Hasta La Gadget!

ASUS is finally ready to start selling the latest installment in the Eee PC family, the 1008HA Seashell that we’ve seen popping up here and there at various prices. The official, tax-inclusive UK price of £379 is now confirmed, which is perhaps a little steep for this svelte but otherwise identical revision to the franchise, still offering that good ‘ol 1.6GHz processor, 160GB hard disk, 10-inch screen, and GMA graphics. Look for these to start shipping in about two weeks to stylish Brits, while we elsewhere in the world will just have to keep waiting.

Filed under: Laptops

ASUS releases new Eee PC 1008HA Seashell down by Swansea originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 May 2009 08:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know the drill: the Atom is the king of all netbooks, with a domain stretching as far as the eye can see. But, upstarts like the Via Nano and AMD’s Athlon Neo are encroaching on Intel’s domain, and Crave took the time to pit examples of the three against each other in a series of benchmarks to see which should rule the land. Rather sadly for us, each of the three tests had a different winner, with the Atom N280 excelling in multi-tasking, the Nano U2250 best for iTunes encoding, and the Neo MV-40 quickest under a Jalbum-based benchmark. So you know what that means: everyone gets a prize, nobody has to go home crying, and you should just go ahead and buy whichever netbook you like best already.

Update: It’s actually unclear which proc won which test, as the table at the source shows one thing, but the text swaps the Neo and Nano around. But, again, there’s not much between these three.

Filed under: Laptops

When netbook processors compete, everyone wins originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Apr 2009 07:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In celebration of the Atom‘s one-year anniversary, Intel’s unveiled Z550, the latest processor in the family and as the rumors suggested, it clocks in at a pretty impressive 2GHz along with support for Hyperthreading, all in under three watts of power usage. Additionally, it took the veil off of the Z515 with Intel Burst Performance Technology, which can bump the speed up to 1.2GHz. In more forward-thinking news, senior VP and general manager Anand Chandrasekher demoed its Moorestown MID platform on stage at a presentation, which we last heard was supposed to show itself in a more tangible form sometime this month via an Archos netbook. We’ve contacted Intel for video of that demonstration, so you’re just gonna have to wait a bit for that.

Update: The Moorestown demo was (how should we put this)… lame — from a consumer’s standpoint anyway. Instead of demonstrating it in a hand-held MID, Intel was again showing off silicon in a desktop rig strapped to enough life support to keep AMD afloat. The demo did show the 10x less idle power consumption promised but we’ve got a ways to go (2010 or before) before we see Moorestown product.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Intel debuts 2GHz Atom Z550 processor, demos Moorestown platform originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Apr 2009 01:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Thanks to the work of the gang making time over at their Vaio P forum, the folks at Pocketables have been able to compile benchmarks of all the various configurations of the ultraportable. Including the three models available domestically (which all sport a 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520) and the various 1.6GHz Z530 and 1.86GHz Z540-based machines available elsewhere, this ragtag group of benchmarksters have come to the conclusion that the main factor when it comes to the machine’s performance is the disk drive type. “Yes,” writes Jenn Lee, “the faster CPUs give the ALU/FLU numbers a noticeable bump up, but it’s not as significant as the increase seen between a HDD and SSD.” Hopefully this is some small comfort to those of you who are miffed that the 1.86GHz model isn’t available in the States. Of course, now that we’ve seen the Vaino we’re so over Sony’s sassy’n’classy non-netbook, but if you’re morbidly curious the read link tells the whole sordid tale.

Filed under: Laptops

Sony’s Vaio P benchmarked in all its magnificent and diverse forms originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You may scoff at netbooks for their perceived lack of horsepower, but what if that not-quite phenomenal cosmic power was itty-bitty enough to fit in your (necessarily oversized) wallet? Toradex has unveiled the credit card-sized Robin Z510 and Z530 computer modules, which manages to fit quite a bit in fairly small space. The two mainboards feature a 1.1GHz Intel Atom Z510 and 1.6GHz Atom Z530 (the same processor found in the Vaio P), respectively, as well as integrated GMA500 graphics card with HD capabilities, support for up to seven USB 2.0 ports, and on board microSD slot (pictured, bottom left), 512MB DDR2 RAM, and 2GB solid state flash disk. Enthusiasts can order it now for 129 € / 179€ ($164 / $227), but there’s about a $20 discount if you’re willing to buy in bulks of 10,000 or more.

[Via Slash Gear]

Filed under: Laptops

Toradex’s Robin stuffs Atom-based computer on credit card-sized module originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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