Last week’s Google Chrome OS announcement doesn’t seem to be impacting prior plans for Android netbooks. DigiTimes indicates that Acer is still planning to launch a dual-boot netbook that offers both Microsoft Windows XP and Google Android. I don’t envision any cost difference between an XP/Android netbook and an XP-only device — the cost of a Windows XP license has to be paid in both cases. So there’s no benefit in terms of cost, but there is a value-add in having another operating system for those that want it. Or is there?

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Vodafone UK’s latest netbook deal highlights two main differences between the European and American markets. Here we haven’t seen many high-end subsidized netbooks bundled with broadband service. Typically, the deals here include a base model from HP. I’ve called for more choice if we’re going to subsidize netbooks here. In fact, one of the brands I mentioned in that point was Samsung. That’s the brand that Vodafone UK is offering for free. It’s your basic netbook, but the NC10 does offer excellent battery life — upwards of six to seven hours. Just beating out Sprint’s (s) 99-cent deal, this Samsung NC10 is fully subsidized and free, provided you pair it with a two-year data plan. And that illustrates the second difference.

Vodafone UK gives customers two options to gain a free netbook. Both are two-year deals, just like we see here in the U.S. The difference is in the two tiers of pricing and throughput. For a free NC10 netbook, customers can pay 25 pounds ($40.26) a month for 1GB of data or 30 pounds a month for 3GB. We have two tiers here as well, but most folks opt for the second because the first is woefully inadequate. For $39.99 a month, we can nab between 200MB and 250MB a month, depending on the carrier. We can opt for that small sip or we can gulp a 5GB cap for $59.99 a month. There is no in between, and for most folks, it simply makes sense to pay the extra $20 for up to 25 times more monthly throughput.

Not only does the EU have my beloved Tour de France, but it has better mobile broadband deals as well. I think I’m going to move.

Windows 7 will be released soon, and it promises to bring an enhanced experience for PCs with digitizers. The Tablet and touch features have generated excitement, especially in the area of multitouch capability. Netbooks and UMPCs with touchscreens are starting to appear in greater numbers, and owners are already planning to install Windows 7 on these devices. Some intrepid folks have already done so, and are discovering that all of the fancy tablet/touch bits don’t automatically come along for the ride. Here’s what I know about the tablet and touch capabilities of Windows 7, along with the requirements to get them going on today’s devices.

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Lenovo was kind enough to send me two of its most current netbook models, and this video is a tour of both. The S10-2 is as small as netbooks go while retaining full usability, in my view, and the S12 pushes the limits of netbooks with a 12-inch screen.

The video gives an overview of both netbooks and shows the size comparison of the two models. This gives a glimpse into how little additional size and weight you gain with the larger S12. The higher screen resolution of the S12 (1280×800) is a nice benefit for such a small size penalty over the S10-2.

The S10-2 is $350 and the S12 is $499 from Lenovo, so the extra size and screen resolution come at a price.

This afternoon I had the pleasure of being a guest on Randall Bennett’s TechVi video show. I worked with Randall back in the old AOL/Weblogs days, and I enjoy talking tech with him. TechVi uses a two-guest format, so I always get to chat with new folks in this space. Today it was Ross Rubin from The NPD Group, whom I generally only see once a year at CES. Besides being an analyst at The NPD Group, Ross authors the weekly “Switched On” column for Engadget.

Today’s chat was focused on Google’s Chrome OS announcement, but not from a nuts-and-bolts standpoint. Since details are scarce on how Chrome OS will actually work, Randall focused today’s TechVi show on the business side of the news. We briefly tackled questions on the impact to Google’s search efforts and on whether or not the creation of Chrome OS would be a distraction to Google as it grows its business. It was a fun experience as always, and I’m appreciative that Randall offered me the opportunity. You can catch the seven-minute spot right here on TechVi to see and hear how Ross and I view the Google Chrome OS news.

Today is going to be a busy day as the FedEx guy, Clyde, just brought me a small box. What makes this small box so unusual is that it contained not one netbook, but two! Lenovo was kind enough to send over two review units of their current netbooks, the S10-2 and the S12. Some folks may find the 12-inch S12 stretches the definition of a netbook with its larger size, but it is configured similarly to the smaller S10-2, so I guess it’s OK to call it a netbook.

The rest of my day is going to be filled with the fun of discovering two new devices, so I’ll throw a couple of photos up to give you a taste. I’ll be giving some in-depth thoughts on both the S10-2 and the S12 soon.

The S10-2 is a refreshed model of the original S10 that I reviewed when it was first released. The video I shot of the S10 may tide you over until I get more time with the S10-2. Note that Lenovo fixed the problem I had with the original S10 keyboard by moving the right-shift key into the proper place.

Folks waiting for resolution higher than 1024 x 576 on an HP Mini 110 need wait no more. Portable Monkey peeped the $30 option on HP’s Home & Office product site that outfits your netbook with a 1366 x 768 matte display. The base Mini 110 with XP currently starts at $329, so a 10 percent premium for nearly 78 percent more pixels is a pretty solid deal.

Yes, I did the math, although I had to use a calculator since I ran out of fingers and toes. 1024 x 576 gives you 589,824 pixels, while a 1366 x 768 display yields 1,049,088 pixels. And of course, with more than 720 horizontal lines, the display option qualifies as high-definition. This option appears to be available only on with Microsoft Windows XP as the operating system, so HP Mobile Internet Editions need not apply.

I’d consider pairing the $30 Broadcom Video Acclerator option with this higher-quality display, although I believe it requires use of the included ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre software. Pity the Mini 110 doesn’t have an HDMI output. With video acceleration and optimized software, we could have piped HD video from HDMI to the big screen.

There must be some tech news today that doesn’t involve the Google Chrome OS announcement, but if there is, I can’t find it. The big news from Google and the upcoming new OS for netbooks is generating a lot of tongue wagging, but more importantly it is provoking a lot of thought. There are many ramifications about a Google Chrome OS that will continue to pop up over time and one of them has hit me right between the eyes: smartbooks. Those are the net-centric notebooks running ARM processors that were a hot item at the recent COMPUTEX trade show. Many of the prototype smartbooks being shown at COMPUTEX were running Android but now I’m thinking that likely won’t happen.

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The netbook world has been peeping all around, waiting for Google Android to get dropped onto a netbook. Android was designed from the ground up to be a full-fledged OS to power everything from smartphones to netbooks. It has one failing in the netbook arena, though: It won’t run natively on x86 processors. Google isn’t concerned about that failing, and the Android netbook buzz has been merely the misdirection before Google slipped the ball under a different cup. Google has announced the Chrome OS, an open-source operating system designed for netbooks and desktops from the ground up. It has gotten very quiet in Redmond since the announcement.

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Looking for the love-child of a netbook and notebook? Acer seems to have bred one behind closed doors with the Aspire Timeline 1810T. Macles says it looks like the Acer Aspire One 751 netbook, but only from the outside. Instead of an Intel Atom, Acer shoved an Intel ULV SU3500 CPU running at 1.4GHz. That’s a chip from the Consumer Ultra Low Voltage line that’s surely going to appear in many more devices over the next six to 12 months.

Gone also is the Intel GMA 950 for graphics. Instead, the CPU is paired with the Intel GMA 4500MHD chipset, which can handle up to 4GB of memory. That’s double what most netbooks can deal with and should offer decent HD video decoding. The 11.6-inch display can handle it, thanks to the 1366 x 768 resolution. Using the HDMI port, you can pump the video out to an HD television set in a pinch, too.

With this platform, Macles expects an eight-hour battery life, even with the bigger jolt of the CULV platform. So what happens to the traditional netbook Atom platform when manufacturers start offering large netbook form factors with decent notebook power? It’s likely that cost will play a big part here, and there’s no price yet for the 1810T. If consumers could get greater performance with solid battery life in a light package for only $100 to $200 more than a netbook, they could be drawn to devices like this.

Looking back to an NPD report on netbook satisfaction last month, two data points support that thought:

• 60 percent of netbook owners expected the device to have the same functionality as a notebook.
• 65 percent of the 18- to 24-year-old demographic expected their netbook to perform better than a notebook. Only 27 percent of those felt that the netbook performed better than expected.

With a CULV, the device comes closer to offering the same functionality of a notebook and might perform closer to what consumers expect. On the other hand, if these devices command a $300, $400 or more premium over a netbook, they won’t likely compete for the same consumer decision.