HP Mininote with Intel Atom for sale

The HP Vivienne Tam edition is going to be marketed in December 2008, the 10-inch class netbook is equipped with Intel Atom processor. This is a big news since the HP Vivienne Tam can be considered the first model of the new generation HP Mininote netbook. As you remember the current generation of HP Mininote 2133 is equipped with a not soooo fast VIA C7-M processor. According to some voices HP placed significant orders for the new VIA Nano (Isaiah) processor, the major concurrent for the Intel Atom CPU.
With the announcement of the HP Vivienne Tam it is clear that HP built a netbook using Intel Atom technology and it is very unlikely that (for such a low margin market) HP is going to built netbooks based on two different platforms.
Another possibility, not very likely though, is that the HP Vivienne Tan is not built by HP, it'is just HP branded and that the next generation HP Mininote PC will be based on VIA platform.

Posts on HP Mininote
Posts on VIA Nano / Isaiah processor

Very low price for HP Mini 110c netbook

Incredible low price for HP Mini in Germany: HP Compaq Mini 110c-1110sg for 199 Euro!
In fact you can buy the HP netbook for 249 Euro (Amazon offer) and there is a 50 Euro cash back offer from HP. It means that 249-50 = 199 Euro, about $300 US dollars for a good netbook. Especially if you consider that big battery (6-cells), not bad for a Christmas present.

Now some data:

• HP Compact Mini 110c-1110sg
• Display 10,1-inch
  
• Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz)
• 1GB RAM and 160GB Hard Drive
• Windows XP Home
• 6-cells battery
  

HP Mini 1000 on sale with Atom CPU

After many contradicting rumors, now it is official: the new HP Mini netbooks, on sale starting from December 2009, will be equipped with the Intel Atom CPU N270 1.6GHz and not the Via Nano/Isaiah CPU, and a choice of 8.9 and 10 inch display. According to the HP press release also Bluetooth and webcam are included, not clear whether or not in the base configuration. Option of SDD or "normal" mechanical hard disk.
Something not sooo nice is that the HP Mini has only 2 USB interfaces. However it is possible to live with.
Starting price about $380, max $600.

Other HP Mini and HP Mininote 2133 News

HP Mininote PC 2133 for sale below $300

Major price drop for the HP Mininote: it is currently on sale at Amazon for $299. Ok, it isn't the top featured anyway the HP Mininote PC 2133 is very well built and I especially like the keyboard, one of the best you can find in the netbook segnment. Also not common are an ExpressCard/54 slot and a Gigabit Ethernet interface.
Weak points are the low performance processor (VIA C7-M) and just 4GB SDD storage.
You can order it at Amazon with 512MB SDRAM for $299 with Linux operating system.
Don't worry about the little memory, it is possible to expant the SDRAM up to 2GB (as in the MSI Wind).
According to voices, the next HP Mininote PC will have the new, more powerful VIA Nano processor. According to first benchmarks the VIA Nano CPU should beat the Intel Atom.

EEE PC Competition - next HP Compaq MiniNote with Intel Atom or VIA Isaiah (C8-M)?

It seems that for the next MiniNote, HP Compaq is picking the CPU between Intel Atom and the new VIA Isaiah (C8-M).
Actually I'd be surprised if HP Compaq changes platform and use Intel, this would be a major change from current HP Compaq MiniNote 2133 with VIA C7-M.
The VIA C8-M Isaiah should be significantly more faster than the C7-M, especially because of much bigger caches.
According to first rumors the C8-M should be able to decode blue-ray films without problems. I'll let you know more in next posts.
About Isaiah vs Atom: You can find around a lot of posts about a CrystalMark benchmark where the Isaiah performs better than the Atom. Actually I have some doubths about test methodology, for this reason I'll wait for serious benchmarks on real products to come.

EEE Journal Home Page

EEE PC Competition - HP Compaq MiniNote 2133 for sale!

Yet another competitor for the EEE PC and MSI Wind: the subnotebook HP Compaq MiniNote 2133.

To be noted that all of them are based on VIA C7-M CPU at different clock (1.0, 1.2 and 1.6). 8.9-inch display and especially 4 USB 2.0 ports and one ExpressCard/54 slot (to be checked).

HP MiniNote 2133 KX872AA / FF009AA, between $600 and $750

• CPU VIA C7-M 1.2GHz
• 1GB DDR2 SDRAM and Linux for KX872AA, 2GB SDRAM and Windows Vista Business for FF009AA
• 120GB hard disk
  
• 8.9-inch display, resolution
• Bluetooth, Wifi
• 4xUSB
  
• ExpressCard/54
• 3-cell battery (KX872AA) or 6-cell battery (FF009AA)
  

HP MiniNote 2133 KR922UT for about $500

• CPU VIA C7-M 1.0GHz
  
• 512MB DDR2 SDRAM
• Linux
• 4GB hard disk
  
• 8.9-inch display, resolution
• Wifi
• Not sure about 4 USB 2.0 and one ExpressCard/54
• 3-cell battery

EEE Journal Home Page

Best Pink Netbook: EEE PC, HP Mini, Samsung NC10, Toshiba NB205

Most of the netbooks are sold in only few colors: black, white, gray and blue.
You want a pink netbook? No problem! My favourite is the HP Mini 110-1037NR in any case here you'll find a selection of the best pink netbooks: all with high capacity battery and good feature set.

• Asus EEE PC Seashell 1005HA-MU17-PI for $329 (Windows 7), one of the rare netbooks with matte display (a luxus nowadays!). With 250GB hard drive
  
• Toshiba Mini NB205-N313/P for $360, (Windows XP), 160GB hard drive
  
• HP Mini 110-1037NR for $430 (Windows XP), 160GB hard drive
• Samsung NC10-13P for $365 (Windows XP), also with matte display, 160GB hard drive

If you just want to have a pink netbook and must be very cheap, the only choice you have is the Acer Aspire One AOD250-1962 for $290: a decent netbook, pink and sub 300 dollars. The major difference from the other pink netbooks listed above is the smaller battery, you won't get more than 2 hours battery life.

Here a bigger list of all pink netbooks available at Amazon.com

Via Nano or Intel Atom for the new HP Mini Note?

According to DigiTimes, HP placed an order (new Mini Note) for the Via Nano CPUs, the main alternative to the Intel Atom. What I know so far:

• Via Nano vs Intel Atom Performance: Via Nano wins, it should be more powerful
• Via Nano vs Intel Atom Power Consumption: Intel Atom wins, it should be less power hungry

See also early post about MiniNote and the new CPU

See other posts about technology and performance

EEE PC Competition - One A120 and A110 - Cheap EEE PC 4G alternative?

In the past couple of months several laptop brands announced subnotebook alternatives to EEE PC . One announced the models A120 and A110. The One A120 is very similar to the EEE PC 4G, marketed in Germany at 279 Euro and equipped with a VIA C7 1GHz processor, 512MB DDR2, 4GB SDD, WLAN, 7-inch display, webcam and especially Windows XP home.
The A110 uses Linux and is priced at 229 Euro, misses a webcam and has only a 2GB SDD.

I've already posted a few articles about subnotebooks / ultra portable pcs in direct competition to EEE PC, see also

• HP Compaq Mininote 2
• HP Compaq Mininote 1
• MSI Wind 3
• MSI Wind 2
• MSI Wind 1 - Atom CPU vs Celeron
• Gigabyte M912
• MSI Wind, EasyNote, Elox One, OLPC and Dell Vostro

EEE Journal Home Page

Netbook Atom N470 Performance Review

The very first review of Atom N470 netbook is out, with disappointing results for people that hoped in a performance leap.

"We went into reviewing the (Lenovo) S10-3t hoping it would be one of the faster netbooks we've ever used considering its new 1.83GHz Atom N470 processor and 2GB of RAM. However, those dreams quickly faded when we were met with the typical netbook performance. In fact, the N470 scored 1,348 on PCMark05, which is actually lower than the N450-powered HP Mini 210's 1393."

Just in case you don't know it, the Atom N470 is clocked at 1.83GHz, about 200MHz more than all other Atom for nebooks (Atom N270/N280 and the newest N450 are clocked around 1.6GHz).
Actually this isn't a big surprise: the higher clock helps Atom better perform with number crunching benchmarks while PCMark05 is a more or less "real life" benchmark testing many different subsystem additional 200MHz doesn't make a big difference.

HD Video for Netbooks: with Atom, Nvidia Ion or ARM CPU?

Today I tested my Dell Mini 10v (Inspiron 1011) with a couple of HD videos available in YouTube (full screen and HD selected), none of the two could be played smoothly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N2YWRJ-ppo (1080p, full HD)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzscXeJ6FEQ (720p)

Not really a surprise, current generation of netbooks isn't able to play HD/full HD video. The Intel Atom N270/N280 processor doesn't provide enough performance and the graphics chipset doesn't help with video decoding.

Performance boost with Intel Pineview (Atom N450/N470) ??

Don't expect a significant performance boost with the adoption of the upcoming Intel Atom Pineview processors: the main news is integration of memory controller and graphics in the CPU, reducing overall chipset cost and power consumption. On the other hand neither CPU core nor the graphics engine will be more powerful, Intel "just" merged processor and north bridge in a single chip --> it's only an integration step.
Well, I must be a bit more precise: the Atom N450 will be clocked at 1.66GHz (as the N270) while the Atom N470 will get a 200MHz increase (1.86GHz) HOWEVER this is definetly not sufficient for full HD decoding.
This seems also to be confimed by Digitimes : Intel Atom N450/N470 will offer the option of an external chip (Broadcom BCM70015) for video decoding. I guess that this chip will eventually be adopted by "premium" netbooks, given the cost adder.

Performance boost with CUDA / Nvidia Ion Chipset ??

Another interesting possibility to finally have a full HD experience on netbooks is the adoption of Nvidia or ATI/AMD GPUs.
All new graphic chips from Nvidia and ATI/AMD in the past couple of years provide HD video acceleration, requiring little CPU intervention for video decoding (e.g. H.264). A significant number of desktop/barebone motherboards are already equipped with integrated graphics and HD video acceleration. Also very important: more and more video and graphics software make use of GPU acceleration provided by Nvidia and ATI/AMD chipsets. The software support got a boost in the past year, since the release of a more or less standardized API for GPU programming: the CUDA.
An importnat step forward is the CUDA/GPU acceleration provided by the upcoming Flash 10.1.
Even netbooks with the old Intel Atom N270/N280 if paired with a GPU (e.g. Nvidia Ion) would be able to play HD content, BUT: you first have to find one... netbooks with Nvidia Ion graphics are rare, insider say because of Intel's aggressive price policy (I've heard that Intel offers Atom+945 chipset at a lower costs than the Atom CPU alone!!!). This is of course a killing point for the netbook market, with a huge price pressure.
As of today, I know only of one netbook with Nvidia Ion, the HP Mini 311, with 11.6-inch display, Atom N270 and a 400 USD price tag.

What about Intel Atom alternatives, ARM CPU ??

As mentioned above, it isn't easy to build cheap netbooks with Intel and CUDA / Nvidia graphics. As far as I know Via Nano processors can't compete with Intel Atom because of the premium price tag and higher power consumption.
A realistic alternative for video decoding is coming from the adoption of the new ARM processors targeting MID and netbooks: Qualcomm Snapdragon, Nvidia Tegra and Freescale i.MX515. These are cheap enough to be competitive enough for price and power consumption. I think that the Nvidia Tegra got the best chance given the 1080p decoding capability and especially the support of CUDA, the standardized GPU interface mentioned before. I doubth that Qualcomm and Freescale are going to provide CUDA graphics drivers, this may be a problem.
BUT there are at least two factors playing against the ARM based processors

1. CPU performance: Intel Atom got an edge since the ARM processors don't support hardware multithreading (Intel Atom does, got two virtual processors) and got lower clock in actual products (max 1.2GHz ARM vs 1.6GHz in Atom)
2. Software support: Intel Atom got Windows support while ARM are so far supported by Linux (and derivates such as Android). This is going to be a major penalty for ARM, the only chance for ARM is to hope/work on a Linux distribution that can finally compete with Microsoft Windows. It's interesting to note that a very promising Netbook distribution is coming from Intel (Moblin), will Intel help ARM processors? :-)

See also

• Netbook Operating Systems and Processors 2009/2010
• All posts related to Linux on Netbooks
• All posts related to ARM Netbooks

Netbook on the Beach/Outdoor: Display Glare vs Matt

UPDATE: I created an updated list of best netbooks with matte display
Do you want to use your netbook outdoor? On the beach? Do you wear white shirts?

Be careful with the display type you got: there are basically two types of displays out there.
The "traditional" matte displays and glossy (also called glare) displays.
Glossy displays are said to provide better color intensity and contrast ratios than those with a matte finish. The primary disadvantage of these displays is their tendency to reflect any external light, often resulting in an undesirable glare.
Effect that you don't have with matte displays: while matte displays distribute the reflected light across a large area, glare displays tend to reflect the light source as is.

My rule of thumb: if you use a netbook primarily outdoor, get a netbook with a matte display with a brightness exceeding 160 cd/m2, better if 200 cd/m2 or more. Glare displays are still ok if they have a very good brigthness (200 cd/m2 or more).

It means that the best netbook for the beach (IMHO) are currently:
All MSI Wind, Akoya E1210 and E1211, Samsung NC10, HP Mininote.
Unfortunately the EEE PC tend to have a very dark display, so you won't have much fun outdoor/on the beach.

One very important note: the netbooks that I mentioned above aren't ruggered, it means that they aren't build to be protected from water, dust, sand, dirt, snow and extreme temperatures. For this reason I would never bring my netbook on the beach, it would dramatically reduce its lifetime!!!
Bottom line: handle your netbook with care.

UPDATE: I created an updated list of best netbooks with matte display

Bluetooth for Aspire One A150, Samsung NC10, Medion Akoya Mini E1210 netbooks

UPDATE: Netbook and Bluetooth - Integrated vs USB Dongle

Please go directly to the newest post, since the Bluetooth dongle suggested in this post may have major software problems!

You want to buy the netbook that best fits you (e.g. using the netbook features database),
you are close to buy a top class netbook/mini laptop, such as the Samsung NC10, the Acer Aspire A150 or the Medion Akoya Mini E1210 when you see that it is missing a Bluetooth interface. What to do? You really need Bluetooth in the netbook to synchronize the mobile phone calendar or just to listen to music!
My suggestion: Bluetooth support in the netbook shouldn't be a go/not go criteria, you can simply add Bluetooth support using a Bluetooth USB dongle, there are many starting just below $10 (USD) and some of them are so tiny that you even won't see it.
This micro USB Bluetooth adapter simply disappears in the USB port of your netbook, so you can plug it once and forget it. You won't notice it! No damage to break it!
The Samsung NC10 or the Acer Aspire A150 got 3 USB ports so you'll have "just" two USB ports left, however it is far enough for 99% of us!

(At the time of writing) Beside the mentioned one, many other netbooks aren't equipped with a Bluetooth port: the HP MiniNote 2133, Acer Aspire A110, Fukato Jupiter, Lenovo Ideapad S9/S10, Fujitsu Amilo Mini Ui3520, Gigabyte M912, EEE PC 700/701/900/901. So if you really like the netbook however you miss Bluetooth, just buy an USB dongle/adapter!

Important! Installing a Bluetooth USB dongle/adapter is matter of minutes with Windows XP, for a Linux netbook the installation is a bit more complex and you need a minimal linux experience, look here for instructions on EEE PC (mostly similar for other netbooks).

UPDATE: Netbook and Bluetooth - Integrated vs USB Dongle

Please go directly to the newest post, since the Bluetooth dongle suggested in this post may have major software problems!


Remember that using the EEE Journal Netbook database helps find your dream netbook, with or without Bluetooth and refining the search with many other paramenters (operating system, size, battery, etc...)
http://www.eeejournal.com/2008/12/netbook-feature-database.html

EEE PC, MSI Wind, Acer Aspire One, HP Compaq Mininote, Gigabyte M912 for sale: is it the right moment to buy an ultra portable laptop / subnotebook ?

The answer is definitely not! Don't buy an EEE PC, MSI Wind or similar in the next couple of months!
If you want to buy an ultra portable laptop / subnotebook / netbook you'd better wait at until August-September this year.
Last announcement is of Acer, the Aspire One and many new models are coming, also something from Sony. It means healthy competition, the EEE PC is not alone and now we are getting more and more choice at lower prices due to the availability of many ultra portable laptops and also from the announced price reduction for Windows XP licences for netbooks .

For all posts about EEE PC competitions see
http://www.eeejournal.com/search/label/EEE%20PC%20Competition

or see also EEE Journal Home Page.