I’ve been negative about technology for the last couple of days, but that is all set to change with MSI announcing the Wind. It is MSI’s competitor to the EeePC, with a few small differences.
It will feature a 10-inch display, a inch and a bit larger then the upcoming EeePC. It will use Atom architecture, and though the tests have shown it isn’t lightning, I’m confident the battery tests will be impressive. It will feature a 2.5-inch HDD, meaning the user should be able to put any size drive they want in there, as long as it fits. OS wise it features other Windows or Linux.
Some people are saying that “those features are for a notebook not a UMPC”, but the EeePC is a notebook.If the EeePC could do the same thing it would be an even more attractive package. If you consider what you gain, especially with an expected 7 hour battery life, the Wind will be more complete for the mobile user.
The price range is pretty crazy, with it being as low as $US450 and going to around $US1000. It really excites me to imagine a device that I could charge and use for a whole day without needed a second battery. No date as yet, but expect a rant when the product is released and reviewed.
For more info, hit up Gizmodo.
That is the question the new GeCube hybrid device would be asking (if it had a father). The GC-GENIE-JR aka the Genie PC, is a Linux tablet computer, but at night when no one is watching, detaches its screen and becomes a digital photo frame.
While the little device doesn’t have a touch screen, it does mount the mouse on the back of the screen, which will give you the ability to do the basics without the keyboard. It will also feature an unknown 300MHz Intel processor (didn’t know they had plans to make one either), 256M of ram with 2G of storage.
It also comes with rubberised keyboard (water proof maybe) and will of course come with a wireless standard built in. While it isn’t going to replace your desktop, for a measly $US229, it is almost disposable.
GeCube also have plans to take over the EeePC market, with a 10.2-inch ultra portable notebook, running a VIA C7, 512mb of ram and the option to run Linux or Windows. That little guy should start around the $US279 mark, and my guess would be, to grow from that point with memory and storage upgrades.
All-in-all the options from GeCube will be very interesting. Whether they come to fruition is another question.
For more info, click over to The Inquirer.
How much do you want a 9-inch LCD on an EeePC? Keep on waiting, because the screen that is coming is 8.9-inch (haha, I’m a funny man).
Rumour has it that Asus are going to announce the EeePC 900, which will feature the larger screen with a 1024×600 resolution, 1 GB of RAM and 12 GB of Flash storage. This will set you back a pricey $US600, but for an EeePC fan it will be worth it.
Unfortunately, it is believed that the little guys battery life will suffer (down to a possible 2.5hours). Also, now it is going to the $600 mark, is it sill going to be value for money considering it doesn’t feature a touch-screen or a fast processor (it is still a 900Mhz Celeron). Sorry Asus, but I’m waiting for Atom’s.
For more info, click over to Gizmodo.
If you didn’t know what a Maxdata Belinea s.book 1, it is basically the same deal as the Asus EeePC (if you don’t know what that is you have a lot of catching up to do). It is based on the Via Nanobook spec, so runs a slightly slower Via processor, but makes it up with a touch screen, Bluetooth, VOiP phone, Windows XP and 80GB HDD. It is also a hell of a lot more expensive then the EeePC, at £420 ($US835 currently).
The beautiful review was done by the lucky fellows at The Register. They liked it enough to give it 80%, but said “A highly portable, well-connected sub-notebook hindered only by a high price, low battery life and unnecessary add-ons…” It looks like the EeePC is still top of the UMPC pile, for this month at least.
For the review, click over to The Register.
Now that Asus have done such a successful launch of the EeePC, it is time for them to follow it up with the real bread and butter, the accessories. Unfortunately, unlike the EeePC (or maybe like the EeePC for some people), the accessories aren’t all that exciting.
There will be a mouse, headphones, power adapter, and extra battery. The mouse will be USB (is there any other standard?), have a 1000dpi and be available in 5 different colours (to match your EeePC). The noise-isolating headphones feature a 1.15m cable and 3 sizes of earbud gel tips. Power adapter gives power I would say, and the battery will come in 2 flavours, a 4 cells with 5200mAh or 6 cells with 7800mAh (coming soon and could possibly give you 6-7 hours life).
I’m sorry Asus but this is pretty weak. Where is the docking station? The screen protector and 20 different types of EeePC branded cases? Where are the Bluetooth and other wireless add-ons? Hopefully we will get more useful addon’s as the year progress’s and with the release of the 10-inch EeePC.
For more info, click over to the Laptoping Blog. For more info on the accessories go directly to Asus.
Some spokesman has come out of the closet and said there will be a 10-inch EEEPC and also a desktop version (you thought he was going to be gay didn’t you). The 10-inch will feature a 8GB flash drive and not much is known about the desktop.
Now its time for a rant. Currently the 8GB EEEPC is $US499, which means the 10-inch version will be more expensive. If it is $US599, which would be a good guess, it would put it in full featured notebook territory. The 7-incher has a 4 hour battery so the 10er can’t have much more and with Creative adding 32GB to the ZEN, I’m sure Asus could do something with the EeePC.
On the other hand, if the desktop EEEPC was to be cheap enough, it could fill a lot of lounge rooms as Media PC’s or a computer for the people who don’t use it more then a word document and some emails. Plus if it had a USB slot, it would be easy to add as much storage as you like.
Asus have gotten very lucky here, with getting in to a niche market that people absolutely love. They are selling them faster then they can make them, and they aren’t world changing or revolutionary in anyway. I will wait for a massive price drop (which probably won’t happen any time soon) before I would even consider one of these little fellows.
For more info, slide over to the Engadget Blog.