The ever increasingly crowded netbook market

Looks like come Christmas, netbooks will be in virtually everyone's shopping list. Computer builders are scrambling over each other to grab a piece of the ever increasing pie that is the 'netbook' market.

Toshiba has announced its netbook, the NB100, and will be expecting to hit shelves in Europe come October. CNET Asia Crave expects the netbook to arrive in time for our year-end holiday season. I hope so. 

The other new entry comes from Samsung. According to Akibahara News, it's expected to hit Europe next month also, and is likely to go for US$690 price range. 

Both will be running on the Intel Atom processor so we can pretty much expect more of the same. In an market that's probably getting crowded, each manufacturer is coming up with new ways to distinguish their products from the competition. 

Samsung's NC10 is touted to come with durable casing ideal for the daily grind as well as an anti-bacterial keyboard. Toshiba, however, has opted to include its clever Sleep-and-Charge technology, which continues charging your plethora of USB gadgets even when the NB100 is in sleep mode.

At the end of the day, I believe it's value for money that's going to make the peeps part with their hard-earned cash.

Personally, I'm still stalling to get one. I'm still aiming for a 10" inch screen with a decent size keyboard, because I intend to replace my heavy T43, so I need something a bit more comfortable to work with on a daily basis. 

The MSI Wind is still very much in my radar, but with the Samsung coming in, it might be a 

close one to call. 

Intel annouces Dual-Core Atoms but...

Intel announced a few days ago that it has officially started to ship the new 45nm dual-core Intel® Atom™ Processor known as the Intel Atom Processor 330. BUT, the new chip is designed specifically for 'nettops' and not 'netbooks'.

Even though that's the official Intel position, there's nothing stopping computer makers from incorporating these chips into a netbook form factor. Whatever is the case, I am sure we will start seeing Dual-Core Atom devices popping up pretty soon.

The dual-core Intel® Atom™ Processor 330 features a 1.6GHz processing core, 1MB of level 2 cache, an 8W TDP and support for DDR2 667.

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/chipshots/chipshots.htm?cid=rss-90004-c1-213105#091908a

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 unboxing video

Well, it seems the last few days, unboxing of the Dell Mini 9 has started to appear over the web. I guess folks who have ordered the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 are getting their first taste of this new netbook entry by Dell.

This is a great unboxing video by Gavin. Check it out: http://gadgetspot.co.uk/2008/09/12/dell-mini-9-netbook-unboxing

From what I can see from the video, what I like most is the power brick which is built into the plug, instead of a separate brick. Makes it more compact. Not sure about the glossy screen though, you can see the camera reflected in the screen.

Ideapad S10 - Too hot to handle!

Even though the Lenovo Ideapad S10 is stylish, cool it is not. In fact, it's literally too hot to handle! Blogeee.net reported that the keyboard itself gets pretty warm, around 40°C which is quite hot, imagine underneath.



Well at least if you plan to visit Alaska, this netbook might just be for you to keep those fingers warm! But here in sunny Singapore, it's another story.