There are pictures circulating on the internet currently that shows a Lenovo S10 sporting a 6 cell battery - something that Lenovo haven’t announced that they are making yet.

The images show the netbook and show that the battery is protruding from the rear of the unit just like 6 cell batteries do. We don’t think it’s a Lenovo battery and there is no firm details on where the battery came from or who is making/selling them. It could be a prototype possibly. Wherever it came from, it will hopefully be available to S10 owners soon and we will let you know as soon as we get more information on the battery and on whether it will be available officially from Lenovo worldwide.

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Brad Linder has posted up news of a “Pre-Black Friday” deal involving the Eee Box - the desktop equivalent of the Eee PC netbook.

If you are quick - the deal only runs for one day - J&R Music and Computer World are selling the Eee Box on Amazon.com for $269.99 which is a good saving of between $20 and $50 on the usual selling price of the PC.

Here is a quick rundown of the features and specs of the Asus Eee Box on offer:

• Full-powered desktop PC in tiny package–perfect for de-cluttering desk or adding to HDTV as media hub
• Energy-efficient 1.6 GHZ Intel Atom processor helps reduce electric bill and carbon footprint
• Boots up as quickly as 7 seconds, mounts on back of a VESA-compatible HDTV
• 80 GB hard drive, 1 GB RAM, Draft-N Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n), Gigabit Ethernet, four USB ports, DVI video output
• Pre-installed with Windows XP Home; includes Microsoft Works for word processing and spreadsheets

So, if you are in the market for an Eee PC that stays at home or in the office, this could be an enticing offer for you or, you could wait until Black Friday and try your luck with the deals on offer then. Decisions, decisions.

Just in time for the Christmas Holiday rush, a new ultra-black version of the Acer Aspire One dubbed A110X has just been released by Acer, but it seems only in Germany. Although there was already a black version of the Acer Aspire One, the design is not totally black unlike the Aspire One A110X which is totally black. (see comparison image).

In terms of specs, the Aspire One A110X sports the same specs as the Aspire One A110. You’d still get the same 1.6GHz Atom CPU, 1GB RAM, 8.9-inch LCD and the rest of the standard features of the original Aspire One. The Acer Aspire One A110X retails for around $509. The previous Aspire One models retails for $399 at Amazon right now. That’s the price you have to pay for an ultra-sleek, totally black Aspire One. Good thing that it’s only available in Germany and not in the US, otherwise I doubt if it will to us budget conscious folks.

Finally, the OLPC XO laptop will soon be accessible to individuals who have been wanting to take part in this worthy cause. OLPC has announced that it will start selling the XO Laptop through Amazon.com on November 17. The XO Laptop will sold through Amazon the G1G1 program where individuals will have to pay for one laptop for the price of two units. The other laptop will be donated to a corresponding child in a developing country.

This would certainly help the OLPC in getting more mileage on their worthy project. However, there seems to be one glitch on this deal. The OLPC XO laptop that will be sold in Amazon will only have the Linux OS. No Windows XP version will be sold. I wonder how easily the recipient kids would be able to adopt to Linux as an OS for the XO?

The XO Laptop will initially be sold through Amazon’s US storefront only but there might be chance that it would also be available in other countries later on.

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At first I thought making your Eee PC’s display into portrait sounds ridiculous as I could not imagine turning it sideways to read what’s on the screen. But then on the second though it actually makes sense especially when you’re reading e-books. It’s like turning your Eee PC or any netbook for that matter into a Amazon Kindle or Sony E-Reader. Even greater if you have the classic Eee PC 700 models, right?

So, how can you make your Eee PC do this? There are currently two ways or tools to help you turn your Eee PC’s screen display in portrait mode.

You either use a program called the EeeRotate. Although it has no official relationship with Asustek, Eee Rotate was said to be created specifically for the Eee PCs. It runs on Windows XP-powered Eee PCs and all you need to do is to download the application, install it on your Eee PCs and once successful, you just need to hit the keys ->

Ctrl + Alt + Right: rotate screen and touchpad by 270 degrees
Ctrl+Alt+Up: back to normal Ctrl + Alt + Up: back to normal

Sounds fun right? I will have to give this a try later on and see how well it executes on my Eee PC 701. Eee Rotate also works well with the Lenovo IdeaPad S10, and so we’ve heard.

The other solution is by using an application called FBReader. More information about it here.

Via TeleRead

NEC is set to release a new netbook called the Versa N1100 which is said to be a magnesium alloy-based mini notebook or netbook that has been tested to survive up to 150kg weight forced onto it. The company claimed that it has tested the resiliency of the Versa N1100 by putting a 150kg weight on top of it (with the bezel closed, I supposed) for 5 seconds. After five seconds, there were no single cracks seen on the netbook and it is still running perfectly.

Such was their basis for advertising the NEC Versa N1100 as a tough netbook wonder. And to further test its other claim that the Versa N1100 is able to withstand  heavy sweat that could cost its keyboard characters and the black gloss finish to tarnish, NEC found out by using an artifical sweat that no paint came off the netbook.

In addition, NEC has also dropped the netbook on wooden floors, iron plates and concrete floors among other durability tests and successfully passed each one of the tests.

Now here’s the catch, NEC officials have also warned users “not to try their tests at home” as they don’t give additional warranty that would cover impact damage or physical abuse to the netbook. Ironically conflicting, right?

Other specs of the NEC Versa N1100 include:

• 8.9-inch WSVGA display
• Intel Atom processor N270
• 160GB HDD
• 1GB RAM
• Wi-Fi
• 1.3 megapixel webcam
• Windows XP
• 3-cell battery

Pricing and release date details are not yet announced for the NEC Versa N1100.

Via

The growing popularity of the the Windows XP Operating Systems among netbooks was not expected by everyone. Whereas the first version of the Eee PC which sprung the growth of the netbook market, was well accepted by users with its Linux OS, those were however are curious enthusiasts who want to get a feel of the Open Source OS. And another reason why the Linux OS was embraced by the netbook-using community is because of it doesn’t pull up the prices of netbooks as compared to when using the Windows XP.

But gradually, that all changed as Microsoft started its Windows XP OS at such an affordable price for netbook purposes. Hence, netbook manufacturers including Asus have found it a great development and has boost the sales and growing interest of users on netbooks. Users are still more accustomed to having their machines running on Windows XP rather than the Open Source Linux and its various distros.

And Microsoft knew this. That’s why it even extended the life of its Windows XP in favor of full roll-out of the Windows Vista. Netbook manufacturers and users rejoiced about this development. Just recently, it even demoed a beta version of its newest OS, Windows 7 on of all machines but a netbook.

It looks like Microsoft is bent on fully tapping into the netbook market. And Linux better watch its back, as users’ preferences for the Windows OS might affect the distribution and use of the Linux OS on netbooks.

So, which do you prefer to have on your netbooks? Windows XP or Linux?

As for me, my Eee PC 701 still runs on Linux and I more than satisfied with it as an OS and sees no possibility of installing Windows XP on it.

Expansys has made available a slew of clip-on battery chargers which powers your Eee PC 700/701 and Eee PC 900 without requiring that your battery be attached to the Eee PC unit itself. This clip-on battery chargers would be better to have if you have a spare battery for your Eee PC units. Since, you can still one battery while you charge up your battery. Hence, giving you extended usage for your Eee PCs, in a way.

The clip on chargers are available now at Expansys, with the models for the Eee PC 700/701 retailing for $40.99 and $70.99 for the Eee PC 900. Expansys also plants to release the clip-on chargers for the Eee PC 901/1000 which is expected to cost $53.

In addition, the clip on chargers are very portable and can easily fit in to the available space of your laptop bags.

The clip-on charger is a good alternative to the more expensive 6-cell batteries available for the Eee PCs. If you don’t mind carrying an extra gadget, this clip-on chargers will definitely answer your need for a longer lasting Eee PC usage.

Via Slashgear

Digitimes is reporting that Acer is planning to release its own nettop early 2009 which will no longer have the Intel Atom processor but either VIA or AMD processors. The plan was in support of Acer’s growing demand for the Acer Aspire One which might require more stocks of the Atom CPU from Acer’s stocks.

Acer has also identified three possible manufacturers of its upcoming nettop namely; Quanta Computer, Wistron and Micro-Star International. Acer plans to chose from these three manufacturers as early as December this year.

We are all aware of course that both Asus and MSI already have their own nettops with Asus leading the pact with its recently released nettop. MSI for its is yet to release its own.

Acer’s low-cost nettop is targetted for both enterprise and consumer markets and was reported to have TV and LCD connectivity.