KOREAN OUTFIT Samsung has unveiled a series of “shark” NF and SF laptops and netbooks.
The Samsung team has been beavering away on shark-themed designs for its new laptops and ultra-portable netbooks. Both sets of machines have been given a fin effect design.
The Samsung SF Series comes in three flavours with the SF310, SF410, SF510 models on 13.3-inch, 14-inch and 15.6-inch chassis, respectively. All boast a glossy ivory front with a matte black finish on the inside. Samsung claims the new coat is scratch resistant and all models now sport chiclet keyboards.
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Samsung has bundled hybrid graphics into all models so punters can switch between the Intel GPU and a Nvidia GPU. It claims the battery life is 7.5 hours and Samsung also reckons they can be juiced back up in two to three hours thanks to its Express Charging Mode.
The NF series also has three models with the NF310, NF210 and NF110 all designed as netbook versions of the SF range. These all use a dual-core Intel Atom N550 chip and DDR3 memory but Samsung didn’t say how much is in each model.
The NF310 has a 1366×768 widescreen display with a 16:9 aspect ratio and Samsung said the NF210 can knock out 14 hours of battery life on a 6-cell battery.
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HP Mini 210 Specifications
The HP Mini 210 targets consumers who surf the web, check e-mail, listen to music and need access to friends, family or information while on the go. The netbook includes built-in Wi-Fi, 1.3-megapixel Webcam, microphone and a nearly full-sized island-style keyboard. As mentioned above, the HP Mini 210 also supports the single-core Intel Atom N455 and N475 processors as well as the new dual-core N550 processor, all of which support DDR3 memory.
Less than 1-inch thick and weighing 3.1 pounds, the HP Mini 210 comes standard with an inline six-cell battery that promises up to 10.75 hours of battery life and fits flush, complementing the overall design. The Mini 210 is available in a choice of five HP Imprint finishes: charcoal, crimson red, lavender frost, luminous rose and ocean drive.
An optional 10.1-inch diagonal HD display and optional Broadcom Crystal HD Enhanced Video Accelerator is promised to enable smooth 720p and 1080p HD playback and video streaming from popular Websites. The netbook also offers Dolby Advanced Audio.
The HP Mini 210 comes pre-loaded with HP Media Suite (organize, store and play multimedia content such as music, photos and videos) and Evernote (note-tasking software that allows users to quickly capture and search for notes).
Additionally, courtesy of HP QuickSync the HP Mini 210 automatically synchronizes files with a home PC over a wireless connection. HP QuickWeb allows users to access the Web in seconds without booting up the netbook. HP Navigator, included with the optional GPS, provides general mapping, route planning, points of interest and voice-guided navigation.
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Asus has released a new Eee PC netbook that is designed for children 12 years or younger, and retails for AED 1,270 across the Middle East.
“Children today get acquainted with technology at a fairly early age with a good portion of their school curriculum being computer aided,” said Ericson Correa, business development manager, ASUS Middle East.
The company adds the Asus Eee PC 1001PQ’s Inspirus Desktop “comes across as a simplified operating system with applications that have been designed to keep impressionable young minds away from objectionable material on the net”.
Eee PC 1001PQ also comes with parental controls that specify with websites children can visit, including restricting e-mail contacts and programs they can access. The restrictions can be set to a timetable, so parents can easily keep track of their child’s online activities.
Complete with an Intel Atom N450 processor, the Eee PC 1001PQ runs the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system, features a 10.1″ display, along with Wi-Fi and a built-in 0.3 megapixel camera.
It is available in Flame Purple or Vibrant Gold color schemes and comes with stickers for added customisation.
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Chrome OS Tablet or Netbook – Analysis
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There have long been rumours regarding the possibility of Google releasing a Chrome OS powered tablet device. These rumours have arguably been spurred on by leaked tablet mock-ups and more so, wishful thinking; buoyed by an emerging tablet craze.
It is easy to understand why the market craves a Chrome OS powered tablet. After all Apple has sold millions of Ipads unabated for the last few months. Hence it is more than natural for consumers to dream of viable and cheaper alternatives to the Ipad.
Benefits of introducing a Chrome OS powered tablet
The benefits of introducing a Chrome OS tablet to the market are foreseeable. Due to the explosive growth of this market it is feasible that Google could get an early foothold. This can then enable exponential growth in the usage of it’s upcoming operating system.
It may also be in Google’s interest to not only piggy back on the growth of the tablet market but ‘ride the crest of the wave’ as they are doing with Android OS in smart phones until the eventual maturity of this market.
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Buying a netbook has always been a hard decision for many on the grounds that this type of device is still new on the market and has encountered lots of resistance from the skeptics’ side. It is questionable if the pros outweigh the cons in this case as to make buying a netbook a good decision but which are the things one should keep in mind when considering the acquisition of this type of device?
To begin with, the mini laptop has in target mobility. It is made to be small and versatile with components that can give one a fair enough amount of computing power while still having in mind a device that can go 5+ hours without a single charge. Thus, it is normal to score less in benchmarks than laptops but one has to understand that when turning to such a device he/she wants more battery life rather than more performance.
Furthermore, the components that are fitted inside the netbook are usually the same or vary a little depending on manufacturer for over 90% of mini notebooks have the Intel Atom CPU. This processor is clocked at around 1.60GHz, a good frequency to run every-day applications but rather slow in the case of big and demanding software. The new generation of Intel processors has gone a step up with the introduction of multi-cores but with high prices on new hardware it will be some time until many of us can touch those.
The video card is in the best case a NVIDIA ION (or ION 2) that can easily handle HD but is rather slow at intensive gaming, this not to mention the integrated video cards that tend to choke at more than solitaire. The memory is 1GB usually with the possibility of expansion to 2GB, which makes video editing or heavier software slower as it needs to grab RAM out of the HDD to cope with the extra demands.
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Businesses and consumers will purchase 36 million netbooks in 2010 globally, according to research firm Techaisle, which said Monday that the figure reaffirms its initial forecast released in mid 2009.
Business netbook penetration will be 5.3% and consumer netbook penetration will be 1.8%, said the firm. There will be a “short and transient shift of netbook purchases among consumers from some mature markets into a few newly emerging markets,” in 2010, the firm said in a statement. European businesses will continue to adopt netbooks “in decent numbers” during the same timeframe, and they are especially popular with small retail shop owners, Techaisle said.
While netbooks created a strong market in 2009 by their ability to address latent mobility needs, thereby attracting new buyers, starting in 2011 through 2013 or 2014, netbook sales will be on the decline, the firm said. Market expansion will be limited by the “value proposition differential,” said Anurag Agrawal, CEO of Techaisle, because “there is no compelling reason for a consumer or a business to buy a netbook as compared to a notebook.”
In 2009, netbooks were highly sought after devices because they were new, the economy was down and they were relatively inexpensive, making them attractive to both businesses and consumers, explained Agrawal. “But the important thing was consumers were not buying them in numbers — because they decided if they spent another $200 they’d get better a notebook.” Businesses, on the other hand, were buying netbooks to supplement their main computing devices, he said.
“We were getting feedback from the market that it’s not the beginning of an era, but the start of a short trend,” added Agrawal. Although netbooks were touted as a great alternative device for emerging markets like Brazil, Russia, India, China, Indonesia, and the Philippines, where PC penetration is very low, consumers did not gravitate to them as expected, he claimed.
Agrawal said netbook vendors need to promote the device to businesses as an alternative for functions that fall short on smartphones, such as PowerPoint presentations, webcams, and web conferencing. “That’s where you can open up the market for netbooks,” he said.
Agrawal claimed netbook forecasts by other research firms are now being revised down since sales have not lived up to expectations and they are only good for internet browsing or taking files on the road.
Techaisle’s netbook sales projections are significantly less than what at least one other analyst firm has forecasted. ABI Research recently predicted about 60 million netbooks are expected to ship worldwide this year, a figure that will almost double by 2013. ABI Research also said the netbook market would begin to decline in 2014-2015.
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Choosing a netbook can feel like an exercise in compromise. We want the system we carry to be portable and affordable, but we also want it to offer solid performance and a load of features. Maybe this is why so many netbooks are equipped so similarly, with vendors having apparently decided that a near-perfect balance has been found. But while most netbooks differ in only the most minor of ways, a few seem to represent their manufacturers’ ongoing quests to find a new sweet spot or set a new standard.
Take, for example, Acer’s Aspire One AO721-3574 ($430). Here we have a netbook that is looking to slug it out with ultraportable notebooks, like a lightweight boxer trying to make it in the welterweight division.
It sports a faster processor, more memory and storage, a better graphics adapter, and a larger screen and keyboard than one might typically find in a netbook, all at just 3.1 pounds (including the 6-cell battery). But does the Acer walk the walk as well as it talks the talk? Let’s take a look and find out.
AMD Inside
At the heart of the AO721 is a 1.7GHz AMD Athlon II Neo K125 processor. While not a speed demon by any stretch of the imagination, it offers a bit more bang for the buck than you’ll get out of an Intel Atom-powered netbook. In PCMark Vantage, the Acer posted a score of 1,918; in Cinebench 11.5, it rendered the sample scene in just under 15 minutes. This is nowhere near on par with a full-sized notebook, needless to say. But it is a fair bit better than most netbooks can manage.
Also noteworthy is the inclusion of 2GB of DDR3 RAM (upgradable to 4GB) and a 250GB hard drive, both of which are generous for a netbook. And while it will come as no surprise that there’s no optical drive included, the built-in “multi-in-one” card reader should do the trick for many users, with external USB drives meeting the needs of others.
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SAMSUNG Electronics Co., Ltd., a market leader in consumer electronics and world leader in IT technology, is launching a series of notebooks and netbooks for the first time in Egypt. With the introduction of the netbooks to the Egyptian market, Samsung now truly offers a complete and comprehensive consumer technology product line up with innovative designs and advanced technology.
“Samsung has been selling notebooks in Korea since 1995 and has achieved great success,” said Mr. Duke Park, General Manager of Samsung Egypt. “With this depth of experience, Samsung is confident in these new products and is thrilled to be launching them in the Egyptian market.”
Samsung is one of the fastest growing PC vendors in the world, reporting year-on-year growth of over 130% in the mobile PC market as of Q4/2009, a more than two-fold increase over its closest competitor. Annual shipments of Samsung PCs worldwide have grown nearly 50% in just 3 years (2006-2009) to reach a total of 675 million units sold in 2009. Netbooks outpaced the rest with approximately 275m units sold followed by notebooks at 250m units, while desktops round out the total with about 100m units sold worldwide.
The popularity of Samsung notebooks and netbooks is largely due to its reputation for quality. Up to 75% of Samsung components are world’s top class including the world number one LCD screen, DRAM and the world number 2 in battery and ODD. Samsung invests heavily in its unique in-house research and development to ensure best knowledge of every single component and it has a stable material supply to keep prices stable despite market fluctuations.
All Samsung mobile PCs are environmentally committed and developed to meet the highest standard of international certifications. In fact, Samsung was awarded as the only Computer Manufacturer with the ENERGY STAR Excellence Award, an international standard for energy efficient consumer products. Every single Samsung Notebook has ENERGY STAR logo. The launch of notebooks complements Samsung Electronics diverse and comprehensive portfolio of products, thereby enhancing the company’s offering to consumers in Egypt.
Samsung’s N150, R540 and R580 netbook and notebooks are not only built by a reliable brand, they offer the latest technology and innovation. The computers feature Extended Battery Life (EBL), fast start-up, and the ability to share multimedia between all Samsung Electronic devices. They also showcase the latest in design and like all Samsung products, come with full customer service follow-up. The new netbook and notebooks are nothing less than what has come to be expected from Samsung.
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Just three years from now, the number of annual netbook shipments is set to reach almost 120 million units – a figure more than double that of the forecasted 2010 shipments – but insiders are confident that this number will have little impact on future PC sales.
The relatively new computer category has grown significantly since its humble beginnings in 2008.
The rapid increase in sales experienced since the launch of the netbook category is an ongoing trend that market researcher ABI Research believes will not slow down until at least 2014.
ASUS’s pioneering Eee PC – one of the first netbooks to appear in the market – gave the company a good headstart in the netbook market share race. In 2008 ASUS and rival computer manufacturer Acer held almost equal one-third shares of the market but by 2009 those shares had started to shift among vendors.
“Instead of having a preeminent two,” noted principal analyst Jeff Orr in a report released on July 22, “it looks as if only Acer will continue to maintain its commanding lead; but at the same time there are more vendors competing head-to-head. Most of the other major names – HP, Dell, Lenovo – increased their market shares in 2009, while Samsung lost a couple of percentage points.”
ABI predicts that some of the smaller players will be pushed out of the market in the coming years. “Some firms saw netbooks as an entry point into the PC market. Gigabyte is one example. But with a 2009 market share falling to just 0.1%, Gigabyte might be advised to rethink that strategy,” said Orr.
“Other suppliers, such as the OLPC (One Laptop per Child) initiative, have been hit hard by the global recession.”
Mainstream consumers are giving the nod to netbooks, not as a replacement device for laptops or PCs (as manufacturers and analysts once predicted) but rather as a complementary device that offers “value rather than raw performance.”
During Apple’s Q3 2010 earnings reports technology blog CNET reported that Apple COO Tim Cook discussed how the company’s tablet device might impact future PC and Mac sales.
Cook suggested that the iPad might even boost Mac sales in the near future, before commenting, “Our guts tell us that this market is very big…if it turns out that iPad cannibalizes PCs, that’s fantastic for us because there is a lot of PCs to cannibalize.”
According to technology blog CNET, Intel Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith remarked that the tablet segment would have little impact on the sales of PCs during Intel’s earning conference call.
“I think this [tablets] is an additive category of computing much like Netbooks were an additive category,” advised Smith.
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Most netbooks sold today offer similar features, run on identical Atom powered processors and offer the same lightweight mobile computing options at very similar prices.
A bit newer to the game, Samsung is looking to nudge its way into a market traditionally populated by the likes of MSI, ASUS, Dell and Toshiba. And it’s a pretty forceful nudge considering the entry, the Samsung N220 Netbook (known as the N210 in the United States). It has all the same features of the competition but offers twice the battery power in nearly the same size.
We got to spend some time with Samsung’s N220 and realized early on that despite its small size and weight, it acts more like a full featured notebook than a skimpy netbook. Its build quality is surprisingly solid – not unexpected given Samsung’s reputation for designing solid consumer electronics.
One of its most striking features is a glare-free, matte screen. Most “economy class” netbooks feature cheap, high gloss screens that are so reflective as to be useless when viewed outdoors, or even in a airplane where lighting is less than ideal. The N220’s screen is decidedly not-useless in such conditions. Screen technology is Samsung’s forte and they supplied the N220 with a very readable, reasonably bright and multifunctional screen that does okay with video and text as well.
Aside from the praiseworthy screen, battery life is the biggest feature netbook buyers should look for in devices that are made for travelling. By that token, the seven hour battery life of the N220 is outstanding.
What’s more, Samsung says you can get 11 hours out of a fully charged battery, though that seems only attainable on the ultra-conservative power settings; Wi-Fi off, lowest screen brightness, one program running at a time, that sort of thing. Essentially, 11 hours with the dial set on “pathetic.” But seven hours, that’s awesome all by itself.
The Samsung N220 comes equipped with a 1.66GHz N450 Atom processor, 1GB RAM, 250GB HDD and Windows 7 Starter. Pretty standard stuff in terms of netbook hardware – upping your RAM to 2GB is highly recommended; a straightforward and relatively inexpensive upgrade that will noticeably boost performance and better enable multitasking.
For a diminutive little traveller in the sub-$500 price range, the Samsung N220’s extended battery life and a matte screen make it the better option than most competitively priced netbooks.
Final Score: 4 (out of five)
Platform(s): Windows PC
Publisher: Samsung
Link: http://www.samsung.com/ca/consumer/office/mobile-computing/netbook/NP-N220-JA01CA/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail
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