There’s been a rumor going around for a while that Lenovo plans to release a 10 inch, business oriented netbook. Right now, the closest thing Lenovo ThinkPad X100e. But that model has an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display. Now a member of the Whirlpool forums in Australia says he spotted a set of netbooks marked “ThinkPad Mini 10″ at his school.

It’s possible tat the machine has basically the same hardware as the X100e, but a smaller, cheaper display. In that case, the Mini 10 would likely have the same sized chassis and a thick bezel around the display, which is how the laptops are described in the forum posting. No word on the processor or other specs, but the laptop has an isolation style keyboard and uses Lenovo’s TrackPoint pointing stick in the middle of the keyboard as well as a touchpad below the keyboard.

We first heard mention of a ThinkPad Mini 10 late last year.

via Netbooked

MSI dual screen netbook

If there’s one thing I know about longtime readers of this web site, it’s that you love to complain about large screen bezels. Sure, netbook bezels have come a long way since the Asus Eee PC 701 with its bezel that was almost larger than the screen itself. But when you’re looking at a tiny laptop, it’s kind of hard not to wonder how much larger the screen could be if there wasn’t all that plastic surrounding it.

Well, it looks like we may get to find out later this year. DigiTimes is reporting that Acer plans to launch a notebook later this year that’s all screen and no bezel. Instead of a traditional laptop lid, the cover of the Acer laptop would be printed right onto the back of the glass display panel.

DigiTimes says the laptop will also have a touchscreen keyboard, which will also be thinner and lighter than a traditional keyboard. Overall, the concept sounds a lot like the MSI dual screen netbook that I saw at CES — only without the bezel or lid.

The design will help keep the laptop super thin and light — and possibly rather fragile. I’d hate to drop this thing on the floor.

Word on the street is that Intel will officially introduce the Atom N470 Pine Trail chip on Monday. And when I say Street, I mean that’s what CNET and PC World are reporting, stealing a little bit of Intel’s thunder. Of course, there wasn’t much thunder left in the bag after Lenovo, Gigabyte, and other PC makers started showing off products with the N470 chip, only to later remove those product pages.

The Intel Atom N470 will clock in at 1.83GHz, making it a bit faster than the 1.66GHz Atom N450 chip found in a wide range of recently launched netbooks. Like the N450, the Atom N470 platform will combine the CPU and graphics controller on a single chip. It’s a single core processor, but it supports hyperthreading.

While the Atom N470 will offer a slight performance boost over the Atom N450 chip, I imagine it will also draw a little more power, which could take a toll on battery life. But the Pine Trail netbooks I’ve played with so far tend to get stellar battery life of anywhere from 6 to 11 hours of run time. So a little bit of extra power drain probably won’t be the end of the world.

PC World suggests that Atom N470-based netbooks could begin shipping as early as next week.

Just a few days ahead of the CeBIT trade show, Blogeee is reporting that Asus plans to launch three new netbook models which may be on display at the show. For the most part, these appear to be updated versions of the recently launched Asus Eee PC 1005PE and Eee PC 1008P.

Here’s the rundown:

• Asus Eee PC 1015P: This appears to be an updated version of the Eee PC 1005P, but with a matte display and aluminum case. It will reportedly have a 14 hour battery and a slightly tweaked keyboard as well as a wider keyboard
• Asus Eee PC 1018P: This model is thinner, and more closely resembles the Eee PC 1008P. It will reportedly measure just 0.7 inches thick and feature an aluminum case, a redesigned touchpad, a fingerprint reader, and USB 3.0 as well as a 10 hour battery
• Asus Eee PC 1016P: Blogeee reports that this model will be aimed at business consumers, competing with the HP Mini 5102 and Lenovo ThinkPad X100e. It will have a more angular design while still featuring a chiclet keyboard, aluminum case, and 14 hour battery.

I’d take all of this with a grain of salt for now, but Blogeee does have some pictures to back up its claims, and the site has a pretty good track record of getting Asus press shots before they’re officially released.

Intel’s Atom processors all have a few things in common. They’re low power, low cost chips designed for low cost, low power devices. Intel recently rolled out its “Pine Trail” Atom N450 and N470 chips which replace the N270 and N280 processors that had been powering netbooks for much of 2008 and 2009. But Japanese web site PC Watch reports that Intel might also have a new Atom platform code-named “Oak Trail” up its sleeve.

The idea is that Oak Trail would replace the Atom Z5xx series processors found in a handful of mobile devices including the Sony Vaio P mini-laptop and Asus Eee PC T91MT touchscreen tablet. The Z520, Z530 and other Z-series processors tend to use less power than the Intel Atom N-series processors, and have GMA 500 graphics, which offers HD video acceleration, but overall more sluggish performance.

According to PC Watch, Oak Trail chips would consume less energy than Pine Trail processors. But unlike the Intel Atom Moorestown platform which is designed only for tablets and smartphones such as the OpenTablet 7 and LG GW990, Oak Trail chips could power netbooks running Windows.

At least, I think that’s what PC Watch is saying. Google Translate is no substitute for lessons in Japanese.

via Netbook News.de and Heise

It looks like Intel’s new Pine Trail processors will be getting an update in the third quarter of 2010. But don’t expect a major change in speed, power consumption, or overall performance. The only real difference is that the new chips will support DDR3 RAM while the current Intel Atom N450 and N470 chips can only handle DDR2 RAM.

Fudzilla reports that the new processors will bear the N455 and N475 names. Since they’re due out in the second half of the year, it’s reasonable to assume we may see a number of new netbook models released in the third quarter. But I was kind of expecting that anyway.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about support for DDR3 chips. Fudzilla had a similar report in December. But at the time there was no mention of a launch date.

Tucked away behind a protective glass case at the NVIDIA booth at CES earlier this month, there was a concept device from Asus. In theory, it’s a small touchscreen device powered by the NVIDIA Tegra 2 platform which bundles a low power ARM processor with Tegra 2 graphics. The Tegra 2 platform is powerful enough to handle 1080p HD video playback, and that includes Flash video.

Unfortunately, I never got a chance to see anyone turn the tablet on, and there was no way to know whether we were looking at a real product or just a mockup. But DigiTimes reports that Asus will officially launch a Tegra-powered tablet called the Eee Pad at Computex in June.

The tablet could sell for about $500 or less. Asus is also expected to launch a few eBook readers this year, but the Eee Pad would offer more multimedia capabilities thanks to the Tegra 2 graphics.

Jkkmobile shot a video of the Asus tablet at CES. And while it’s hidden behind glass, at least you can get a good look at the outside in the video embedded after the break.

via Engadget

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Since launching the Eee PC 701 in November, 2007, Asus has used a number of different processors including Intel Celeron and Atom chips. What they all have in common is that all of these models have used Intel processors. Even the company’s recent Eee PC 1201N with NVIDIA graphics uses a dual core Atom CPU.

But DigiTimes reports that Asus will introduce a 12 inch Eee PC based on AMD’s Congo platform in February. The Congo platform is sort of AMD’s answer to Intel’s Atom or CULV processors. The platform is designed for thin and light notebooks and costs less than most AMD chips, while still offering higher performance graphics than you’ll get from most Intel Atom powered netbooks.

DigiTimes says that Asus will also launch a new Eee PC sporting NVIDIA ION 2 graphics in April. We’re still waiting for details about NVIDIA’s next-generation ION platform, but the current generation of ION-based computers bundles an Intel Atom processor with NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics (instead of using Intel’s dedicated graphics solutions).

Because the Intel Atom Pine Trail platform combines graphics and CPU components onto a single chip, it’s likely that ION 2 will be more analogous to a discrete graphics solution. It’s not clear if this means that end users will be able to choose between using discrete or dedicated graphics dependind on whether they need more battery life or higher performance, or if ION 2-based systems will automatically use NVIDIA graphics instead of Intel graphics.

DigiTimes suggests that the AMD Congo-based Eee PC will sell for about $564 in Taiwan at launch, although the notebook will likely sell for less if and when it’s released in the US. No word on the price for the Eee PC with NVIDIA ION 2.

NVIDIA hasn’t officially introduced its ION 2 platform for providing netbooks and nettops with high performance graphics yet. But the company is expected to launch ION 2 any time now, and DigiTimes is reporting that the Zotac MAG HD-ND01 nettop that was on display at CES earlier this month will ship in march with a base price of just $249. That price reportedly includes an NVIDIA GeForce 210 graphics chip, which may be the basis of the ION 2 platform.

It’s still not 100% clear how NVIDIA ION 2 will play with the Intel Atom Pine Trail chipset, since the Pine Trail platform combine the processor and graphics onto a single chip. But there’ve been rumors that ION 2 could come on a PCI Express card much like the Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator which some PC makers offer with netbooks to allow HD video playback on low power PCs. The difference is that NVIDIA’s solution would offer not just video acceleration, but a complete GPU that could also allow you to play video games or run other applications that require higher performance graphics.

I’m going to file everything (the Zotac nettop launch date and price, and the ION 2 specs0 in the rumor category for now. But I’d be surprised if we didn’t hear something from NVIDIA in the next few months.

Update: Apparently the $249 price tag will be for the barebones unit without ION graphics.

There’ve been rumors floating around for months that Asus is working on an eBook reader. But according to the Times Online, it’s not going to look like any other dedicated eBook reader on the market. That’s because instead of going with the typical e-ink display, Asus is reportedly going with a bright, full color OLED display that will be able to handle magazines as well as books (and presumably newspapers and/or web sites).

According to the Times Online, the tablet will features a 6 inch screen, support WiFi and 3G, and be able to play Flash video. Oh yeah, and the battery is supposed to be good for up to 122 hours.

No word on what kind of processor the Asus eReader would use, but my money’s on it not being a Core i7. Think ARM-based chips like recent entries from Qualcomm, Freescale, or Marvell. I’m still not sure how you can expect to get that kind of battery life out of any processor with an OLED display, but for all we know, the 6 inch tablet will have a 3 pound battery.

No word on pricing, but we do have a model number to keep an eye on: The Asus DR-570. Rumor has it that the device should be available before the end of the year.

via Engadget