (compared with the 65nm processors now used) and offers a faster front-side bus, larger Level 2 caches, better energy efficiency, and a new instruction set (SSE4) aimed at boosting media, gaming, and graphics uses.As important for Mac fans, the new chip architecture allows some new possibilities in case design -- namely because the motherboard and cooling system could take up less space. The new chips could also mean the incorporation of new technologies such as scalable-link interface (used for linking two or more video cards) and a faster front-side bus.With that in mind, let's go through some of the things Mac users -- especially this Mac user -- would like to see in the next Mac Pro:1. A new enclosure Rumors abound that the now-familiar all-aluminum Mac Pro box -- brought over part and parcel from the original Power Mac G5 -- will finally be shrinking. Of course, I still expect Apple to house all of the latest goodies, so whatever Apple comes up with isn't going to rival the Mac Mini for portability either.I'm looking for more audio/USB/Firewire ports up front with space for four 3.5-in. internal drive slots and two 5.25-in. optical drives -- which are now offered on the current crop of Mac Pros. An easier-to-open case more like that found way back on the Power Mac G4 desktops would certainly be appreciated by systems administrators, along with a reduced weight and better handles for lugging around.2. A Blu-ray option not just for movie editing but also for storing 50GB of data on a single disc -- perfect for sending off major quantities of files (high-definition movies, anyone?) to a client or user. Although I never thought I'd say it, DVDs -- even double-sided ones that can hold up to 8GB of information -- are too small. It's time for Apple to get on board with the next level of optical drives.As for using a Blu-ray drive for movies, the digital rights management associated with them might be too much to ask for. But they'd look pretty darn nice on Apple's 30-inch Cinema Display, now, wouldn't they?3. Cooler but quieter systems Those fans on current Mac Pros can sometimes be loud and annoying. Liquid-cooled enclosures, while more expensive, are a much more elegant solution. Heck, Apple even used that with late-generation Power Mac G5s, although there were some reports of leaks.If Apple doesn't want to go back to that option, then it should turn the whole case into a heat sink. Whether it's on purpose or not, my MacBook Pro sometimes feels like one well-designed heat sink.4. Less energy use I love power, but I also love clean air and Middle East peace and all of that, so Apple, while you're at it, cut down our energy usage! It's nice not to have the lights dim when I turn on the computer. This should be doable, and former Vice President Al Gore, who's on your board of directors, will no doubt approve.5. Penryn I know what The Inquirer reported, and yes, it makes perfect sense that you'd want to offer the latest and greatest from Intel to your top-end customers. What better way to run cool and cut power consumption than with a 45nm Penryn chip? These babies are fast and efficient. The first widely distributed 45nm processors, nothing comes close to them in terms of speed per watt -- the main reason Apple moved to Intel in the first place.And let's get there sooner rather than later. The Mac Pro has been out since August 2006 with only the addition of faster chips in April to update the line.6. eSATA external storage Firewire 800, first introduced in 2003, just doesn't do it anymore for high-speed external storage and is beginning to become outdated. I need more options. 3GB eSATA is coming out of the woodwork now as the new standard for super-high-speed drives even as external drives and arrays that use it are coming down in price dramatically. Fiber is nice, too, but overkill for workstations. USB3 fiber isn't ready yet; eSATA is.7. Strong video support: HDMI out How about letting users present stuff on an HDTV without having to use an adapter? This feature would cost very little, but the coolness factor would be huge, right Steve? Besides, HDMI is already available on Apple TV, so we know it can be done.In fact, while I'm wishing, why not add two HDMI out ports? Running two hi-def TVs from a Mac Pro over HDMI would be absurdly cool. This, of course, could be part of an extremely high-end video card option. I know Apple likes to have options when it comes to processors. Well, users like options when it comes to video cards. Some of us want a solid video card, while others want the absolute fastest thing money can buy. I happen to want both.8. 10GB Ethernet If not now, when? If not Apple, who? 10GB Ethernet cards are coming down in price by around $100 a pop -- and they're even cheaper when integrated on the motherboard. The prices for switches that utilize them are also coming down. Maybe Apple doesn't have to put them on all new Mac Pro models, but wouldn't they be perfectly appropriate for top-of-the-line HD video rigs? How about Xgrid? The speed certainly helps.Now, I know the question will arise: Who needs 10GB Ethernet? Something along those same lines was asked five years ago when Apple released the G4 models with 1GB Ethernet. Time flies.9. Hardware RAID standard A few months ago, Apple introduced a $1,000 add-on card that turns mild-mannered SATA ports on the Mac Pro into a hard-core RAID configuration. Now it's time to build it in.And with the ZFS file system expected to be part of the upcoming Leopard OS, RAID configurations should work even better. (ZFS, if you aren't familiar with it, offers a whole new way to handle storage, allowing large capacity, storage pooling, fast data snapshots, and copy-on-write.)10. Affordability I'm not talking $399.99 Dell affordable, but drop the barrier to entry a bit. Perhaps you can offer something under $2,000 at the low end. No doubt, some additional PC gamers and tinkerers will come into the Apple fold if you have the fastest processor and a solid video card.Oh, just one more thing: Let's not wait for Macworld San Francisco to get the next Mac Pro on store shelves. The holidays are coming, and I know of at least one computer geek who'd like to see something like this wrapped up with a bow on top.Seth Weintraub is a global IT management consultant specializing in the technology needs of creative organizations, including The Paris Times, Omnicom and WPP Group. He has set up and managed cross-platform networks on four continents and is an expert in Active Directory/Open Directory PC and Macintosh integration. Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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Toshiba's first AMD-based notebook in years is being launched in the U.S. and Europe.
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Mini PC launched too CES Everex, the US-based PC selling division of Taiwan's First International Computer (FIC), this week took the fight to Asus' popular Eee PC sub-notebook. It also launched a desktop-oriented mini PC.â¦
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Sony Vaio NR laptop will be released next month.
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Blog: The new company specializes in notebooks with personalized designs. But is there room for another enthusiast PC company?
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Compaq two-one-three-three to challenge Eee HP's going after the Eee PC with a compact laptop that sports an 8.9in display and more connectivity options than the elfin Asus machine currently offers.â¦
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Two desktop models too Asus has named the upcoming additions to its Eee PC family of low-cost computers, soon to be augmented with a small form-factor desktop machine, an all-in-one system and a TV.â¦
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There&#39;s no doubt that Apple&#39;s latest notebook computer is a joy to look at. The enormous 17in widescreen means you can watch films on it at a size approaching that of a television, and the brushed aluminium finish is undeniably stylish.
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Blog: Averatec has introduced the new, 11.1-inch 1579 ultraportable.