Digitimes is reporting that the Dell E mini notebook will be available in August for just $299, and that Dell is expecting sales of 2 to 3 million this year.
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The MSI Wind ultra-portable is now shipping but due to battery shortages it is only available with a 3-cell battery instead of the 6-cell battery originally in the spec.
If you want a 6-cell battery you will have to wait until at least September.
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Well this news is disappointing: according to a couple of websites that contacted Gigabyte their M912 inexpensive tablet PC will be sold in Asia and Europe only.
Do they think that there is no demand in the US for a $699 Tablet PC with 8.9" touchscreen and 1.6GHz Atom processor?
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Liliputing is reporting that the MSI Wind is delayed for a second time and that we won't be seeing them here in the US until July 7th.
This delay is on top of them cutting back the battery from a 6 cell to a 3 cell (while cutting the price by a measly $20).
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A reader of jkOnTheRun alerted them to a new tablet pc from Fujitsu, the T5010.
It is pretty heavy at 4.4lb, will probably cost about $1800, and comes loaded with the following specs:
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"Dell E" Delhi, does Dell have a customer support call center there?
It looks like "Dell E" is actually the name of the Dell Mini Inspiron we have been telling you about.
Engadget got their hands on a bunch of slides detailing market positioning and specifications and after reading those we think the Dell E will definately exceed our expectations.
The basic configuration "Dell E Classic" is only $299 (Wow!) and comes with an 8.9" screen, 1.6GHz atom processor, 512MB RAM, 4GB flash drive, and 802.11g wireless.
Want more than that? if so then you can upgrade to the "Dell E Video" which has 1GB RAM and 8GB flash drive, plus a webcam, or upgrade further to the "Dell E Video+" which has 12GB flash and adds bluetooth.
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Yesterday we complained about how the Acer Aspire One's website was lacking in information.
The gods of irony must have been watching as right after posting we heard about three sites taking a more detailed look at the Aspire One:
LaptopMag got a pre-production version and wrote a great in-depth review along with a video and a bunch of photos, PC Professionale.it posted a video (in Italian) where they take one apart, and Blogeee pointed out some highlights of that video.
Overall this seems like a great inexpensive ultra-portable, just as long as you aren't interested in opening it up and upgrading the RAM or flash drive (both are soldered in place).
Comments (in French) at Blogeee
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Acer has officially announced their competitor to the Asus EeePC and the MSI Wind: the Acer Aspire One.
So what do we know? not a lot as their Aspire One fancy marketing site has no substance. We can see it has an Intel Atom processor, a 8.9" screen at 1024x600 resolution, comes in multiple colors, runs Linpus Linux Lite, and weighs under 2.2lb. The message seems to be "as long as it has style, feeling, vision, and power, who cares about specs, dimensions, and price".
Update: The Aspire One has shown up on German price comparison sites, I doubt their numbers are official but they list the Aspire One with 8GB storage and 512MG RAM for 329 Euros or 80GB hard drive and 1GB RAM for 399 Euros (10% cheaper than the older less powerful EeePC 900!).
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HP has announced the availability of their HP Pavilion tx2500z tablet pc.
The tx2500z is based on the AMD Puma mobile platform, and for $1,049 you can get a basic configuration featuring 12.1" 1280x800 pixel touchscreen, windows vista, AMD Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processor ZM-80 (2.1 GHz) , 2GB RAM, ATI HD3200 graphics, 802.11b/g wifi, 160GB hard drive, and 6 cell battery.
For a more powerful system we would recommend upgrading the processor to 2.4Ghz, the RAM to 4GB, the hard drive to 320GB, the battery to 8 cell, and adding bluetooth for an extra $425.
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Asus have been hyping their Ecobook bamboo covered green laptop for a while now but the final product has now been revealed and it is a lot less impressive than the concept designs suggested.
That's it? a little bit of bamboo below the keyboard and around the screen?
Not eco-friendly at all - just another example of fake-green marketing.
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APC magazine got to play with the Dell Mini Inspiron at a press briefing and they reported back on a few things:
It does have a 9" screen like we told you a few days back.
It should be available to purchase by August.
It has a fancy new keyboard design with larger alphanumeric keys and the other keys shrunk or (as in the case of the F1-12 keys) removed altogether.
It has 4 status LEDs (which would indicate at least one version of it will come with wifi and bluetooth).
It will come in multiple colors including the red and black we have already seen.
If Dell releases this with a similar price and spec to the EeePC 901 and MSI wind, and markets it well we are convinced it will be a big seller.
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jkkmobile opened up an Eee PC 901 and found there are loads of possibilities for upgrades (both user performed and available from Asus in the future.
So what did they find? they found an unused PCE-e spot plus space for a sim card so 3G HSDPA could be added, and they found there was room for a 1.8" hard drive or another SSD.
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Wouldn't it be great if you could get an ultra-portable the size and power of the EeePC combined with the usability of a touchscreen tablet pc for well under $1000?
Well it looks like that is what Gigabyte will be announcing this week at Computex in the form of the M912 which has just shown up on their website with the following specs:
We like the look of this, you get the convenience of a UMPC or tablet PC for simple web browsing, reading books, watching movies etc but can open it up and use the keyboard for more intensive work such as email or blogging.
Lets hope the price is good.
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It's official launch isn't until tomorrow but Asus are showing off the EeePC 901 at the WiMax Expo and have revealed that they will be coming out with a WiMax enabled version.
Full specs of the version being shown at the WiMax Expo are: 1.6GHz Atom processor, 8.9" screen, 1BG RAM, SD card slot, Wi-Fi, bluetooth, and either XP and a 12GB SSD or Linux and a 20GB SSD.
In other words exactly the same as the EeePC 900 except that it has the Intel Atom processor instead of the Via one.
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Asus has announced the full specifications and pricing of the eee box, the mini desktop version of the eeepc that is now officially called the eee box B202.
There will be 3 versions initially released in the US, all 3 will feature the following:
The base configuration with Linux, 1GB memory and an 80GB hard drive is $269 (monitor, keyboard + mouse not included), and for an extra $30 you get your choice of Windows XP or an upgrade to 2GB RAM/160GB hard drive.
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Will the Dell Mini Inspiron have a 8.9" screen, run Ubuntu or XP Home, and cost under $500?
That's what engadget seems to think.
We decided to do some measuring in photoshop to see if they are right about the screen size and here's what we came up with.
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A guy by the name of "doody" on the MSI Wind forums has run a bunch of benchmarks on the MSI Wind.
As expected don't plan on playing the latest games on the MSI Wind but it seems reasonable for standard web browsing, email, word processing etc.
3 cell battery life with WiFi on and screen at 50% was a surprisingly good 2hrs 19mins - with WiFi off I would hope to get over 3hrs which makes it a good ultra-portable to own and use on planes and trains.
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No that isn't a typo, and don't worry - we aren't going all religious on you: Jisus is an ultra-portable from Dutch company Van Der Led and they have just announced a V2 of Jisus.
The Jisus V2 costs about $525 (349 Euros), is wrapped in a brown leather skin and comes with a 10.2 inch 1024 x 600 pixel display, 1.6GHz VIA C7-M CPU, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 80GB 5400rpm HDD, Bluetooth, Ethernet, 2 USB ports, SD card slot, 1.3 megapixel webcam and a 3 cell 2200mAh battery, and runs Ubuntu Linux OS.
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3K have now officially released the Razorbook 400 eeepc clone and have reduced the price by $100 to $299 which makes this copycat device slightly more appealing.
So what do you get for your $299? a 7" 800x400 display, a 400MHz processor, 512MB RAM, 4GB flash drive, Linux, Wi-Fi, and 3 USB ports.
Is it worth buying? only if you can't afford more than $300 and really need a 7" screen instead of something bigger. If you can afford a bit more then check out the MSI Wind, the EeePC 901, or wait a bit until there is more info on the Dell Mini Inspiron.
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We knew Dell's flagship gaming desktop PC, the XPS 730 H2C, was going to be fast but we were wondering "is it fast enough to justify the massive price tag?"
Hot Hardware have come out with an equally massive review that answers that question and many more, taking a detailed look at the build quality, interior, and cooling system of a $6300 XPS 730 H2C then putting it through it's paces with a wide range of performance tests and benchmarking.
Go read the full review for all the details but here's a taster:
"The XPS 730 may be the last of its kind. Perhaps the design team of the XPS 730 also realized this, inspiring them to try and make it the best 700 series machine to date. Whatever their inspiration, the XPS 730 turned out to be a great gaming and multimedia computer. The XPS 730 represents the fourth generation in Dell's XPS 700 series and it exhibits a maturity of design that only iteration and refinement can bring. It is clear that Dell has thought long and hard about the complaints levied against past generations of XPS 700 series and they have systematically addressed them while maintaining all of the high-points and charm of the earlier machines. We heartily recommend the XPS 730 and the XPS 730 H2C to anyone in the market for a high-end gaming/multimedia computer and we are happy to award the XPS 730 H2C our coveted Editor's Choice award. "
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