If you’re looking for more functionality than your iPad offers, but more portability than a MacBook provides, Sena Cases’ new Keyboard Folio might be just the middle ground you’re looking for. The slick, book-style leather case with integrated Bluetooth keyboard brings your iPad within a hair’s breadth of netbook status while sparing you the indignity of purchasing a real netbook.
The Keyboard Folio is made of European leather and features a side -olding design with cutouts that let you to access your iPad’s ports while its in the case, and an integrated collapsible back stand that positions your iPad at a comfortable viewing angle while you type.
The case features a soft velvet protective lining to keep your iPad scratch-free, and also provides multiple pockets for cards, IDs, or checkbooks. When closed, the case secures with a strap and snap closure, giving you complete front and back protection of your iPad when it’s not in use.
The case’s built-in Bluetooth keyboard features function and sound/music control buttons and the company says its ithium battery should provide 45 hours of use, or 55 hours of standby time, before needing to be replaced.
The Folio Keyboard case, which begins shipping on October 7, is listed at $150, but is available for pre-order now for $130.
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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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If you have a student in high school and are looking for the best computer for them, you really ought to consider a netbook. A netbook is a small computer, similar to a laptop or notebook, only smaller. Generally quite a bit smaller. In fact, a netbook weighs less than many school textbooks; and that’s just one good reason for buying one for your high school student.
It’s becoming increasingly important for high school students to have their own computer so that they can use it whenever they choose. It’s also become more important that they be able to take their computer to school so that they can use it to take notes, do research, write papers and perform other things as part of their schoolwork. Netbooks are capable of doing all this and more. Because of their small size and light weight they can be carried around in a backpack, sometimes as a replacement for other items that used to be in there.
Not only that, because of the way they are made, they are also capable of holding a charge for an entire school day, which means your child won’t have to worry about it dying before they get home.
Also, netbooks come in a variety of colors, far more than your standard laptop, which means you can likely pick one in your kids’ favorite color.
And that’s not all. We all know that kids don’t always have the most respect for the things they own, and sometimes treat their stuff a little harshly; netbooks aren’t really any more rugged than their bigger cousins, but they are a lot less expensive; so if your kid drops his or hers on the floor in the cafeteria and destroys it, you’ll only be out a couple hundred bucks, and you’ll be able to replace it without having to worry so much. In some cases, netbooks are actually cheaper thancell phones.
Also, if you happen to have a daughter, many netbooks have been designed with the young modern girl in mind. They come in cute pinks or other pastel colors, have covers designed to look feminine and can be tucked into large purses if need be. Also, netbooks are ideal for small young ladies who don’t want to lug around heavy electronic equipment.
If your student is male on the other hand, there are also more masculine designs and colors available to choose from.
In short, netbooks are the perfect computer for the on-the-go high school student.
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The AC100 is being tagged as the ‘cloud companion’ intended mainly for accessing the Web and other Net-based services, although it has a 32GB solid state drive and even an HDMI port for outputting video onto an external monitor (at 1080p HD, Toshiba says) instead of the AC100’s 10.1 inch screen.
Under the textured hardened plastic shell sits Nvidia’s 1GHz Tegra T20 processor running Android 2.1 with 512MB of RAM. Toshiba claims eight to ten hours’ battery life on the 25Whr battery and up to seven days on standby.
APCmag.com has handled a production sample of the device and it’s delightfully slim – tapering from 14mm to 21mm – and light, at around 900 grams. But for such a featherweight wedge the AC100 feels surprisingly sturdy, without the obvious flex you’d usually associate with plastics.
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Over the last week, Jolicloud started rolling out the first complete version of its Linux distribution to existing users.
The distro is highly netbook-centric and, until Jolicloud 1.0, looked very much like the Ubuntu Netbook Remix on which it is based. However, the new version looks significantly different to the ‘pre-final release’ that preceded it. That was an unusual move for the company, as major user interface (UI) changes tend to be tested in beta before their final release.
At the time of writing, there is no direct installer for Jolicloud 1.0, so getting it relies on installing the pre-final release, then getting an invitation to upgrade.
Jolicloud was founded last year by Tariq Krim, who before that had set up iGoogle competitor Netvibes. The French Linux company is backed by venture capitalists including Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the founders of Skype.
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Intel, a mainstay of the PC, laptop and netbook markets, is looking to enter the tablet market as well.
Yesterday, Intel announced its best earnings quarter ever based on the strength of enterprise customers loading up on PC spending. But Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini said the company is looking at the tablet market also, especially in the wake of explosive iPad sales.
“In terms of Intel participating in the tablet market we remain very optimistic about this. We feel pretty good about our opportunity to participate in the growth as it happens,” Otellini said, during a conference call Tuesday.
According to Patrick Wang, analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, Intel has a chip in mind for the tablet market. “They have the Oak Trail chip that they’ve already started to sample and will begin to ship early next year. You will see a lot of product launches based on this chip. It’s a system-on-a-chip and it’s compatible with x56. This means you will be able to run it on all types of operating system,” he said.
The biggest question with the Oak Trail chip will be power consumption. “They will need to get 8-10 more hours on each charge,” Wang said.
Otellini doesn’t see tablets cannibalizing the laptop or netbook markets. “I think this is an additive category of computing, much like netbooks were an additive category. I don’t see tablets cannibalizing the PC market,” he said.
Brendan Furlong, analyst at Miller Tabak, says even if tablets do cut into the notebook and netbook market, Intel will be in a good position to compete. “Outside of Apple, anyone that’s building a tablet like device will need to use a processor. If the tablet market takes off, even if it cannibalizes the netbook market, it’s not a negative for Intel, it’s a positive. Where is HP and Dell going to go? They will have to get a processor,” he said.
Furlong and Wang agree Intel could run into some trouble if the iPad continues to dominate the tablet market, much like the iPhone has with smartphones. “The potential negative is that if the iPad cannibalizes notebooks/netbooks alone, and no one gets a decent slate out, that is trouble for Intel,” Furlong said, though he added he did not see that happening. “I find that highly unlikely. I think HP, Dell, Acer will all come out with competitive tablet computers.”
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When Samsung launched its N230 netbook a couple of days ago, you may have assumed it was just the latest attempt to one-up the competition in a product category that’s no longer the hottest. After all, its larger battery option promised a whopping 13.5 hours of juice per charge.
What you didn’t know was that Samsung believes that N230 will appeal particularly to women, especially younger ones. According to a post on the Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog:
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The latest addition to Samsung’s N-Series netbook range — the N230 — is really just another netbook in a what’s long been a crowded market, only this one promises to stay up and running all day long, and then some.
“A long battery life is vital to a reliable mobile computing experience and the N230 has been designed to provide just that: With Samsung’s innovative LED display, optimized processing performance and proprietary Enhanced Battery Life (EBL) solutions, the N230 delivers incredible energy-efficiency.
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KOREAN CONGLOMERATE Samsung has announced its N230 netbook is available worldwide.
Although slightly smarter looking then previous netbooks in the range, the N230 has design specs that are similar to those of Samsung’s N210 and N220 netbooks.
It is powered by an Intel 1.66GHz N450 or 1.83 GHz N470 Atom processor, and has 1GB of RAM, a 160GB HDD and a 10.1-inch 1024×600 display. It has a glossy, matte patterned black surface, weighs less than 1kg and is 23.2mm thick.
Samsung is making a song and dance about the N230’s battery life. As standard it will offer seven hours of battery life, but if you’re on a plane or simply can’t be bothered to charge the machine then this can be extended to 13.8 hours with a 66Wh battery,
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