Good Netbook low Price - Samsung NC130

I just saw a very good offer at Amazon.com: for just $279.99 USD you get the Samsung N130-13B model. If you are looking for a very cheap/low price netbook don't hesitate: you won't find more for the price in the next days.
The Samsung N130-13B got a more or less standard feature set (Intel Atom N270, 1GB RAM, 160GB disk), 4-5 hours battery and Windows XP. Worth mentioning is a very good 10-inch display (very bright and non-glare).

Best Netbook with Matte Display (and for outdoor usage)

If you are in a hurry: these are the netbooks with matte display that I suggest, see also below the description


Be careful when buying a netbook: consider the fact that most of the netbooks are shipped with glossy/glare display, many people find it annoying (me for example) and prefer a matte display. This is especially important if you plant to use the netbook outdoor or in conditions of brigth sun.

Glare vs matte display in a nutshell

Glossy/glare displays got nicer crisps images, in fact matte display got an additional non-reflecting layer that tends to make the image a bit softer. On the other hand the big advantage of the matte displays is that they don't reflect your image.
The reflections on glare displays can be very annoying (and let the image disappear) outdoor and/or with direct light source from the backside. In order to "reduce" this annoying effect the glare displays must be very bright (more than 200cd/m2).

Best netbooks with matte display

As far as I know all 10-inch Samsung netbooks got a non-glare (Matte) display.
I personally think that Samsung buils the best netbooks: if you want to have a good netbook with matte display you can't be wrong with a Samsung, for example the NC10 models are among the best netbooks available today

You must pay attention with Asus netbooks since only part of the EEE PC netbooks got a matte display, you have to search for...

• The new EEE PC 1005HA ("normal" and Seashell) line got few models with matte display, namely all EEE PC 1005HA-M models. Older Asus EEE PC 1000 and 1000HE models got also a Matte display.
• "Family issue": the display of all Asus EEE PCs isn't that brigth, actually is rather dark. This can be changed by software, the eeectl utility allow you enhance the display brigthness to excellent values. Of course this is not covered by Asus guarrantee...

Atom N270 (N280) vs Via Nano Benchmarks

In a recent article (review of the Samsung NC20) the important German magazine c´t confirmed what I'm saying since long time: from a performance point of view Intel Atom and VIA Nano are absolutely comparable, they achieve a similar performance level, especially if compared to available netbook processors.
For details see Intel Atom N270 vs VIA Nano vs Core 2 Duo vs Pentium M Benchmarks Performance

What c´t says (free translation, I'm not a professional translator...):
VIA Nano's new microarchitecture is a big improvement especially compared to VIA C7. This is confirmed by the CineBench R10: here the VIA Nano achieves double as much points as the C7.
... without HyperThreading the Intel Atom is much slower than the VIA Nano, even enabling HyperThreading the VIA Nano achieves better benchmarks results (Nano: 886, Atom: 843)

On the other hand, thanks to HyperThreading, the Intel Atom Windows system is more responsive than the VIA Nano Windows in case an application generates a high CPU load.
...With respect to CPU power both VIA Nano and Intel Atom can't compete with mature notebook processors.
...The Samsung NC20 doesn't have enough horse power to handle the user's manual: many seconds are required to leaf through it.

Bottom line: both Intel Atom and VIA Nano are low end processors, ok only if you want to use your netbook for email, casual Internet browsing and basic multimedia (MP3, video). If you want to do more buy a notebook with a decent CPU!!!!

Benchmark (CineBench R10) numbers

• VIA C7 at 1.6GHz: 406 points
• VIA Nano U2250 1.3-1.5GHz (in the Samsung NC20) : 886 points
• Intel Atom N270 (Hyper Threading not used): 545 points.
  
• Intel Atom N270 (Hyper Threading used): 843 points
• Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 (single core mode): more than 3000 points
• Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 (dual core mode): almost 6000 points

Intel Atom N270 vs N280: I don't have right now CineBench benchmarks for Atom N280, on the other hand I expect basically the same results that we got for the N270.

See also Intel Atom N270 vs VIA Nano vs Core 2 Duo vs Pentium M Benchmarks Performance

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 Competition: Samsung Netbook in Korea

According to some rumors, the first Samsung Netbooks are going to be shipped in Korea. The Samsung ultra portable laptops will be equipped with the Intel Atom CPU and a 10-inch display. More details are unknown.

More on EEE PC Competition

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

Netbook: SSD vs Hard Disk

-->See also: How to boost netbook performance

In the early time of netbooks you could find a lot of SSD as unique netbook storage type, one of the main reason for very poor performance of the early netbooks/EEE PC. Nowadays most of the netbooks are equipped with 2,5-inch hard disks, giving you much more space and more performance.
--> See also Netbook database
SSD (Solid State Disks) don't necessarily mean "low performance", actually there are SSDs that got much higher performance than traditional hard drives (see below).
Be careful if you want to replace your netbook hard disk with a SSD: high performacen SSDs are currently very expensive (e.g. more than 400 USD for 32GB) and cheap SSD got often bad write performance and/or high power consumption.
The two best SSD out there are Intel X-25 E and Samsung PB22-J however are very costly and even not easy to get.
Solidata K6 seems to be very promising (32GB, about 140 USD) , at least from the datasheet: sequential read 200MB/sec, sequential write 160MB/sec. Power consumption: 0.3 W idle, Max 2W. I'll keep you updated...

SSD vs HDD
The SSD promise superior performance and lower power consumption. Big advantage for the SSDs is the absence of parts in movement: while performance of traditional hard drives are strictly related to disc spin speed, data density and physical position of the data speed. SSD performance are mainly limited by used flash technology and interface controller. On the other hand these SSDs are actually very costly (more than $400 for 32GB). In any case I bet that SSDs are going to completely replace HDD (Hard Disk Drives) whithin four to five years. Just the time to get high performance SSDs below the 100 USD mark...
Interesting article from tomshardware on SSD vs HDD

Some data on SSD vs HDD performance
Let's compare best in class SDD Intel X-25 E and Samsung PB22-J vs best in class 3,5-inch desktop hard disks Wester Digital VelociRaptor VR150 and Seagate Barracuda 7200.12, data from actual tomshardware charts
Max read throughput: SSD 207-220MB/sec vs 121-131MB/sec for the HDDs
Max read throughput: SSD 187-205MB/sec vs 121-131MB/sec for the HDDs
Read access time: SDD 0.1 ms vs 7-10 ms for the HDD, it means that factor 70-100x improvement!!!
Source: tomshardware storage charts

--> See also: How to boost netbook performance

A few SSDs from Amazon:

Benchmarks Atom vs iPad A4 vs iPhone 3GS ARM Cortex and much more...

See update here

With the iPad, Apple is creating a new type of device that got some similarities with the actual netbooks. It is known that the iPad got an Apple A4 processor clocked at 1GHz, it isn't clear yet which type of ARM core is really used: Cortex A8, A9, a customized version? It is very interesting to understand how this new processor compare to other ARM processors (ARM11 in iPhone 3G and Cortex A8 in iPhone 3GS) and to the Intel Atom processors.
It is really tough to compare performance of CPU with different architecture, running different operating systems and especially targeting very different applications.
Since years ARM claims superior performance for the Cortex A8 and A9 compared to Intel Atom. Now I could not resist, especially because the benchmarking race started and I finally got a critical mass of benchmarking data on Atom vs ARM performance.

First of all a clarification: here we talk about benchmarking of CPU cores, it has little to do with comparing performance of the iPhone vs iPad or iPad vs netbooks. If you want to compare two devices you have to find first a common use case and metrics to measure it, for example Anandtech published browsing benchmarks showing that ARM Cortex cores in iPhone 3GS and iPad are much slower than Atom in one of the most important use cases: Internet browsing.

The benchmarking ARM vs Atom race started and I finally got a critical mass of benchmarking data: ARM, the Linley group and the german magazine C't published CoreMark benchmarks for many ARM cores and Intel Atoms.
EEMBC CoreMark is a good metrics of the pure processing power of the CPU core, the algorithm is pretty small and fits in level 1 cache. CoreMark basically replaces the old Million Instruction Per Second (also called as MIPS, not to be exanged with the MIPS company ain direct competition with ARM...)

I created a chart with normalized CoreMark/MHz for each of the result I got.
The result for Atom processors seems stable around 2,5-2,8 CoreMark/MHz, I don't have a clear bottom line for the Cortex processors. The best results for Cortex A8 and A9 probably derive from tests done in best case conditions in development boards (e.g. for TI OMAP, Freescale i.MX515 and Samsung S5PC110) while real life products (such as iPhone and iPad) got much lower results.
Until the test conditions are clarified is not possible to state who really wins!!

Netbook Deals 2010 with Intel Atom N450 and N270

2010 started with an invasion of netbook deals: excellent netbooks with Atom N270 and N280 are sold below 300 dollars (see end of the post) and many of the Atom N450 (Pineview) netbooks got relatively low prices..
Asus started first flooding the online shops with many Atom N450 models and I got the impression that the new EEE PC netbooks with Atom N450 got a lower average selling price: most Asus EEE PC Seashell models are available for well under 400 dollars, actually the Seashell 1001P is even below 300 dollars. I found only one premium model above 400 dollars (Karim Rashid collection).

• EEE PC Seashell 1005PE for $367.97
• EEE PC Seashell 1001P for $299.00

Beside Asus EEE PCs, also MSI started early shipping MSI Wind U135 with Atom N450, the models with small battery are sold for around 300 dollars. I strongly recommend the MSI Wind U135 with high capacity battery for just 20 bucks more.

As mentioned above, many deals are available especially for N270 and N280 netbooks. Top netbooks below 300 dollars

• EEE PC 1005HA, for $299.99
• Dell Inspiron Mini 1011 (10v), for $297.69
• Samsung NC10, for $284.99
  

Availability of new Netbooks with ARM and Atom Pineview 2010

These days you see Toshiba, Samsung, Acer, Lenovo and other OEMs announcing the new netbook generation based on the new Intel Atom N450 (Pineview, 1.66MHz clock) and ARM cores.
So far these are only announcements, the first Intel Pineview netbooks are going to be available end of January 2010.
Spring 2010 will see the first interesting news IMHO: Skylight, the first ARM based netbook from Lenovo (Qualcomm Snapdragon) is going to be shipped and the first Intel Atom N470 netbooks should be available as well.
The Atom N470 got a higher CPU clock: 1.86MHz and is going to provide the first real life performance improvements since the introduction of the Atom N270 (1.6GHz, vs 1.66 of the Atom N280 and N450). I'm really curious to see the first benchmarks...

ARM11 vs Cortex A8 vs Cortex A9 - Netbooks processors

You may remember that an Intel executive (one year ago or so) in an interview said that the Internet browsing experience in the iPhone is not that good because an ARM processor is used instead of an Intel Atom. Of course this sentence is a pure provocation since the Atom processors weren't (and still aren't) suitable for handsets: they are too power hungry.
The first iPhones 2G and 3G included a Samsung SoC based on the ARM11 core clocked at about 600MHz, much more power efficient than actual Atoms. On the other hand Atom processors are definetly more powerful than ARM11 processors.
In the past couple of years ARM introduced Cortex A8 and Cortex A9 cores, processors able to reach and potentially beat Intel Atom.

Just to give an example showing how "bad" the ARM11 compared to the new Cortex, I report the peak DMIPS/MHz. It is a clock-per-clock performance indication of the processor (used especially for Marketing purpose)

• ARM11: 1.2 DMIPS/MHz
• ARM Cortex A8: 2.0 DMIPS/MHz
• ARM Cortex A9: 2.5 DMIPS/MHz

There is a huge performance difference between older ARM11 cores and the new ARM Cortex A8 and Cortex A9.

Example of devices using the ARM cores
Apple iPhone 3G uses an ARM11 processor while the iPhone 3GS an ARM Cortex A8.
The ARM Cortex A8 is also used in Qualcom Snapdragon and NXP i.MX515 SoCs.
The first ARM Cortex A9 based SoCs (System on a Chip) are expected in 2010.
Nvidia Tegra 1 is based upon an ARM11 and it's unknown whether or not in Tegra 2 an ARM11 or a Cortex A8 / Cortex A9 will be used.

UPDATE: Nvidia Tegra 2 uses a Cortex A9 MPCore

Unfortunately I didn't find stable benchmarks results for the Cortex A8/A9 processors, stay tuned... A number of netbooks/smartbooks equipped with ARM processors are expected next year (2010).

Dual Core Netbook with Intel Atom, ARM, Windows 7 or Linux?

-- UPDATE: Windows 7 Starter can use dual core processors!

A lot of netbooks are now shipping with a Windows 7 Starter licence. This is the cheapest licence that an OEM (e.g. Acer, Samsung, etc) can get, in the range 15-20USD. This low price is key to enable Windowso low cost netboks, with a 250-350 USD price point.
Microsoft relaxed a little bit the hardware limits to run a Windows 7 Starter licence, now you can have a slightly larger hard disk (250GB instead of 160GB for XP Home), no limitation for touchscreen display and graphics and especially no limitations on the number of applications that can run in parallel.
Still tough limits are the 10,2-inch display, 1GB RAM and the fact that only single core processors (with up to 2GHz clock) are allowed.

It means that (cheap) dual core netbooks won't be mainstream with Windows 7. No chance.
My guess: Intel didn't oppose Microsoft decision, on the contrary! This strategy of course is good for Intel: if you want more performance you must buy more expensive platforms/processors (such us the CULV)!

Now some interesting factors comes into the game: Linux and ARM based processors.
ARM is pushing its cores in the netbook market and major netbook OEMs announced ARM based netbooks for mid January 2010. Qualcomm Snapdragon processor seems to be a popular choice for this first generation of ARM netbooks. ARM recently announced the availability of a dual core Cortex A9 MCore macro getting up to 2GHz, this is a really interesting news. Furthermore: all the ARM based processors include an integrated graphics unit.
Now the Linux factor: By definitions Linux distributions don't impose hardware limits and are very very cheap. Furthermore I think that now Linux gotta a chance to evolve to a really usable mainstream operating system, especially now after the huge efforts spent for Android and Chromium OS, both based on Linux kernel. Also very important is the fact that many different entities (OEMs, Intel, ARM, Canonical/Ubuntu and many more) are working at netbook friendly distributions.
My bottom line: after a first generation of ARM netbooks in January 2010, we'll probably see the first ARM dual core processors with Linux by mid-end 2010.

By purpose I didn't mention VIA and AMD: None of the two chipset manifacturers got products able to compete with Intel Atom and ARM for price and power consumption. Now with the integration of CPU and graphic processors in the upcoming Intel Pineview (Atom N450, Jan 2010 and Atom N470, March 2010) both VIA and AMD seems to have no chance at all.

PS: just to anticipate some comments. I know that there are a couple of netbooks with dual core Atom 330. However none of the big brands would dare to sell them with Windows, because of the Microsoft limitations.

-- UPDATE: Windows 7 Starter can use dual core processors!

Netbook and Bluetooth - integrated vs usb dongle

Bluetooth is a feature that you rarely find in the cheapest netbooks, say below $320 USD.
For example Bluetooth isn't included in most of the Acer Aspire One AOD250 and in many Toshiba Mini NB205. While most of the Samsung netbooks and the Dell Mini 10v and Asus EEE PC 1005HA include Bluetooth.

I personally love Bluetooth you can establish a wireless link to your netbook for example:

• with a Bluetooth headset: you can listen to music and/or make Skype calls (VoIP)
  
• with your mobile phone: to synch data, contacs ot to use the phone as 3G modem for Internet connectivity

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.
Some USB Bluetooth adapters are so tiny that 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!

Be careful in the choice of the USB dongle, be aware of the fact that some cheap Bluetooth dongles got limitations. Some examples:

• Many cheap dongle don't support A2DP, necessary to listen stereo music
  
• With Windows XP 32-bit you're fine, however please be aware that many dongles got operating system compatibility problems with MAC, Linux, and 64-bit Windows
  
• Some Bluetooth dongles got a very limited wireless reach (2-3 meters)
• Some cheap dongles got buggy/crap software

These two micro USB Bluetooth dongle seem to be very good, according to the user review I read there are no issue at all especially with Windows based netbooks. The IOGear may have problems with Ubuntu 9.04.

Why so many netbooks don't include Bluetooth? Bluetooth is kind of "premium" feature, many people don't neet it. People needing it are supposed to give out few bucks more.
As I said, the average price is falling and the netbook OEMs try to reduce the costs, every cent counts in the netbook market! Netbooks are essentially mini laptops with the absolutely minimum feature set, Bluetooth isn't definetly something everybody needs.

Netbook Operating Systems Linux vs Windows - FACTS!

Follow up from Netbook Operating Systems Linux vs Windows

I got a few comments from people asking to show my source before stating that Windows got the vast majority of the netbook marked (as of today!). Actually in the previous post I mentioned that Windows got about 90% market share. Well.... if you continue reading you may think that the market share of Windows is close to 100%!!!!

Here you have: what best of the most used shopping portals?
Please look at Amazon bestseller: you'll find only Windows XP and Windows 7 netbooks you won't find a Linux netbook in the top 20!
Look at Expansys: you won't find a Linux netbook in the first 9 pages (about 80 netbooks)!

If this is not enough: how do you explain that none of the bestselling Samsung netbooks (among the best around) are shipped with Linux, at least in Germany!!!

Go to the EEE PC site : in the overview only Windows is mentioned, if you grab in the product specifications you see that a Linux option is possible.

UPDATE: Of course Windows doesn't have 100% market share, in any case Linux netbooks in 2009 got far below 30% reported by many blogs around.

UPDATE2: 30%, 20%, 10% or 0%, it's impossible to have a precise estimation of 2009 market share for Linux netbooks. What's sure is that in 2010 and 2011 we'll see a major espansion of Linux netbooks due to the first commercial ARM Netbooks and the big push from Google.

Cheap Netbooks: Mini 10v vs EEE PC 1005HA vs Aspire One AOD150

Finally the market offers real netbooks, I mean really cheap tiny laptops (max 1.3kg) with decent battery life (6 or more hours), good keyboard, enough display and processor power, enough for casual and mobile usage.
For less than 300 USD you have the chooce between Dell Mini 10v (Inspiron 1011), Asus EEE PC 1005HA and Acer Aspire One AOD150. If you want to spend 50 bucks more than the Samsung NC10 is probably the best choice, especially for the nice keyboard.
Until few months ago you had to spend 400+ dollars for a decent netbook, now we finally got below 300 dollars. This is what I consider a netbook price level.

Mini 10v vs EEE PC 1005HA vs Aspire One AOD150

• Processor: almost no difference, the EEE PC 1005HA is equipped with the new Atom N280 while Mini 10v and One AOD150 use the Atom N270.
• Noise: the Mini 10v is absolutely silent, I guess fanless; the EEE PC and Aspire One tend to be a bit louder under full load, nothing really annoying.
• Display: the 10-inch display of the EEE PC isn't as brigth as Mini 10v and Aspire One AOD150, in any case eeectl can help... at your own risk of course!
• Keyboard: Mini 10v and EEE PC 1005HA got a very good keyboard, 92% of full size keys, the Aspire One got slighty smaller keys.
• Touchpad: the EEE PC got a multitouch touchpad, nothing to say for Aspire One; I really hate the touchpad of the Mini 10v.
• Wifi: The EEE PC got the faster 802.11n (draft), while Mini 10v and Aspire One have only 802.11b/g.
• Battery: for the 300 dollars class the EEE PC 1005HA got a 8,5h battery life vs about 6,5 battery life for the other two netbooks with 6-cells battery. Be careful since Mini 10v and Aspire One AOD150 are also sold with 3-cells, giving you about 3h of battery life.
• Size, weight and remaining features are very similar: 1GB DDR memory, 160GB hard disk, Windows XP, 1.3megapixel webcam, SD-card slot, 3xUSB

My bottom line: if you want the most featured netbook for 300 dollars, take definetly the EEE PC 1005HA you won't be disappointed.
If you really need an absolutely silent netbook the Dell Mini 10v (Inspiron 1011) is the netbook for you!

The absolute topseller in the past 2 months is the ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-PU1X-BK 10.1-Inch Black Netbook - 10.5 Hour Battery Life for about 350 USD.

Windows 7 Discount Sale - Screaming Deal - Netbook Operating System

Unbelievable: you can grab up to 3 Windows 7 licences with over 50% discount, no joke!!!

Dear friends, no matter whether you own a netbook, a laptop or a normal deskop/tower pc. You got the chance to get a Windows 7 Home Premium licence for just $50 (USD) at Amazon or a Windows 7 Professional for just $100 (USD) hurry up since the offer is valid only until July 11th (2009) ”or while supplies last” for U.S., Canada and Japan (start on July 5th).
No joke! Today Microsoft started the so called "screaming deal", you can preorder a copy of Windows 7 update for less than half of the price, unbelievable!

Just to let you understand how much you can save with the pre-order, this is the regular price starting October 2009:

Windows 7 Edition	Upgrade	Full license
Home Premium	$120	$200
Professional	$200	$300
Ultimate	$220	$320

Again: for a Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade you save over 50%, you pay just $50!!

A similar offer will be available in the next few weeks in Europe (United Kingdom, France, Germany), starting July 15th.

I already installed a copy of Windows 7 RC1, it is fantastic. My feeling is that Windows 7 is much more responsive and quick than Vista. The net is full of videos of netbook (EEE PC, MSI Wind and Samsung NC10) running the Windows 7 beta, the performance level is about the same that you get with Windows XP.

When looking at the Windows 7 offer, I just saw that Office 2007 Home and Student got to really cheap level, below $80 USD.

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

DVD burner for EEE PC and any netbook, why not?

In a world with Internet flat rates, tons of gigabytes in hard disks, USB memory sticks and flash cards you don't have to burn DVD so frequently. However especially if you aren't a power user a DVD player/burner is an essential piece of hardware. DVD are especially handy to back up and restore the hard disk, not to speak about playing out music/movies from your private CD/DVD collection.
Netbooks and subnotebooks typically miss a DVD burner, especially for space reasons. The EEE PCs are not an exception. The new Asus SDRW-08D1S-U DVD records on 8X DVD+R, 8X DVD+RW, 6X DVD-R and 5X DVD-RAM and access 8X DVD-ROM and 5X DVD-RAM formats. While obviously designed with the EEE PC in mind, the Asus DVD burner can be used on MSI Wind, Samsung NC10 or any other netbook. You just plug it to the USB port(s), while for the player functionality you don't need of installing any software, for burning DVDs you typically need some software. Asus ships the burner in bundle with Cyberlink Power2Go 6 LE.

Netbook Processors and Operating Systems for 2009-2010

Relevant posts

• posts on Apple / Leopard OS on netbooks
• posts on Atom processor
• posts on VIA Nano processor
• posts on dual core processors for netbooks

Netbooks/mini laptops represent now a significant part of the overall IT market, million unit of EEE PC, Aspire One, Samsung NC10 and MSI Wind were sold in weeks.
The netbook race started and in the next 6months to one year we'll see new processors and I bet also the first Android netbooks. The figure shows a possible scenario of operating systems and processors used in netbooks for 2009-2010.

1) Netbook processors
The vast majority of netbooks shipped today are equipped with Intel Atom processor, VIA C7 and Celeron netbooks are almost not shipped anymore.
A lot is moving in the netbook processors segment: we already saw netbooks mounting a MIPS processor, the first VIA Nano netbooks are coming in weeks and a bunch of ARM based netbooks are under development (see below). Voices say that also Apple is developing an own processor (ARM based).

Available Netbook Processors

• Intel Celeron, Atom, Core
• AMD Geode
  
• VIA Nano, C7
• Ingenic JZ4740 (MIPS based)
  

Netbook Processors 2009-2010

• x86 compatible: Intel Atom (single and dual core), Intel Core, VIA Nano (single and dual core), AMD Neo, Godson 3 (?)
  
• ARM based: Qualcomm Snapdragon, Freescale i.MX515, ZiiLabs ZMS-05, Apple (?)
  
• MIPS based: Ingenic JZ4740, Godson 3(?)

To be noted that Godson 3 processor is built on top of MIPS cores however implements x86 compatibility.

2) Netbook operating systems
While Microsoft Windows well supports x86 compatible processors, ARM and MIPS based processors aren't supported by Windows XP/Vista/7 and I don't think that the situation will change very soon unless ARM and MIPS processors will get a big success in the netbook market. It is also true that ARM and MIPS are already supported by Windows Mobile, however I don't think that Microsoft will let Windows Mobile and Windows 7 compete in the netbook segment.
In any case ARM and MIPS are omnipresent in portable devices and got a very good Linux support.
The Linux community is very active, the first netbook optimized distributions are coming our (e.g. Ubuntu Netbook Remix, Intel Moblin 2)
Google Android targets mobile devices (e.g. mobile phone), nevertheless I don't see a reason why not to use Android on netbooks as well. It means that the effort spent to port Android on ARM and MIPS platforms may enable an easy porting of Android on ARM and MIPS netbooks.
Apple excuse for not entering the netbook market is that actual netbook processors don't offer enough performance. Apple is waiting for next generation of netbook processors (or his own processor) to present the first "iNetbook" of course running MAC OS / Leopard.

Relevant posts

• posts on Apple / Leopard OS on netbooks
• posts on Atom processor
• posts on VIA Nano processor
• posts on dual core processors for netbooks

Netbook features database: find best netbook for you!

I've updated my netbook/mini-laptop/mini-notebook comparison table with many more models and details, it can be a great help to find the best netbook for you!
I called it "netbook database" with many details/features about the most important netbooks/mini laptops actually on sale and especially some filter criterias that can help you choose the right netbook to buy.

You can search by display size, operating system, bluetooth support and battery. In the next few days I'll add more and more search criteria and especially details about performance/benchmarks.
Among others, you can currently find

• Many EEE PC 701, 900, 901, 1000, 1000H, S101, N10
  
• Acer Aspire One models
  
• MSI Wind U90 and U100
• Samsung NC10

Display class any size 10-inch 9-inch 7-inch
Operating system Any Windows XP Linux Vista
Bluetooth support I don't care Yes No
High capacity battery I don't care Yes
Weight I don't care Up to 1000 gr Up to 1200 gr Up to 1400 gr
ExpressCard I don't care Yes
WLAN/WiFi I don't care High speed (draft n)

Link to the netbook/mini laptops database