UMID mBook BZ two-fingers on

Oh UMID mBook BZ, it’s not easy being the unwanted offspring of a netbook and a MID, is it? Well, it sure isn’t easy on us either. After spending a bit of time with the hand-sized device, we just don’t really see how anyone could use the small clamshell for more than a few minutes at a time. But hit the break for some hands-on impressions and a video of the $549 lilliputian laptop and decide for yourself.

Gallery: UMID mBook BZ

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UMID mBook BZ two-fingers on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cowon’s Atom-powered W2 MID gets teased, gets Windows 7

Cowon's Atom-powered W2 MID gets teased, gets Windows 7
When Cowon’s latest leaked back at the beginning of November we knew just about everything we really needed to know except for one crucial bit of intel: what it looked like. Now the company has thoughtfully taken care of that, throwing up a teaser page for the product that shows off a simple, sophisticated brushed metal exterior punctuated only by a pair of buttons on either side and three LED status lights. It’s perhaps a bit chunky, with a wide bezel and a little more depth than we’d like, but it should be reasonably comfortable to use whenever it releases. The 4.8-inch, 1024 x 600 touchscreen LCD is confirmed, backed by a 1.3GHz Intel Atom processor that is probably going to struggle a little bit to keep up with Windows 7, which the company has chosen to bless this device’s (unannounced) storage with. That’s all we know for now.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Cowon’s Atom-powered W2 MID gets teased, gets Windows 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 09:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS Eee PC 1001P brings its seashell design, Atom N450 to Amazon’s US listings

First Germany, and now the States. ASUS’s 10.1-inch, Pine Trail-equipped Eee PC Seashell 1001P has popped up on Amazon’s US retail listings. Same Intel Atom N450 processor we saw before. $300 gets you Windows XP and a 160GB HDD, while $350 nets Windows 7 and 250GB of storage. Color options are black, pink, blue, and white, and as for release date? Still M.I.A., but we’re hopeful this week offers a few tech news goodies.

ASUS Eee PC 1001P brings its seashell design, Atom N450 to Amazon’s US listings originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BenQ’s Joybook Lite U103 packs an SSD for when you’re feeling frisky, HDD for when you’re not

BENQ's Joybook Lite U103 packs an SSD for when you're feeling frisky, HDD for when you're not
If money were no issue we’d all be rocking slinky notebooks with terabytes of flash-based storage, but alas this recession means a more budget-conscious approach is warranted. BenQ‘s solution is to offer a bit of both with its latest Joybook Lite, the U103, offering a large (500GB max) HDD paired with an optional 32GB SSD. Install your OS and critical apps on the SSD, dump everything else to platter, and make the most of what the company advertises will be an eight hour battery. That the laptop packs what is advertised as “Intel’s new Atom” processor (surely the N450) is a good sign that battery life will indeed be good, something that should also be helped by a 10-inch, LED-backlit display of indeterminate resolution. Also on the docket is pseudo-3D sound from the two integrated speakers courtesy of SRS TruSound HD, a multitouch trackpad, and a weight of just 2.4lbs. No price yet, but that should change soon enough.

BenQ’s Joybook Lite U103 packs an SSD for when you’re feeling frisky, HDD for when you’re not originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Viewsonic VOT132 nettop review

Viewsonic VOT132 nettop review

You don’t need booming sales figures to tell you that netbooks have taken over the world — the mobile computing world, at least. Their screenless and battery-free brethren, however, have yet to find quite the same success. Nettops are great tiny little machines but in general they’ve been under-powered and, while people love eking out another hour or two of battery life on the road, few sadly care whether their desktop computers pull down 17 or 71 watts of juice. Still, it’s hard to deny the appeal of a fully-functional computer that’s half the size of a Wii — especially when it can manage 1080p output over HDMI. Viewsonic’s VOT132, with its Ion graphics and trick magnetic DVD drive, is tiny, efficient, and powerful. The perfect media PC? Read on to find out.

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Viewsonic VOT132 nettop review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 12:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Broadcom’s Crystal HD tech to liven up HD capabilities of N450-based netbooks

NVIDIA’s Ion technology may be hogging the limelight when it comes to netbook graphics, but Broadcom’s no stranger to the space. After giving Acer’s Aspire One HD playback capabilities that it could only dream of just months prior, the company’s newly announced Crystal HD platform could provide Intel’s Atom N450 with the multimedia boost it badly needs. The nitty-gritty details are still being withheld, but we’re told that “top-tier OEMs including Asus, Dell and Samsung” will be slapping this into their upcoming N450-based netbooks. If you’re curious as to why you should care, the BCM70015 promises “near flawless” HD video playback, including support for Flash Player 10.1 and Blu-ray flicks. We’re told to expect it to start popping up in forthcoming machines throughout 2010, and if you’re looking to soak up anything else in the meanwhile, a promotional video awaits you after the break.

Continue reading Broadcom’s Crystal HD tech to liven up HD capabilities of N450-based netbooks

Broadcom’s Crystal HD tech to liven up HD capabilities of N450-based netbooks originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 04:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP Mini 210 spied with PineTrail CPU, found cavorting on retail sites

Remember that Mini 210 mentioned in HP’s leak from a few months back? Looks like it’s on the comeback as the Pine Trail-powered replacement for the Mini 110 (noticing a trend here?). Logichp has some fancy press pics, and additionally, online retailer eCost lists the little guy for $321 and claims 1GB of RAM, 160GB to 250GB HDD, 802.11b/g/n, card reader, and Windows 7 Starter Edition, a.k.a. the new norm for netbooks.

[Thanks, Tim]

HP Mini 210 spied with PineTrail CPU, found cavorting on retail sites originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI Wind U135 hands-on impressions

You didn’t expect it to rain Pine Trail netbooks without MSI dropping a new Wind, did you? Come January the $330 10-inch Wind U135 will replace the older Diamondville U100 with its new 1.66GHz Atom N450 CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, Windows 7 Starter and a six-cell battery. But the U135 gets updated with more than just new netbook specs — the Taiwanese netbook pioneer has slightly tweaked the chassis with a new keyboard, touchpad and lid design. Read on for our thoughts.

Continue reading MSI Wind U135 hands-on impressions

MSI Wind U135 hands-on impressions originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS Eee PC 1005PE review

By our count ASUS has released — at the very least — 20 Eee PC netbooks since 2008. Some had 8.9-inch or 10-inch displays, some ran Xandros Linux or Windows XP, and some packed hard drives instead of flash storage. But common to virtually all of them was an Intel Diamondville 1.6GHz Atom N270 or N280 processor. That all changes with the 10-inch Eee PC 1005PE — one of the first netbooks to feature the next-generation Intel Pine Trail platform, which features a 45-nanometer Pineview Atom N450 processor that integrates both the memory controller and GMA 3150 graphics onto the CPU die. The newly compact package promises improved performance and power efficiency, but will you notice the difference? Does the $380 1005PE blow past the Diamondville Eee PCs of late? Read on to find out in our full review.

Continue reading ASUS Eee PC 1005PE review

ASUS Eee PC 1005PE review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel’s next-gen Pine Trail Atom processors officially announced

Get ready for the next generation of netbooks and nettops: Intel’s just officially announced the Pine Trail Atom N450, D410, and D510, along with the NM10 Express chipset, and we should see over 80 machines with the 45-nanometer chips at CES 2010. Nothing too surprising about the 1.66GHz chips themselves, which integrate the memory controller and Intel graphics directly onto the CPU die: the N450 is targeted at netbooks, while the single-core D410 and dual-core D510 are designed for nettops, and each chip should use about 20 percent less power than its predecessor. That was borne out in our review of the N450-based ASUS Eee PC 1005PE, which got 10 hours of battery life in regular use, but unfortunately we didn’t experience any performance improvements over the familiar N270 and N280. That jibes with other reports we’ve heard, but we’ll wait to test some more machines before we break out the frowny face permanently — for now, check out the full press release below.

Continue reading Intel’s next-gen Pine Trail Atom processors officially announced

Intel’s next-gen Pine Trail Atom processors officially announced originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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