Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on November 06, 2007 by CyberNet.

It seems as though there always has to be a rumor about Apple, doesn’t it? After a short breather period where there haven’t really been any rumors, the newest one emerges that Apple is planning on entering the tablet PC market. Some people are saying “finally” while others are saying “what’s the point?” Keep in mind that this is just a rumor, but what’s being said is that Asus is helping Apple build a tablet PC.

While the tablet PC market currently only makes up 2% of the portable PC market, there are some advantages like the fact that it’s a more natural form of input. It’s also great for note-taking, makes interacting at business meetings easier, and comes in handy for those in the digital art profession. The downsides include the input speed can be slower than typing, and tablet PCs are generally a little more expensive than regular notebook computers, although the price has gotten extremely competitive over the last several years.

So what does Apple have to gain from this? At this point, I’m not sure it would be a whole lot.  As mentioned, the Tablet PC makes up 2% of the portable PC market.  If Apple were able to enter the market and match that 2%, given the amount of notebooks that they currently sell, they’d sell under 27,000 tablet PC’s per year.  At just 27,000 is it worth it for them? Their biggest advantage would be if they could get the artists to purchase one who want to draw and do artwork on it. 

On one hand it hardly seems worth it, but on the other hand, I could see it being a huge success. If there’s one company out there that could get consumers psyched up over a tablet PC, it would be Apple.  Some of the mock-ups look pretty slick, and Apple does have a good momentum going here with the launch of Leopard, the iPhone, and the new line-up of iPods. If they were able to price it competitively with some of their other notebooks, I’d say there’s a good chance that it would be a success and perhaps even amount to more than just 2% of Apple’s portable computer sales.

At this point, everybody is saying it’s not a matter of “if” but “when” Apple will launch a tablet PC.  Given that Apple has the multi-touch feature mastered, I’d agree that it must be coming sooner rather than later.

Source: Gizmodo

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Does Apple have a MacBook Touch in the Works?Using Firefox With Your Tablet PCToshiba Unveils Their Dual Core Tablet PCScreenshots Of A Tablet PC In Windows Vista 5270Is It Really Possible To Make A Mac Tablet?

This article was written on April 16, 2008 by CyberNet.

It’s coming up on one year since Dell started selling computers that are preinstalled with Ubuntu Linux. Towards the end of last year some stats started rolling in saying that Dell had only sold 40,000 Ubuntu machines, which equates to about 220 units per day. That’s not too shabby considering the only form of advertising for the Dell Ubuntu machines is by word of mouth.

An estimated 1 in 500 machines that they sell are running Ubuntu, and it’s left some people wondering whether that would be good enough for Dell. Well, I think it is. In December 2007 they upgraded the version of Ubuntu that they ship with their machines so that it includes DVD-playback out-of-the-box. And then earlier this year they added the high-end XPS M1330 laptop to the Ubuntu lineup.

Really the only bad thing that I’ve heard about Dell offering the Ubuntu laptops is the pricing. Naturally you would expect them to be cheaper because it comes with an open source operating system, but that’s not always the case. When comparing stock configurations of the XPS M1330 you can save about $50 by choosing the Ubuntu-powered version versus the Windows one, but the price difference really starts to shine through in more advanced configurations. The Windows version has four different pre-configured models available, and most of them offer significant savings (up to $600 off) over customizing the stock model to a similar set of hardware. Those kind of savings are not available in the Ubuntu configurations.

I’m sure Dell could give the Ubuntu sales even more of a bump if they looked into methods of marketing it, but it seems as though Linux doesn’t fare well with the general consumer as we saw with Wal-Mart and the gPC. It’s got to be confusing for people who purchase the computers thinking that they can install all of their favorite Windows applications, but find out the hard way that it doesn’t work like that. Hopefully with Dell’s help Ubuntu can become a little more mainstream.

[via ComputerWorld]

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Available with UbuntuMichael Dell’s Ubuntu Laptop…a Little Overkill?Mark Shuttleworth’s Video Regarding Ubuntu on Dell ComputersYou Can Buy Your Dell 3007WFP For $2,199Ubuntu on Mobile Devices

Dell’s promise: that the Alienware M11x is the “most powerful 11-inch gaming laptop” around. And they’re right! It’s hard to imagine packing much more oomph into such a portable frame. Then again, there’s a reason Muggsey Bogues never won MVP. More »

If you’re in the market for a netbook—the gimpy kittens of the laptop jungle—know this first: on the inside, they’re all basically the same. Making the little differences all the more important! And yes, they do add up.

For our Battlemodo, we decided to look only at netbooks powered by Intel’s Pine Trail (Atom N450) processor. Netbooks sporting older processors are a bit cheaper, but they’re also a little slower and don’t achieve the same impressive battery life as Pine Trail. And they’ve been reviewed to death elsewhere.

Netbooks with an Ion GPU are also available, but they’ve got their own baggage. First: they’re around $50 more expensive than non-Ion models. Second: they’re not available yet on Pine Trail. So you can either settle for an older processor with Ion and take a battery life and performance hit, or wait until the first Pine Trail-compatible netbook—the Acer Aspire One 532G—comes out later this year and pay the premium. Once you’re spending $500+ on a netbook, though, you may as well step up to a full-function ultraportable.

So: Pine Trail netbooks it is. Usually we put the benchmarks off until the end, but in this case it’s worth highlighting up front just how comparable these machines are inside:
Peas in an underwhelming pod. Which is why when you’re even considering a netbook, it’s vital to pay outsized attention to design, display, keyboard, and all the extras that’ll ultimately inform your experience.

The Results

I’ll say this as many times as I have to: netbooks are a sea of sameness. And it’s a shame that even the ones that stand out come with some significant caveats.

The Winner (If You Need Affordable HD Now)

Dell Inspiron Mini 10


Price: $425

The Dell Mini 10 is a little bulkier than the other contenders, but I’m happy to trade a little weight for the sturdier build. The glossy red top was a welcome splash of color without looking cheap. And where most netbook batteries stick out the back end or bottom like oblong tumors, the Mini’s is safely tucked away in the bottom deck. The result? A small form laptop with a big boy design. The Mini 10 was also the easiest to type on, with flush and raised keys leaving me pleasantly hand-cramp-free compared to the island-style netbook keyboards.

Most importantly, Dell (along with HP) has managed to mitigate the netbook HD problem by throwing Broadcom’s Crystal HD accelerator into the mix. It won’t offer the full 3D graphic support of Ion, and you’ll have to download Adobe’s Flash 10.1 beta 3 for the full effect, but once I did I was able to reliably stream 1080p video off of YouTube, as well as full-screen HD content from Hulu. it’s your best bet until Pine Trail Ion 2 netbooks start popping up later this year.

Here’s the catch: the trackpad is bad. Really, truly, frustratingly bad. Not so bad as to be unusable, but it’s too small and the integrated buttons respond clumsily.

Runner Up: HP Mini 210 HD Edition
Price: $465

Admittedly, this was a close call. The HP Mini 210 has a similarly solid feel to it, and handles HD video almost as well as the Dell. But in the two areas that are arguably most critical to a netbook experience—battery life and price—the Mini came up way short. Unlike other manufacturers who include a 6-cell battery as standard, HP offers theirs as an $80 add-on, driving up the price of a usable configuration. Not that it did much good: the Mini 210 fared worst of all in our battery test, lasting only 4:09.

The Winner (If You Don’t Care About HD)

Acer Aspire One 532h


Price: $350

If you don’t consider watching HD clips on your netbook an integral part of the experience, congratulations! You’re going to be able to save yourself a good chunk of cash and walk away with an otherwise comparable user experience. The Acer Aspire One 532h has a sleek design and performs at least on par with the Dell and HP in almost every other respect. It had the best battery life of the bunch, it’s wafer-thin and extremely light, and has a raised trackpad that’s actually enjoyable to use.

The main drawback to the Acer is its keyboard. Although I like the larger buttons, there’s a certain amount of give in the middle that makes an otherwise crisp design feel cheap. The glossy top is also prone to smudging in a way that the other models manage to avoid. Otherwise, though, it performs as well as the extremely capable Toshiba NB305—for $50 less.

Runner Up: Toshiba NB305
Price: $400

The Toshiba stands out as being good at everything, but not great at anything. And if it were a bit cheaper, it’d be my pick here. But paying $400 for a computer with an Atom processor that doesn’t play HD seems like a tough sell, especially when for just a few more bucks you can step up to the Dell.

Feature Comparison

Battery life was tested by running each laptop on moderate performance settings, three-quarters screen brightness, and refreshing a page in Firefox every thirty seconds to simulate active browsing.

Verdict: Buy What’s Cheap

I wish there were a clear-cut winner. I wish Pine Trail had more to offer. I wish Sony weren’t charging $480 for their incredibly subpar Vaio W Eco edition. But hey, that’s just netbooks.

It’s an interesting dilemma. There’s clearly value in an affordable computer you can carry around for basic tasks, but is this really the best we can do? And the more triage we do on netbook guts to increase usability—be it Ion graphics or Broadcom HD accelerators—the more expensive they get, and the less apparent that value proposition becomes. And who knows? Maybe netbooks themselves have never been more than a patch. Maybe what we’ve really wanted all along are tablets and smartbooks.

For now, though: find the cheapest netbook you can that does what you need. If that means HD, go for the Dell. If not, the Acer’s your pick, or even an older, discounted model, if you don’t see yourself needing maxed-out battery life. It’s purely a commodity purchase: treat it like one, and you’ll be fine.

This article was written on June 20, 2008 by CyberNet.

In less than ten days Windows XP will no longer be an option when purchasing most computers, despite the fact that over 208,000 people requested that the XP deadline be extended even longer. It’s time to move on people, or is it?

After the deadline manufacturer’s will only be able to offer XP on machines that are taking advantage of Vista’s downgrade rights. That means the customer will have to purchase a machine with either Vista Business or Ultimate, and then they will get a copy of Windows XP Professional as well. You’ll likely have to pay a surcharge to get a copy of XP Pro from the manufacturer, and to comply with Microsoft’s regulations XP Home is not an option.

Dell has already begun preparing their line of business and consumer machines to offer the downgrade service as an option. Above is a screenshot of what you’ll see when selecting an operating system on your new Dell computer, but you may not see it if you’re hunting around for a consumer computer. For consumers Dell is limiting this option to their gaming machines only, which means it is only available on the XPS 630 and XPS 720 H2C desktops and the XPS M1730 laptop. The Vista/XP Pro bundle is free from Dell until July 7th.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the end, but we already know for sure that low-cost desktops and notebooks can continue to use XP for several more years. Looking around at the other manufacturers it looks as though most aren’t even offering XP anymore, which makes you wonder whether XP has truly reached the end of its life?

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

Your Week in Review with Sunday’s SummaryEverything You Read About Fold.com Is WrongiPhone Activations Fall Below Analyst ProjectionsYour Week in Review with Sunday’s SummaryCyberNotes: Our Favorite Friday CyberNotes Articles