Desktops and Notebooks: How Netbooks Are Fighting Back Against the Tablets
How Netbooks Are Fighting Back Against the Tablets
by Chris Preimesberger
Welcome to the First-Ever Netbook Summit
Key sponsors and exhibitors at the first Netbook Summit May 24-25 at the Grand Hyatt in Burlingame, Calif., included usual suspects Dell, Toshiba, AMD, Nvidia and Samsung.
Toshiba mini NB305
This little Energy Star-compliant netbook packs a lot of features into a $350 to $400 (depending on storage capacity) package. It has a 10.1-inch LED backlit screen, an Intel Atom N450 processor, up to 250GB of storage, 3G mobile broadband-ready connectivity, a full-size keyboard, an 11-hour battery, and Windows 7 Starter version. It weighs 2.6 pounds.
Toshiba Satellite T115
This slimline netbook, which sells for $100 more than the NB305, is tuned for business users. It features a choice of an 11.6- or 13.3-inch HD LED backlit screen, AMD Athlon Neo and Turon Neo X2 processors, an ATI Radeon HD graphics card, up to 320GB of storage, up to 4GB of RAM, 3G mobile broadband-ready connectivity, a full-size keyboard, a 6-hour battery, and a full version of Windows 7.
Blast from the Past
The Toshiba Libretto first came out in 1998 and endeared itself to a generation of small-PC aficionados. It features an Intel Pentium 166MHz MMX, 32MB of RAM (64MB max), a 2.1GB hard disk and a 7.1-inch TFT display. You can still buy one on eBay.
Concept Tablet Model
This Nvidia-powered tablet—strictly a concept model at this point-is currently in development and could be on the market as early as next year. It features touch controls, measures 6 inches by 9 inches in size, boasts HD-quality video and is very light&151about 2 pounds.
Strictly for Mobile Web Developers
The Nvidia Mobile Web Processor is a portable unit for software developers that features the full Web with GPU-accelerated Flash 10.1, stutter-free HD video, a number of mobile games and days of battery life. Developers can check it out athttp://www.nvidia.com.
ASUS Teams with Nvidia
This ASUS 1201 netbook is powerful enough to run I/O-devouring video games such as "World of Warcraft," "Sims 3" and others on a large HD screen—with no stuttering. It features very fast rendering for mobile Web developers.
Wireless HDTV Transmitter for the Home
This one works right through walls in a home