Tag: asus

Whether the choice is basic black or cute and colorful, you can make a fashion statement with the totes and sleeves you choose for laptops and netbooks.

ASUS has been a big name in the world of netbooks for some time. One area where the excelled over the competition was in running times with some of their netbooks able to achieve over 10 hours of running time with standard web use. Now ASUS has updated their Eee PC lineup to include the new dual-core Intel Atom processor for additional performance. Is this extra performance worth the additional cost? Does it impact the battery life?

Asus has introduced a number of new accessories for the company’s netbooks and notebooks. On paper, the accessories don’t look all that different from items the company has been offering for the past few years. Ther eare new USB disc drives, hard drives, and mice, and some new carrying cases and power adapters. But some of the new models feature designs tailored to go with Asus computers such as the Lamborghini series notebooks or Karim Rashid edition netbooks.

That’s the point Engadget is making, unhelpfully calling the new, better breed of netbooks “notbooks”, as in “not netbooks”, even though they’re netbooks, but better. But the point remains: these days, you can spend between $300 and $500 for a computer that will do most of what a laptop does, but will still be cheaper, smaller and more portable.

Originally cut-down notebook PCs designed for maximum portability and battery life, netbooks have evolved into serious computing devices in their own right. Some of the specs make it difficult to decide where the netbook category ends and notebooks begin. Still, some things remain relatively constant. Most have a 10.1in screen, a small keyboard and a lightweight low-power processor. They struggle with heavy computing tasks, but are good for web and email access, word processing and simple spreadsheets.

The Netbook Market in India 2011 report begins with an introduction to the different types of personal computers available in the Indian market. It then provides a brief introduction to personal computers including desktops, notebooks and netbooks. This is followed by the market size and growth figures for the desktop and laptops market in India as well as the market segmentation. It further explains the strategy being followed by different players to boost sales in India.

Motorola had a pretty busy CES this year as it rolled out a couple of pretty substantial products. The first of these was the new Atrix handset, which the developers believe could take convergence to a whole new level.

On the outside, the phone looks like a fairly standard Android device – albeit quite a handsome one. However, it’ll be powered by a currently unnamed dual-core 1GHz ARM processor, which gave it more than enough horsepower to slice through version 2.2 of the OS – although a move to Gingerbread could be on the cards by the time it launches.

Looks like Dell will be launching a new Latitude 2120 netbook at CES next week. The 2120 is said to have specs identical to the previous 2110, but it packs double the power thanks to a dual core N550 processor. It features 3 and 6 cell battery
options, a 10.1 inch display (with an optional touchscreen), 1 to 2GB of RAM, USB, Ethernet, and VGA ports.

The other interesting news about this latest Latitude is that it gets an optional Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator. There’s no info about price or availability just yet though.

Netbooks, which were all the rage a few years back, are facing competition from tablet computers and cheaper laptops, said analysts who note that while the product category will stand for now, there may be changes to its form to make it more competitive.

“There is, indeed, a decrease in the netbook frenzy evident just a couple of years ago,” said Dane Anderson, CEO and executive vice president of research at Springboard Research, in an e-mail interview with ZDNet Asia. He added that though netbooks will continue to hold a place in the market, their market share is eroding, especially with tablets gaining prominence.

On the flip side, Gerard Tan, regional commercial director of IT at Gfk Asia, does not think tablets will pose a challenge to the product category. In an e-mail interview, he said tablets are relatively more expensive than netbooks and do not have a full operating system under the hood. He also pointed out that a good portion of netbook customers continue to be students.

Jim McGregor, chief technology strategist at In-Stat, thinks netbooks will continue to hold sway with consumers due to their low price and functionality. In an e-mail interview, he said the educational sector and other segments still prefer portable computing devices with keyboards and will choose a netbook over a tablet.

The machine has a smallish 8.9-inch capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1024 x 600. It also has a webcam for recording video, runs Windows 7, and has a 7.4V battery with 3000mAh of power. The little netbook also uses 1GB of RAM and has a 20GB HDD.
The brain of the machine is an Intel Atom N450 CPU. The hardware should add up to an average netbook computing experience with a screen that swivels for tablet use. The name of the netbook is the Netvertible. Other features include dual USB 2.0 ports, audio jacks for private listening, VGA out, and a SD card reader. Pricing and availability are unknown at this time.