Netbook

The Russian branch of Samsung has officially announced the solar-powered Samsung NC215S netbook. Two hours of sunlight exposure of the unit's solar panel is said to give up to one hour of working time, with the total battery life estimated to be 14.5 hrs. There's a couple of Intel Atom CPUs to choose from, a hybrid sleep mode, and the 10.1-inch 1024 x 600 pixel display is designed for use in direct sunlight. The official announcement concerns an August release in Russia only, but the NC215S is rumored to appear in the US even sooner. Read More

Almost two years after Google first announced plans to build an operating system based on its Chrome web browser, the search giant has announced that the first Chrome OS-based netbooks – dubbed "Chromebooks" – from Samsung and Acer are set to go on sale from next month. With no traditional HDD for local storage, the web-centric devices store all the user's apps, documents, and settings in the cloud resulting in some trimmed down devices with impressive boot up times and battery life. Read More

While Taiwan and the UK have already seen the release of the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer, the U.S. release has been delayed until the end of April, with supply shortages due to higher than expected demand apparently to blame. With a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 IPS LED back-lit, capacitive multi-touch display, micro SD card slot, front- and rear-facing cameras, USB and HDMI ports, 1GB of RAM and powered by a 1Ghz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor, the Eee Pad Transformer, which runs Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), is seen by many as the first serious Android challenger to the iPad’s dominance. Read More

The Guillemot Corporation brand Hercules has announced a couple of new 10-inch eCAFÉ netbooks – one less than an inch thick and the other promising at least 13 hours of "real use" battery life. Both feature a low-power processor, run a custom operating system and benefit from solid state storage. They also sport a display which folds into the body, and all physical connectivity options are placed at the sides. Read More

Research has shown that over 80 percent of netbook owners believe that good sound is important, yet I think it's fair to say that most netbook speakers are not really very good – offering about the same audio output quality as a smartphone. Toshiba has revealed that its new mini NB520 netbook sports a pair of Harman/Kardon speakers and Dolby Advanced Audio technology, to give users the kind of rich audio experience usually reserved for much bigger devices. Read More

Differentiating between the model numbers that make up the HP Mini lineup can be tricky, perhaps even more so with the competing Inspiron Mini series from Dell out there. The new HP 5103, however, does have a lot under the lid to make it stand out. Read More

The Inspiron M101z 11.6-inch laptop from Dell has netbook-like dimensions and weighs less than four pounds yet sports a fast Athlon processor, a couple of gigabytes of memory and a good-sized hard disk drive. There's also the promise of over six and a half hours battery life from its standard 6-cell battery, a full-width keyboard, Bluetooth 3.0 and Wireless N connectivity and a USB port that can be used to power connected devices, even when the laptop is not switched on. Read More

With so many variations of smartphones, netbooks, and tablet PCs on the market it's hard to imagine the categories of mobile tech getting more confusing - but they are. Sony has just thrown another unclassifiable beast into the mix with its new VAIO P Series. The first Type P had a sexy and ultra-portable form factor that could be stuffed into one of your larger pockets and while this new Type P might not be a game changer, it certainly has a boat-load of mobile-friendly features. Read More

Designer Yang Yongchang is proposing a fold-away solution to the keyboard envy sometimes exhibited by netbook users. For the iWEB design, a full-size QWERTY keyboard is jointed in two places and folded inwards so that when not in use it sits within the frame of a 6.5in display portable device. Open up the netbook, fold out the side flaps and enjoy the ease of use and comfort of those nice big keys. Read More