Hasta La Gadget!

Fitting, no? Dell (briefly) launched its Inspiron Mini 10 at a press event last year at CES, and this year’s show is ushering in the next major iteration. ‘Course, it’s not like we didn’t know it was on the way, but if it’s details you crave, you’ll leave this post duly satisfied. Starting today, the revised Inspiron Mini 10 is up for order at Dell’s US website, and the options list is fairly impressive (particularly for a netbook). The device sports a 92 percent full-size keyboard, the same “hinge-forward” design seen on the company’s ultrathin Adamo and a bevy of extras including a 9.5 hour battery, Broadcom’s Crystal HD media accelerator, built-in GPS and an integrated HDTV receiver. There’s also a good chance a version will be made available with a Mobile DTV tuner within, though that’s just speculation based on the fact that this machine is currently being used in a trial program in the nation’s capital. Hit the source link to start customizing your own — the base price is pegged at just $299.

Dell’s Atom N450-based Inspiron Mini 10 now up for order, starts at $299 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember that Snapdragon-powered Lenovo smartbook we peeked back in November of last year? No? Fret not, as the aforesaid outfit has just come clean with the details surrounding the previously elusive device. The Skylight is Lenovo’s first-ever smartbook, and while we’re still struggling to see what niche these things are designed to fill, we definitely can’t knock the internals. It’s the industry’s first ARM-based, Qualcomm smartbook, and it’s powered by a 1GHz processor. Other specs include a 10.1-inch display (1,280 x 720), a customized version of Linux, 20GB (total) of flash storage, 2GB of cloud storage, an 8GB miniSD card, twin USB ports, 1.3 megapixel camera, WiFi and a battery capable of humming along for ten hours on a full charge. It’s also apt to be a lot like the unorthodox IdeaPad U1 Hybrid on the software front. The clamshell enclosure weighs under two pounds, and the integrated AT&T WWAN module ensures that you can get connected wherever a tower is available. The unit will ship this April with 18 preloaded web gadgets (including portals to Amazon MP3, Facebook, Gmail and YouTube), and pricing is set for $499 (MSRP). We’re told that AT&T will offer it up as well, but it’s unclear whether or not it’ll subsidize the Skylight should you commit to a two-year DataConnect contract. Rest assured that we’ll be getting some face time with this bugger in short order, but till then, you can peek the press release and a promo /hands-on video just after the break. Oh, and we should mention that we snapped an extremely brief hands-on with the machine a small bit ago, and we’re still flabbergasted by how thin it was. Expect a more thorough look tomorrow!

Continue reading Lenovo Skylight: its first ARM / Snapdragon-based smartbook, coming in April for $499

Lenovo Skylight: its first ARM / Snapdragon-based smartbook, coming in April for $499 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Keeping the news flowing fast and furious, Samsung has come out with a quartet of new netbooks, distinguishable primarily by their battery life. The N210 and 220 take the lead with a purported 12 hours of “connected mobility,” while the NB30 (11 hours) and N150 (8.5 hours) are none too shabby either. The N150 differentiates itself with an “integrated hinge,” while the NB30 focuses on durability with a HDD protection sensor and a water-tight seal that protects the netbook from up to 50cc of water. Still, the machines do share a lot, including an Atom N450 at their heart, and a 10.1-inch anti-reflective screen, plus — you’d be better sit down for this — mark- and scratch-resistant casing. Does this mean the end of the fingerprint-loving netbook? We can only hope so. Full PR blurb after the break.

Continue reading Samsung hops on Atom N450 bandwagon with N210, N220, N150 and NB30 netbooks

Samsung hops on Atom N450 bandwagon with N210, N220, N150 and NB30 netbooks originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 03 Jan 2010 21:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The yet-to-be-confirmed HP Mini 210 has popped up at a couple online retail spots already, but now it seems to have landed in the Real World courtesy of a Costco in Hillsboro, Oregon. We’ve seen the netbook listed at $280, $320 and now $350 pricetags, so we really don’t know who to trust anymore (certainly not our parent’s generation), but the sexy design, chiclet keyboard and unibutton trackpad certainly smack of progress.

[Thanks, Dustin W. who sent this in via our new webOS app!]

HP Mini 210 spotted at retail with $350 pricetag originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 02 Jan 2010 23:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been more than a year since NVIDIA announced its Ion platform, promising to bring HD video and gaming to the underpowered Atom CPU. After all the hold ups, we started to wonder if we’d ever see the platform packed inside a netbook, so imagine our surprise when no less than four Ion-based machines launched in the past few months. With bigger screens, better specs, more graphics muscle and, of course, the resulting higher price tag, each of these Ion machines promises quite a bit, but which one lives up to the hype? We got them all together and spent the past few weeks testing the ASUS Eee PC 1201N, Lenovo IdeaPad S12, HP Mini 311 and the Samsung N510 — follow on past the break for our complete faceoff.

Continue reading Ion netbooks head-to-head: Atom, overcharged?

Ion netbooks head-to-head: Atom, overcharged? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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