Nothing But Netbooks! Acer Aspire One, Dell E, Eee PC, HP Mini-Note, MSI Wind, and Other Netbook News, Reviews, Coverage

Techradar’s got a long comparison of the Asus Eee PC 901, Acer Aspire One, HP Mini-Note, and MSI Wind, evaluating each model on a scale of 1 to 10 in important things such as battery life, screen, and performance.

Final verdict? It ranks the four in this order:

1. MSI Wind: “combination of large hard drive and familiar OS makes for a well-rounded experience”
2. Acer Aspire One: “only Acer seems to be focusing correctly right now, and it manages this while producing a well rounded machine”
3. Asus Eee PC 901: “it just doesn’t capture the magic of the original, or do enough to warrant the high price tag. It works well though, and the expertise of the existing user base is reassuring”
4. HP Mini-Note: “The main problems we have with this machine are the relatively high price, and the choice of processor”

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Posted under Acer Aspire One, Eee PC 901, HP Mini-Note, MSI Wind

Laptop Magazine has posted its full review of the Acer Aspire One. Major points:

• Keyboard: large enough, responsive, good tactile feedback.
• It’s hard to add new applications unless you are well versed in Linux.
• Tilting the screen back 45 degrees created a distracting glare. The speakers were loud but tinny.
• During testing, the Aspire one got a bit hot on the underside of the unit on the left side (toward the exhaust), measuring about 107 degrees. Most other areas were warm but okay.
• Good wi-fi performance.

Rating: 3.5 stars out of five.

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Posted under Acer Aspire One

For what it is worth, the Acer Aspire One is now available for “pre-order” on Amazon, with a “we’ll ship it when it’s available” status. Basic model in white is listed for $416.99, which seems high considering the $379 seen on other places such as Newegg or CDW. Of course, shipping is free and depending on the state you live in, you wouldn’t have to pay the sales tax on Amazon so thouse could be factors meriting consideration. There’s also an additional special offer of $10 off if you use Amazon’s Bill Me Later feature.

Ideally though, they should just correct the price as they did for the Wind. Then with all the stuff above, it’d be a pretty good deal.

As of this writing, it is ranked #44 in the Computers and PC hardware, #28 for Electronics > Notebooks.

Product link

Posted under Acer Aspire One

This week, the country is Brazil- the Brazillian version of the Wind will be known as the Mirax Freedom, and will debut in August with the exact same specs and internals as the Wind itself. It will sell for 999 BRL, which roughly converts to USD $629 at today’s exchange rates.

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Read the full story (translated version)

Posted under MSI Wind

Two detailed articles by Kevin O’Brien of NotebookReview.com on the MSI Wind, complete with benchmarks for those of you who like to look at the raw numbers.

The first article is a general review of the Wind, which he termed as “one of the best subnotebooks [he has] seen come out of the mini notebook storm that has hit us the past few months”, but dinged for poor battery life. The article includes benchmark numbers compared to other netbooks as well to a couple of mainline laptop models.

The second article is more interesting- he discusses how with a few tweaks, he not only got Windows Vista working on the Wind, but with better performance numbers than with Windows XP.

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Read the full story (Vista runs faster?)

Posted under MSI Wind

A more detailed article has surfaced regarding the deal between the Fresno Unified School District and HP for 7000 Mini-Note computers. Main points:

• How much does it cost to buy 7000 mini-notes? Total cost: $3.85 million ($550 per unit). According to the article, the model selected normally retails for $849 (which corresponds approximately to the 160GB 6-cell battery model with Windows Vista), so a pretty nice discount.
• Mini-Notes will be used by middle and high school students. The 1000 eeePCs they are currently using will be shifted to elementary schools, where it is hoped that the smaller keyboards on the eeePCs will be more suitable for the smaller hands of elementary school students.
• School employees, teachers, parents, and students will be offered the opportunity to purchase Mini-Notes at cost.
• With about 76500 students in the FUSD, but the 7000 Mini-Notes and the 1000 eeePCs would correspond to a ratio of one laptop per 9.65 students. This is of course not counting any other laptop programs they might have had in the past.

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Posted under HP Mini-Note

According to an article in Techworld, Acer is in talks with carriers in the UK and Taiwan to provide its Acer Aspire One netbook with 3G data plan service. The carriers mentioned are Vodafone, Orange, and T-Mobile in the UK, and Chunghwa Telecom and Taiwan Mobile in .tw.

As widely mentioned before, the Aspire One comes with an empty internal space that can be used by WiMax or 3G cards. In the UK and Taiwan, 3G networks are in place, and Acer could easily add a card that supports HSPDA or HSUPA technology. The Aspire One’s relatively low price could then be subsidized by the carriers in exchange for a data plan/contract.

The article also mentions that other netbook manufactorers such as Asus and ECS are in similar talks, claiming that ECS has already inked a wireless deal in Europe to distribute its G10IL netbook.

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Posted under Uncategorized

Fujitsu/Siemens is joining the netbook market with an as-yet unnamed model for the German market, pictured on the left next to a full-sized Fujitsu laptop:

No specs yet, but according to a Fujitsu/Siemens executive, the price will be €400 (approximately USD $640).

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Read the full story (original German version)

Posted under Uncategorized

So, awhile ago, Dan Nysted of IDG News Service got a hands on with the MSI Wind, and in that article he promised more looks at different netbooks. True enough, he’s now got a brief review of the Aspire One, Linux version. Major points:

• 12 seconds to boot up.
• Hotmail doesn’t work with the built-in email program.
• 95% size keyboard with a “Home” key that returns you instantly back to the Linpus Linux main menu.

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Posted under Acer Aspire One

At last week’s National Educational Computing Conference in San Antonio, HP announced that the Fresno Unified School District would be getting 7000 Mini-Note computers. HP will also provide online courses to help educators learn how to incorporate tech into the classroom.

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Posted under HP Mini-Note