Freescale Promises $200 Netbooks With New Chips

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Eyeing that $400 netbook? How about getting one for half the price in just a few months?

Freescale is racing to get netbooks out this summer, featuring the company’s chips, that would offer up to eight hours of battery life, be significantly thinner than existing designs and priced under $200.

"We are taking dead aim at the netbook space," says Glen Burchers, marketing director at Freescale."The value proposition that Freescale brings is dramatically lower power consumption and even lower prices."

Netbooks have become the fastest growing segment in the PC market, with about 15 million devices sold worldwide in 2008. This year, despite the economic slowdown, sales could double says ABI Research. So far Intel’s family of Atom-based processors released last year have overwhelmingly dominated the market. But Atom processors offer just about three hours of battery life while users are clamoring for more.

Freescale hopes its new line of chips could make a dent in Intel’s market share. Last month, the company introduced the i.MX515 processor that is based on the 1GHz CPU from Intel rival ARM. The chip includes high performance multimedia processing and supports embedded 3G connectivity. "We can combine processor, graphic chips and memory bridge into a single chip, which means netbooks based on the Freescale platform will be just about 15-mm thick," says Burchers.

On Tuesday Freescale said it has tied up with additional partners to expand
operating system options for netbooks based on its processor. Freescale processors will support Android and Linux distributions such as Ubuntu and Xandros.

The company says its hopes to have its processors-based netbooks in production by the middle of the year and hopes to have the products in retail stores in time for the 2009 holiday shopping season. But Freescale is yet to announce any manufacturing partners for netbooks with its chips.

It won’t be an easy ride for Freescale as it tries to catch up to Intel’s Atom processor, which has an 18-month head start. Yet Freescale is betting that its lower prices and promise of higher battery life will draw in buyers.

"When end users are presented with a differentiation that dramatic, they won’t be concerned with how early a processor was available in the market," says Burchers.

Photo: (Hiltch/Flickr)

Intel, LG Partner To Create New Mobile Internet Device

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Intel is working with LG to create a new line of smartphone-like internet devices based on the chip maker’s next generation mobile processor platform and operating system.

The upcoming line of products will be based on Intel’s ‘Moorestown’ platform that consumes up to ten percent lower idle power compared to current Atom based processors, said Intel. Moorestown will be the successor to the current Atom-processor based platform that is widely available in many netbooks. Moorestown is scheduled to be available in 2010 though it is increasingly likely that the first products based on it will appear later this year.

The LG device will be one of the first designs to market based on the new platform, said Intel.

The new devices will also feature Moblin, a new Linux-based open source operating system that is being developed exclusively for netbooks.

LG also makes mobile internet devices and netbooks based around Intel’s Atom processors. The first Atom-based netbook from LG was released in late 2008. LG also said it will extend its current relationship with Ericsson to add 3G network capability to the new device it is working on.

Photo: Mobile Internet Devices (Josh Bancroft/Flickr)

AT&T Stores to Stock Netbooks?

According to a recent online survey conducted by a market research firm, AT&T is at least considering carrying netbooks in their stores.

Survey materials tease not only a wide variety of netbook models at AT&T, but 30-minute in-store consultation for those who may need a tutorial to get up and running. While AT&T is already in the netbook-subsidy business, the company has relied upon third parties like RadioShack to sell the hardware and service. Now it looks like AT&T is gearing up to geek out on their own accord. [Thanks tipster!]

Asus Price Hike Appears Unlikely

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Rumors of an upcoming price hike for Asus products are unsubstantiated and appear unlikely.

Australian publication ARN reported Tuesday that the Taiwanese manufacturer announced 20-percent price increases for all its existing and upcoming notebooks and Eee products beginning March.

However, the publication did not cite a source or an official statement from Asus. Also, Asus Germany has denied such claims and Asus USA said it is unaware of any price increases.

ARN’s report also cited the economic downturn as a reason for increased component costs to explain Asus’s price hike. However, if that were true, Asus’s competitors would be forced to raise prices as well. A spokesman for Multi-Star International, a netbook manufacturer also based in Taiwan, told Wired.com it has no plans for price increases.

Asus USA told Wired.com it will contact Asus Taiwan for clarification. We’ll post an update once we hear back.

Asus hikes prices on all notebooks and Eee products [ARN]

Photo: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com

MSI Wind U120 Now Available in Charcoal

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Here at Gadget Lab we were thoroughly impressed with Micro-Star International’s latest netbook, the Wind U120. We’re delighted to see that MSI has added another color option for the netbook: A classy looking charcoal.

The Wind U120 is the successor of the popular Wind netbook. The main difference with the new model is its design, which MSI reworked to appeal to professional users. The other option is a white model with black accents.

The U120 features a 1.6GHz Atom processor, a 10.1-inch display and a six-cell battery. It ships with 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive. Customers have the option to purchase a 3G modem.

The new charcoal model is already on sale on Amazon for $350. Check out Gadget Lab’s first impressions of the device.

Via Liliputing

See Also:

Photo: Amazon

HP to Offer Three Versions of Windows 7 for Netbooks

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Leave it to Microsoft to make netbooks complicated.

It appears likely the tech giant will offer three different versions of Windows 7 for netbooks. HP officials told Computer World about its plans to offer three different configurations of Windows 7 for netbooks, which suggests Microsoft will roll out this structure for other companies’ netbooks as well.

According to HP, the following three Windows 7 options will be available: Windows 7 Starter Edition, which will only be able to run three apps at a time; Windows 7 Home Premium for consumers; and Windows 7 Professional edition, aimed at business users. That could lead to three
pricing options for Windows 7 netbooks, depending on the version you choose — in addition to pricing variations when netbooks ship with Linux instead.

HP says its netbooks will likely run three versions of Windows 7 [ComputerWorld]

Photo: Tailer Hikari/Flickr

How To Turn a Netbook Into a Net Jukebox

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A netbook may be too weak and puny for serious computing, but it makes a pretty good jukebox.

Thanks to the massive amount of music available online, a two-pound computer can access and play nearly every song ever recorded by mankind. The trick is getting the software needed to make it convenient to tune into the cloud instead of cramming your tiny hard drive with MP3s. Here’s how to do it.

I decided to turn my piece of junk MSI Wind into a jukebox because it was useless for most other computing tasks. My Wind actually comes with a rather capacious 160GB hard drive, but this project, as you will see, is particularly suited to netbooks of rather more limited storage. And of course, all of this will work for a "normal" computer too.

Here we use a Wind Hackintosh running Mac OS X, but you can just as easily use the stock Windows XP version. In fact, in one sense this will actually work better. The important thing is a net connection.

So, you have iTunes, but only a 4GB SSD drive. That won’t hold much music. It barely even holds my podcast directory. So for this project I will use iTunes solely for podcasts and grab all the rest of our music from the internet, specifically streaming it from the ether rather than engaging in disc-filling downloads.

There are several internet "radio" stations, sites which will let you pick one artist or genre and then compile a playlist for you. Pandora is one, and apparently very good, using as it does a database compiled by real people to select tunes for you. Sadly, it is not available outside the US, and is therefore dead to me over in Spain.

Instead, we chose Last.FM, a British site that is happy to share with our colonial brethren. Last.FM uses computer wizardry to compare your tastes with those of others who listen to the same music. It then builds eerily accurate playlists. You can then stream these playlists via a web browser or better still, pipe them directly into iTunes using the iScrobbler plugin.

IScrobbler not only monitors your iTunes usage and sends the info the the Last.FM servers (thus building your listening profile), it also takes the streams from Last.FM and plays them in iTunes itself. This means you get to use the remote control and keyboard shortcuts you are used to, along with track info displays. It also means that Last.FM is the only streaming service you can use with AirTunes — Apple’s over-the-air music streaming protocol which beams tracks from iTunes over Wi-Fi to an Airport Express (itself hooked up to a stereo).

At least, its the only one that will do this natively. More on that in a moment.

The real reason for this how-to article is Spotify, a new music service which is so good it made me dedicate a whole computer to it. Spotify is being called a "celestial jukebox". It is essentially an iTunes-like piece of software with a quite ridiculous amount of music in it, all accessed via your internet connection:

In the future we aim to have all the worlds music available, however, we are currently in beta and are updating our catalogue so it’s possible that you won’t be able to find some of your favorite artists or tracks.

This is the Holy Grail of online music — every track ever made accessible all the time. Better still, Spotify is free in its ad-supported version, and an ad-free premium version costs €10 per month. I’d probably sign up for this but the ads are so unobtrusive there seems no point.

Spotify has all of the big labels signed up, plus some indies: Universal, Sony, BMG, EMI Music, Warner Music, Merlin, The Orchard and Bonnier Amigo. The catch? The free service is invite only and available in UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Sorry US! For once you get left out, although you can get the paid version at any time.

The Spotify software is simple and fast. Faster even than iTunes. The music is piped over the wire in the the open source Ogg Vorbis q5 codec, running at 160 kbps, and it is all managed by P2P, much the same as BitTorrent, to keep the mothership’s bandwidth costs down.

Next, you need to hook your netbook up to a stereo. With Windows XP, just plug a stereo cable into the mic socket. With a Wind running OS X, you’ll need to do some hacking. Better, as this is so far completely free, is to buy Rogue Amoeba’s Airfoil, a piece of software (Windows and OS X) which will stream sound from any application and send it to an Airport Express. This is my setup, and it means that the netbook can be anywhere in the apartment and stream music to the big speakers over my Wi-Fi network.

The best thing about this is that you don’t need a remote control — a netbook is so tiny it is a remote control. Even if you don’t have an Airport Express hooked up to your stereo, Airfoil can stream to another computer on the network and take command of its speakers. It’s neat and costs just $25.

There are surely many other ways to get music from the web to your speakers, but the netbook is particularly convenient, especially as you can have an almost infinite library at your fingertips. Any further recommendations should, of course, go in the comments.

Product page
[Spotify]
Product page [Last.FM]
Product page [Airfoil]

See Also:

$250 Dell Netbook Ditches Everything to Lower Price

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Netbooks have been called a "race to the bottom". If you were in any doubt that the winner will be the company that manages to make the cheapest, lowest specced machine that will still shift units, then stop. Your uncertainty will be assuaged, massaged away by Dell’s seductively priced Mini 9n, a $250 version of its successful netbook.

What does the "n" stand for? "Nothing", of course. The 9n has stripped out memory, storage and webcam, resulting in a blind, slow and easy to fill computer, with just 512Mb of RAM and a 4GB solid state drive. My MacBook Pro has 4GB of RAM alone.

Still, it is cheap, and if you are into this new-fangled "cloud computing" business, this could be for you. In fact, the decent keyboard alone might be enough to sell it. That and its sweet, Mac-beating screen.

Product page [Dell via Blond Bombshell Gadgets]

See Also:

Intel’s New Netbook Chips Promise Faster HD Video

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Cheap, tiny netbooks are about to get a little more powerful.

Intel this week confirmed it’s shipping a new version of its low-powered Atom processor designed for netbooks.

Dubbed the Atom N280, the processor’s most notable improvement will be seen in high-definition video playback. The N280 is paired with a GN40 chipset, which includes a hardware-based HD video decoder for viewing 720P HD video.

That seemingly minor upgrade could significantly change the netbook experience by making the devices competitive with much more expensive machines on video playback. A common complaint about netbooks is choppy video playback, and the N280 should address that issue. Heck, you might even consider buying one to use as a portable video player — a device between a video iPod and a full-sized notebook. (Think airplanes or family road trips.)

With the N280, the Atom processor is also receiving a minor speed boost: 1.66GHz compared to its predecessor, the 1.6GHz Atom N270.

Interestingly, Asus’s upcoming Eee 1000HE netbook is already going to include the N280. We received a test unit of the Eee 1000HE this week, and we can tell you the Atom N280 is making a pretty significant difference. The Eee 1000HE is leaving other netbooks we’ve tested in the dust, and video is noticeably smoother. Stay tuned for a review of that netbook next week.

Intel Now Shipping Atom N280 Processor
[PC World]

Photo: Asus

First Look: Sony Vaio P Series Lifestyle PC

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Sony refuses to call its latest 8-inch mini note — the Vaio P Series
Lifestyle PC — a netbook. Why? It’s a far more capable device than
most netbooks, which justifies its price (twice that of most netbooks), Sony officials say. And boy, are they wrong.

If by "capable" they mean "stuff you can get done with it," then you’re
going to need to learn a lot of hot keys. Because the worst part of
this netbook (yes, I called it that) is its mouse. It’s a pointing
stick. A device this puny
is hard enough to use in the first place, and poking a piece of rubber
to make selections is just God-awful annoying. And for clicking, there
are
two wide, silver buttons beneath the space bar; they’re positioned so
awkwardly you’re going to pray you never have to right-click.

Closeup

I don’t
exaggerate when I say this netbook’s small. The 8-inch LED screen
displays a high 1,600 x 768 resolution. That’s impressively sharp, but
it means onscreen type becomes extremely small, so even
if you have 20/20 vision, you’ll be squinting often to double check
what you type. And the netbook weighs a pound and a half — small enough
to stuff in a blazer pocket. (Let’s face it, though: The idea of
carrying one of these things in a
coat pocket screams "nerdy douche.")

Other than stifling your productivity, the Lifestyle’s slow
performance won’t help much either. This netbook ships with a 1.33-GHz
Intel Atom processor — not the standard 1.6-GHz Atom in other netbooks.
(For some reason, Sony treats Japan with faster processor options.) We ran some benchmarks on the Lifestyle, and it’s pretty damn sluggish.
For example, in our iTunes conversion test the Lifestyle took about 19
minutes to convert 25 tracks. By way of comparison, the MSI Wind U120
took 11 minutes to complete the same test. Did I mention the Lifestyle
ships with Vista? That’s probably making its performance even worse.

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The keyboard isn’t great, either. It’s nice and roomy, but the keys
themselves feel very flat and unnatural to type on. The right Shift key
is extremely small, something that many consumers hate about other netbook
keyboards.

And did I mention the Lifestyle starts at $900? The base model includes
a 60-GB hard disk drive; the middle model ships with a 64-GB solid state drive
for $1,200; and the top-of-the-line Lifestyle costs $1,500 with a 128-GB
solid state. All models ship with a maxed out memory capacity of
2 GB of RAM. That’s pretty pricey compared to netbooks, which cost $400 on
average.

Closed

Don’t get me wrong: The Lifestyle is a truly beautiful device — a worthy highlight at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.
The cooler part about the netbook is it ships with a built-in GPS
device, a 3G modem and Wi-Fi, meaning you’ll be able to connect to the
internet practically anywhere. Other bonuses include a multimedia card
reader (Memory Stick Duo and SD) and noise-canceling headphones.

Still, that’s a lot of money, and good looks and ultraportability aren’t
everything in the technology world. Surely, some of you travelers out
there will like this thing — maybe if you purchase a separate Bluetooth
mouse. Otherwise
I don’t see this being a good device for professionals or the typical
consumer.

We’ll post a full review soon after completing benchmarking and battery
testing. Don’t get your hopes up for battery life, though: The
Lifestyle ships with a 2-cell battery compared to the standard 3-cell
in netbooks.   

Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com