Hasta La Gadget!

Color us excited. HP’s Todd Bradley just made an interesting proposition on the conference call about its Palm acquisition. Specifically, Bradley said, “Between smartphones, slates, and potentially netbooks, there are a lot of opportunities here.” You read that right: slates and potentially netbooks. The tablet route is pretty obvious, but having the netbook / smartbook form factor is quite a twist. Think about it, a Foleo descendant you can be proud of — whodathunkit? If you’re worried HP has forgotten about other platforms, we need only point in the direction of the Android-fueled Airlife. Obviously nothing to announce at this point, but doesn’t that just get us hopeful — roadmap announcements are said to be forthcoming closer to the merger being finalized. The call is still ongoing, so stay tuned!

HP: opportunities for webOS ‘smartphones, slates, and potentially netbooks’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A really good netvertible — that’s all we want. No, not just a netbook with a touchscreen, but a device with a combination of solid ergonomics and performance in clamshell mode that can swivel into a really responsive tablet. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask for, right? And after being disappointed by the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t, we really thought the $499 ASUS Eee PC T101MT — with its multitouch screen, chiclet keyboard, and standard netbook organs — could have been it. Keyword being could. But, as you may have guessed by now from our wistful tone, there are a few reasons this particular convertible netbook didn’t turn out to be all peaches and cream. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll be hitting that read more link to find out what was this Eee lacking in our full review.

Continue reading ASUS Eee PC T101MT review

ASUS Eee PC T101MT review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, this is sad. While we told you earlier this week that the Ion 2-powered ASUS Eee PC 1201PN wouldn’t be arriving until late May, a number of European sites have gotten early review samples of the 12-inch “netbook” — if you choose to call it that — and have discovered that it doesn’t use NVIDIA’s Optimus automatic graphics switching technology. That’s right, instead we’re told by NVIDIA that the discrete GeForce 201M GPU runs continuously and Intel’s integrated chip is never used — a configuration which sounds like it’ll absolutely kill the battery life on this machine. According to Hardware Zone, ASUS made this choice aiming to be the first to market with the next generation of Ion, but an Optimus version of the ASUS Eee PC 1201PN will be ready later this quarter. It also appears that an Eee PC 1215N with both Ion 2 and Optimus is floating around, but we haven’t confirmed what’s going on with that. We’re sorry if we confused you even more, but we’ll be keeping our eyes out for the early reviews of the 1201PN to see if our predicted two hours of battery life is on the mark.

Update: The 1201PN cannot be updated with firmware to enable Optimus — the hardware isn’t there for the automatic switching.

First wave of Ion 2 ASUS Eee PC 1201PNs lack NVIDIA Optimus originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Netbooks that will run Google’s new Chromium operating system will be competitively priced in the range of $300-$400, says Google chief Eric Schmidt.

The Chrome OS netbooks are expected to hit retail shelves by the end of this year or early next year.

“Those prices are completely determined by the costs of the glass, the costs of the processor and things like that,” says Schmidt in this video dug up by Tech Radar, “but in our case Chrome OS and Android are free so there is no software tax associated with all of this.”

Google introduced Chrome OS two months ago as a lightweight, browser-based operating system that would boot up in seven seconds or less. Google hasn’t revealed who will be manufacturing the Chrome OS netbooks, but already Acer has said it expects to offer about a million of these devices this year.

Chrome OS netbooks could also be available on contract from phone service providers, says Schmidt.

But it’s not clear how well that strategy will work. Other netbook makers have already tried that in the U.S. with limited success. For instance, Nokia offers its Booklet 3G netbook for $300 with a two-year AT&T contract that requires a monthly data service fee. But the device is also available without the plan at Best Buy for $600.

The novelty factor of the Chrome OS operating system aside, the netbook market is extremely price sensitive. And if Google wants a share of that pie it will have to beat the price of the Windows-based devices.

See Also:

• Acer Plans a Million Chrome OS Netbooks, New E-Reader
• Five Things Google’s Chrome OS Will Do for Your Netbook
• Mock-ups Show a Google Chrome OS Tablet
• Google Chrome OS: Ditch Your Hard Drives, the Future Is the Web
  
• Google Chrome OS Netbook Specs Leaked?

Photo: (BlubrNL/Flickr)

Android support for Moorestown isn’t the only morsel of Intel news to come out today. In an earnings call today that kicked off with word of a 288 percent year-over-year net income increase — its “best first [fiscal] quarter ever” reportedly — Intel CEO Paul Otellini said, “the next innovation coming out on Atom is dual core, which comes out in the second quarter.” Given dual core Atoms already exist for nettops, we’re gonna guess he’s referring specifically to netbooks. That jibes pretty well with what we heard about the supposed D510 remake as N500. Guess we’ve got something to look forward to in the netbook category over the next few months.

Intel wraps up ‘best first quarter ever’ by teasing new dual-core Atoms for Q2 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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