This one is yet another addition to ultraportable computing devices. I personally am a huge fan of these devices but what is to be seen in this case is whether this one would find universal appeal especially at a time when there is absolutely no dearth of smartphones and netbooks. Before the launch of the iPhones and the other in the category the UPMC’s were like the hottest thing available in the market. However the only drawback was that at that time these UPMC’s were priced anything between $1500-$2000. This one launched by Viliv has a starting price of $587. But then we get netbooks priced at around $350 so here again its universal appeal is questioned. Anyways let’s move ahead and see what this one has in store for us... This one is definitely a smasher when it comes to looks. It’s covered with gunmetal gray plastic and is accented with silver and chrome touches. It’s got a rectangular shape and with curved edges. The buttons are well spaced and are comfortable to  [...]

Toshiba has announced the launch of two mini SSD’s which are almost a seventh the size of the 2.5 inch drives which we come across nowadays. These new SSD’s have been specially developed keeping netbooks in mind. The Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) mentioned that these SSD’s will feature a mini SATA interface connector. Toshiba plans to launch two models a 30 GB SSD and s 60 GB SSD and both of them have reading speeds of  180 MB/s and writing speeds of  70 MB/s. touted to be lightweight these SSD’s  weigh 9g and  measure around 30×4.75mmx50.95mm.

Toshiba has plans of starting mass production as early as next month and if the buzz doing the rounds is to be believed then both the SSD’s will be made in Japan. Also news is that the 62GB drive will cost $330 and the 30GB drive will be priced at $220.

The latest buzz doing the rounds here in San Francisco is that there is a Windows 7 version being launched for the netbook which in all probability will not be trickled out of most of its functionality. This means that in all there will be seven versions of the windows being launched. The news doing the round in the first half of the year was that Microsoft was likely to cut down on quite a few applications in its Windows 7 version for netbooks just because with the charge of the entire OS the pricing of the netbook would also rise to a totally new level. What is left to be seen is how Microsoft manages to adjust the Windows 7 pricing when it comes to the netbooks. However there is pressure being applied by Intel and the Original design manufacturers who build the machines and are in a tizzy over the fact that the machines would be considered inferior if the functionality is reduced. So let’s just wait n watch  [...]

The audio quality was pretty decent enough displaying comfortable amounts of highs and lows and the audio had a very deep feeling to it. Although I guess the speakers could benefit if they had a higher maximum volume range. The inbuilt 1.3 megapixel webcam offers some good visuals and video qualities. Using it while chatting with friends, they said that the visuals were pretty much clear but they complained about some slight motion distortion when we moved. The videos and the images can be edited and enhanced by using the LifeFrame software. Thanks to its 2.1-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 CPU this one performed quite decently in our overall system performance test. It loaded Windows and the other menus within no seconds but it took some time to for the media player menus to open. ‘zombie’ by Cranberries almost took like 9.1 secs to load fully. The 5,400-rpm, 320GB hard drive managed to duplicate a 4.7 GB media folder at a rate of almost 19.1 MBps. It took like 1 min and 2 secs  [...]

Most of  the netbooks making their presence felt nowadays essentially have the same configuration. Get together an Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and a copy of Windows XP and voila what do I have… another netbook. With this latest one, Samsung hasn’t done any better than just combining the recipe for the same old cake and just topping it all up with some quality icing. Well, leaving aside the superfluous metaphors I ll proceed with the review. Razzle-dazzle: Okay, I really have to give this one to Sammy… they ve come up with some killer looks for this child of theirs and I d bet on anything to say that this is the best looking netbook in the market. Though a few might argue that the pebble look that this one sports makes it look a bit like its not for professional use or possibly even a bit like a toy. But then again having such a fun piece with vibrant colours could just make your dull and boring day at work a bit more animated. Yeah  [...]