Remember how we told you the Sony Vaio W was no longer available from PC World? Well it may be because Sony are releasing an updated model. Like we previously told you, the VAIO W11S1E is still available on Amazon for £330-£332 but now, a new model, the W12S1E is also showing up at Amazon.
The W12S1E features pretty much the same specs as the previous model with a couple of changes. The new model will run Windows 7 Starter instead of Windows XP but, the main change and probably the reason for the new model number, is the hard drive size. The W12S1E will feature a 250GB HDD instead of 160GB. The extra hard drive space and newer operating system will cost you an extra £70 though. The netbook is available to pre-order for £399 in white, tan and pink. Release date is November 10th.
Look what we have here, after plummeting on top of the Amazon bestsellers lists, Windows 7 Eee PCs have been suddenly pushed down by a non-Windows 7 Eee PC. And guess what it is? – the Eee PC 1005HA running Windows XP instead.
Did that surprise you a bit? The Eee PC 1005HA running on Windows XP sells for $358.89 while the model with Windows 7 sells for around $376.99. It’s around $18 difference in price and you’d already have a faster Eee PC with better specs and features and yet the inferior model is still preferred by users?
What could be the reason then? Users still not convinced that Windows 7 is better than Windows XP? Users still want to buy some time before upgrading to Windows 7? Price is certainly not an issue since the price difference is not that much.
Let’s see if this trend continues as more and more reviews of Windows 7-powered netbooks come out. In the meantime go check out Amazon’s bestsellers and find out if your netbook is among them.
Canonical, creators of open-source OS Ubuntu is not about to give all the limelight in the OS market to Microsoft and Windows 7. Come Thursday, the company is to make available the latest version of its OS geared specifically for netbooks – the Ubuntu 9.10.
Canonical chairman, Mark Shuttleworth said that he is looking forward to another head-to-head battle with Microsoft especially in the netbook department. If you have been following the development of netbooks, you’d remember that the Linux OS was first used in earlier netbooks. But this was completely overshadowed by Microsoft when it starts offering Windows XP to netbook manufacturers. In a way, Microsoft’s entry to the netbook market paved the way for its popularity.
Although he admitted the fact that Windows 7 is a credible release, Shuttleworth however calls Windows 7 as still proprietary and expensive. Windows 7 Starter Edition which is suited for netbooks are both pricey and restrictive of what it would allow users to do, said Shuttleworth.
Ubuntu 9.10 on the other hand promises to support all 25 different netbooks and will offer them with an OS that has simpler interface, faster booth and log-in time, better audio framework and improved 3G connectivity.
While it isn’t available to purchase yet from Best Buy, over at Engadget they’ve got photos of the netbook being unboxed and shown with Windows 7. The netbook comes with the starter edition of Windows 7, which as Engadget note, only includes one wallpaper, the one shown but, I’m sure many will use their own photos anyway, or find other Windows 7 wallpapers from other sources. This is the first demo unit to arrive at Best Buy. You can view the photos of the unboxing after the jump.
The folks at Netbooknews.de attended Microsoft’s Windows 7 shindig in Taipei, Taiwan and were kind enough to have taken videos of various netbooks running Windows 7. It’s a pretty good watch to give you an idea of how each of these netbooks which you might probably thinking to purchase, fare with Windows 7.
The netbooks show in the video are the Ferrari Acer One, HP DM1, the EeePC 1008HA, the Gigabyte M1022 and T1028, the special HP Mini Edition 110 Tord Boontje. Some nettops were also shown running Windows 7 including – the Acer AspireRevo, EeeBox EB150 as well as other less known machines.
So aside from Verizon Wireless which is now offering the HP Mini 311 loaded with Windows 7 OS, other carriers will also soon be launching their Windows 7 netbook bundles. Of course, we all know that AT&T will be launching the upcoming Nokia 3G Booklet pretty soon.
But aside from these two major U.S. carriers, other mobile companies in Europe are also said to be set to release their own Windows 7 netbook packages. These include T-Mobile, O2, Vodafone and Telia Sonera.
Germany’s O2 is also offering the Nokia 3G Booklet ahead of AT&T in the U.S. O2 is offering the said netbook for around $522 with a monthly rate of around $30 for two years.
T-Mobile will also sell the Dell Mini 10V and Verizon will also sell the Samsung N140 and Toshiba 200. All these netbooks will be running Windows 7 as well.
Finally in Sweden, Telia Sonera has also committed to bring Windows 7 to consumers via various netbooks from all major OEMs.
Of course what these all mean is that the netbook phenonmenon leaves on. Making netbooks available through various mobile data plans bring consumers more options and make the netbooks more affordable for them.
Verizon Wireless has added two HP Mini netbooks to its stable of netbook bundle offerings – the HP Mini 311-1037NR and the HP Mini 110-1046NR. These two netbooks shall come with Verizon’s Mobile Broadband network built-in and give Verizon Wireless customers the ability to access their email accounts or browse the web through Verizon’s Wireless Global Access service plan.
Obviously the reason why Verizon added these netbooks is to join the Windows 7 netbook craze that is just starting to heat up right now. Although only the HP Mini 311 has the Windows 7 installed, the HP Mini 110 could still be a good choice.
Anyway, here are the published specs of the HP Mini 311:
Genuine Windows(®) 7 Home Premium
11.6″-diagonal HD LED BrightView widescreen display (1366 x 768)
16:9 aspect ratio for full-screen HD content playback
Here’s one good reason why you should upgrade your netbook’s Windows XP to Windows 7. Netbook News was able to compare the battery performance of two Eee PC 1008HA, one running Windows XP and the other running Windows 7.
And guess what? The Windows 7-powered Eee PC 1008 lasted for 7 hours 7 minutes and 30 seconds. While the one running Windows XP was able to last only for 5 hours, 3 minuteds and 18 seconds.
Both netbooks were at maximum power with the following settings – full brightness, Wireless LAN and Bluetooth both ON and under the super performance mode.
The new Eee PC 1008HA with Windows 7 sells for $464 while the old model sells for $379.
If you’re looking to upgrade from XP or Vista on your netbook, or perhaps you already have, then here’s some great news for you. Some netbook makers have already updated the driver download pages to include Windows 7 drivers which should work better than Vista drivers you may be using instead. Most Asus netbooks now have drivers for Windows 7 from their support page.
Other companies have updated their support pages but, not all companies support many netbook models. There is support from Toshiba for the NB205, while Acer are providing Windows 7 drivers for the Aspire One 751 and AOP531h with AOD250 to follow. Dell are listing drivers for the Mini 10v and Mini 10 but not the Inspiron Mini 9 or 12. HP on the other hand have support for discontinued netbooks, such as the HP Mini 2140. They’ve also got support for the 110, 5101 and other models. Lenovo have also updated their support page to include manuals but, no drivers yet. This could change soon though.
So aside from the Eee PC 1005HA and 1005HA Business Edition, Asus is also releasing another variant of the Seashell series. This time it is called the Eee PC 1005HR.
Aside from running Windows 7, the Eee PC 1005HR would also have a 10.1-inch display with in 1366×768 display. That translates into a full HD-display capability.
The Eee PC 1005HR is currently available in black and has a price tag of around $389. This is the same price as the original Eee PC 1005HA.
Other details and specs of the Eee PC 1005HR include – Intel Atom N280 CPU, 1GB of RAM, GMA 950 graphics, 250GB HDD, 0.3MP webcam, various ports, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 6-cell battery which is good for 8.4 hours of use.
Entries (RSS)