HP Mini 2140 with Atom, 10" LCD

From Electronista -

HP has introduced the Mini 2140, which replaces the Mini-Note 2133. Curiously, the new model uses a 1.6GHz Intel Atom instead of the 2133's VIA C7-M. Screen size has been increased to 10" with support for the original, extra-sharp 1366x768 display and a lesser 1024x576 resolution.

Storage has been upgraded to 80GB SSD/160GB HD while OS choices have been expanded to Windows XP Home/Professional, SuSE Linux, FreeDOS or Windows Vista Home Basic/Premium. The new model will be available later this month with prices starting at $499.

MSI Wind U100 Revisited

With tons of new models being introduced at CES this week, the folks at HotHardware hae decided to stack the original MSI U100, a standard-setting model when it first came out, against the newer breed to see if it can still keep up.

Not surprisingly, the Wing has aged quite well. Both its 1.6GHz Atom N270 and the 945GSE/GMA 950 graphics are still the norm for netbook models. While it originally came with a 3-cell battery, it now has a 6-cell option. In addition, HD storage has been increased, the warranty now goes to 2 years while prices now start at $350 instead of $500.

Significantly the Wind also has a handy automated overclocking feature in its BIOS that pushes processor performance up 24% to 2GHz. This gives it a healthy performance advantage over stock units and at least for now, enables it to still hold the netbook performance crown. So overall, the MSI Wind U100 is still a pretty competitive unit and remains a solid choice.

SanDisk Launches Next-Generation Solid-State Drives for Netbook Market

From BusinessWire -

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SanDisk Corporation today unveiled its next-generation of flash memory-based solid-state drives (SSD) to support the evolving needs of designers, manufacturers and users in the exploding netbook market - SanDisk® pSSD™. The new SanDisk pSSD-P2 and SanDisk pSSD-S2 SSDs have capacity and performance for more full-featured netbooks which require a robust operating system.

Designed as drop-in replacements for hard-disk drives (HDDs), SanDisk’s new second generation module has a SATA interface to meet new netbook design requirements. The SATA interface offers a significant boost in performance rendering these SSDs faster than HDDs in critical aspects. Booting and launching applications takes just half the time of an HDD.

Available in capacities of 8, 16, 32 and 64-gigabytes (GB)1, SanDisk Gen 2 pSSD drives are aggressively priced, making them attractive for POS terminals, printers, ATMs and other applications where users need HDD functionality with strong reliability, yet want to pay a low cost for the exact capacity that they need. For example, the 32GB modular SSD is priced at parity with 2.5” HDDs in OEM quantities.

“Netbooks represent the fastest growing PC segment in 2009 and 2010 yet widespread adoption of SSDs in netbooks has been limited by speed, capacity and cost constraints,” said Rich Heye, senior vice president and general manager, Solid-State Drives (SSD), SanDisk. “With the significant improvements in performance, capacity and low pricing, these SSDs are a perfect fit for the exploding netbook market.”

Netbook Market Takes Off

Netbooks as a category sold about half a million units in 2007 yet market researchers International Data Corp. (IDC) recently hiked their projected worldwide sales to reach 11 million this year, growing to 41 million in 2012. Initially, IDC projected worldwide sales to reach nine million in 2012.

“SanDisk’s Gen 2 pSSD drives have the best combination of capacity, performance, weight, pricing and power advantages to really excite designers, manufacturers and users of netbooks,” said Richard Brown, VP of Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. “Our latest reference designs will include SanDisk’s Gen2 pSSD drives, and we look forward to working with SanDisk to aggressively address the netbook market’s needs.”

SanDisk’s Gen 2 pSSD drives, slated to be available in February, 2009, are built using the company’s reliable 43-nanometer Multi-Level Cell (MLC) flash memory. This technology is produced at fabrication plants in Yokkaichi, Japan, where SanDisk and its partner, Toshiba Corporation, share the output.

The technology on which the Second Generation Modular SSDs are based also utilizes SanDisk’s innovative patented All Bit Line (ABL) architecture with advanced proprietary programming algorithms and multi-level data storage management schemes to yield MLC NAND flash memory chips that don’t sacrifice performance or reliability.

Sony's VAIO P ultraportable revealed

From Engadget -

The Sony VAIO P ultraportable is on display at CES. Unfortunately it appears to have a chicklet keyboard as well as a tiny pointing nub. Ugh!

Acer Aspire One 10.1"

macles* has the details of the 10" Acer Aspire One, due for release next month. -

Features are mostly identical to the existing model except for some changes. One, it will likely be Win XP and HDD only, no Linux or SSD. The Storage Expansion slot has been replaced by a multicard reader. There is only a single DIMM slot now, with a maximum capacity of 2GB. The 10.1" screen will still have the same resolution. 3G and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR are optional. The area around the keyboard has a brushed metal finish and the seamlessly integrated touchpad resembles a more traditional touchpad. The new AA1 will be available in white, black and red.

Windows 7 build 7000 outperforms Vista and XP

From Ars Technica -

ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes tested 23 real-world scenarios to see which operating system would be the quickest. He tested the 32-bit versions of Windows 7 build 6.1.7000.0.081212-1400, Windows Vista SP1, and Windows XP SP3.

Two separate test machines were used: An AMD Phenom 9700 2.4GHz with an ATI Radeon 3850 and 4GB RAM and an Intel Pentium Dual Core E2200 2.2GHz with an NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS and 1GB RAM.

Windows 7 managed to outperform both Vista and XP on both machines, placing first in 21 tests, and second in two other ones.

New HP laptop releases rumored, Mini 1000 Mi included

From Portable Monkey -

HP will be launching a new model of the HP Mini 1000 called the Mi (Mobile Internet). The new model will likely have a cloud based Linux OS possibly with quick boot-up and shut down times similar to the Lenovo IdeaPad S10e's SplashTop OS.

Price will start at $379.99.