Image Credit: LAPTOP Magazine

I’ve mentioned the Intel CULV, or Consumer Ultra Low Voltage, platform several times this year. That’s the product that will help bridge the gap between underpowered netbooks and powerful, but less portable, notebooks. Mark Spoonauer offers up an insightful observation over the LAPTOP Magazine blog on this space. He notes that a $399 Acer Aspire 1410 configuration compares more than favorably against some of the top-rated netbooks in the same price range. In fact, two out of the three netbooks — Toshiba’s NB205 and HP’s Mini 311 — cost more and offer less on a spec and feature basis. Only the Asus Eee PC 1008HA cost less than the full-figured Acer in this comparison, and not by much

So here you have a more powerful notebook at roughly a netbook price. The Aspire 1410 and its 1.2 GHz Intel SU2300 beats the pants off the netbooks when it comes to benchmarking performance. It also comes with 2 GB of RAM, an 11.6″ display capable of 1366 x 768 resolution and weighs 3.2 pounds, which is about the same weight as my Toshiba netbook. Extra power generally comes at a hit to battery life, but the Aspire 1410 tested to run for over six hours. Oh and the version of Windows 7 it comes with is Home Premium, not Starter Edition.

At the end of the day, Mark makes a compelling argument for this sector to start displacing netbooks. The product gains performance, offers more screen real estate yet is still easy to tote around and offers solid battery life. While we’re expecting the Intel PineTrail Atom devices within the next month or two, I think Mark’s final point is accurate: “[i]f you can nab a fully capable ultraportable for less than 400 bucks, I think traditional netbook prices will have to sink even further if the category is going to stick around.” I suspect the category will stick around because tens of millions have proven they want and can use a device in the 10″ display range. And some won’t want to give up the 8 or 9 hour battery life they see on a netbook — as good as the Aspire’s runtime is, some netbooks can still run for 40% longer, if not more. Thoughts?

Looks like you can add Toshiba to the ranks of netbook brands going the subsidy route. Over the weekend, jkOTR reader Hector Gomez and I both saw the deal in this week’s Best Buy circular — which is actually square, not circular at all. The standard $399 price for a Toshiba NB-205 looks like it got jacked up by $100 because the netbook alone is advertised at $499. I suspect that’s simply to make the subsidy deal look more attractive, because this configuration is routinely $399. In any case, you can nab the NB-205 for $299 with integrated HSPA service through AT&T for the next two years. If you’d rather go with integrated EVDO on the Verizon or Sprint network, you’ll pay $229. In either case, you’ll be paying $1,440 over the next two years for your service, so don’t overlook that budgetary point.

More interesting is the netbook’s configuration because it’s the same as what I bought in August of this year. This is the Windows XP Home version of the NB-205 with the 1.66GHz Intel Atom and 160 GB hard drive. Now that Windows 7 is available, I would have expected this deal to come with Microsoft’s latest operating system. Of course, that would likely be the Starter Edition, which does have a few limitations.  Does anyone else find it odd that this deal features Windows XP and not Windows 7?

HTC is the phone maker these days, from the HTC Hero to the HD2. They have both Windows Mobile and Android covered in style with the Sense interface. I’ve used a bunch of phones on both platforms, and including the Motorola Droid I’m currently evaluating, after using an HTC phone with Sense, they all are just flat boring.

At the HD2 launch this week, CEO Peter Chou let slip that the company is “carefully looking into [the netbook] category and how it can be part of that.” He went on to state that HTC would not be happy making a “me too” netbook, instead they would be looking to add extra value to such a product.

HTC is no stranger to the special, small notebook market. Their HTC Shift was one of the most innovative such notebooks, and it was released almost two years ago. The inability of low-performance components to run Windows Vista adequately, coupled with a high price tag, doomed the Shift to market failure. If you recall it had a dual processor setup that ran Windows Mobile alongside Vista. Could we see a HTC netbook running both Windows 7 and Android in the cards?

Could the six-hour runtime of a netbook go to 36 hours in the future? It sounds possible based on recent ionic battery projects. Battery technologies simply haven’t undergone a major change in years, so most of our runtime gains have come through more power efficient hardware. But if I’m reading the news right, ionic liquid powered batteries might be the breakthrough to change that. According to Cody Friesen, a professor of materials science at Arizona State and founder of Fluidic Energy:

“[A] metal-air battery using an ionic liquid as its electrolyte not only functions significantly longer–because drying out is no longer a problem–but it also gets a big boost in energy density. “These liquids have electrochemical stability windows of up to five volts, so it allows you to go to much more energy-dense metals than zinc.” He says his research team will target energy densities of at least 900 watt-hours per kilogram and up to 1,600 watt-hours per kilogram in the DOE-funded project.”

As I see it, this technology is really geared for electric vehicles with large batteries. But I could envision this technology making its way down to notebook batteries. And if it did, you could “cram” more energy in a battery without increasing the size and weight.

Some quick math using the project’s median target shows why I’m hoping this comes to pass. If a 1 kilogram / 35.5 ounce ionic battery can hold 1250 Whr of juice, that’s about 125 Whr per 0.1 kilograms / 3.5 ounces. That works out to an energy density of 35.7 Whr per ounce of battery weight. The battery of my Toshiba NB205 battery weighs 11 ounces, so an ionic battery of similar weight could offer 392 Whr as opposed to the 63 Whr my current battery offers. I’m all for more efficient electric cars, but the ability to run my netbook for nearly a week of work time is pretty appealing too.

MoTR 189 is 36:05 minutes long and is a 34.7 MB file in MP3 format.
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HOSTS: James Kendrick (Houston), Matthew Miller (Seattle) and Kevin C. Tofel (Philadelphia)

TOPICS:

Motorola Droid in the house!
Droid or Droid Eris?
Tethering for Droid is $30, but gives you another 5 GB
HTC HD2 coming soon. Windows Mobile on Snapdragon with a capacitive display
Microsoft names a Windows Mobile distribution partner
Kevin’s triple-booting netbook is going to explode: XP, 7 and Moblin
RIM gains marketshare — are integrated phones doing better than licensed ones?

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Is the venerable ThinkPad name getting slapped on a large netbook/ultra-light notebook? All signs appear to be yes, although many of them are speculation and rumor. Most of these thoughts are coming from ThinkPadToday which states that Jan. 5, 2010 is the date we’ll see the ThinkPad X100e with these potential specs:

• 1.6 GHz AMD Athlon Neo or 1.4 GHz Intel CULV
• 12.1-inch display at 1280 x 800
• 3 GB of RAM
• Integrated mobile broadband options
• Corresponding Ultrabase

With Lenovo’s current IdeaPad line, I’d expect such a device to cost north of $600, if it does indeed appear. I’d chalk this one up to complete rumor except, there have been a fair number of photos floating around. With the legendary ThinkPad keyboards, I’m sure many would like to see this rumor come true.

I’ve been playing a little with the latest Moblin release this afternoon and I’m actually thinking of trying to run it full-time on a netbook. There’s a few holes yet, but it does offers me much of what I’m looking for in a smartbook — a lightweight operating system and good browsing experience. My wireless broadband modem isn’t working, nor is my sound or my Bluetooth, so there’s a few gotchas just yet. The Bluetooth might be easily fixable in my netbook BIOS, but no sound on the Toshiba NB205 is a reported known bug.

In this 11 minute video, I think you’ll see why I’m walking away impressed. The user interface is intuitive, although it will take some getting used to, and the overall environment is fluid and snappy. Bear in mind that I’m running a live image from a USB drive, so an actual installation should perform even better. Maybe it’s time to turn the Toshiba into a triple-booter: Windows XP, Windows 7 and Moblin!

Just over three weeks has passed since the last Moblin preview image for Intel Atom netbooks and already the final release is here. That kind of pace has me burning through blank CDs faster than Hideki Matsui is batting runs in. But I’m a glutton for OS testing, so I’ve downloaded the release and will burn it shortly. Why bother taking a look? Plenty of reasons, if you ask the Mobile project team:

• Internet Browser. After much work, we are including a new internet browser application that far exceeds our previous browser performance and adds full support for features such as plug-in support and add-ons. Many thanks to Moblin users and the developer community for their feedback and contributions.
• 3G Data Support. Support for 3G data connections using the Ericsson* MBM 3G modems. Support for additional 3G modems is planned for future releases.
• Application Installer Integration. The Moblin Application Installer is integrated and provides a logically categorized list of applications that you can choose to install. The selection of applications that appears within the Moblin Application Installer comes from the Moblin Garage.
• Clutter 1.0. With this new version of Moblin, we are releasing Clutter 1.0, the Moblin animation framework.
• Bluetooth* Device Support. Bluetooth* device discovery and pairing now supported via a new panel in the toolbar, which supports Bluetooth* audio devices, input devices (keyboards, mice), OBEX file transfer, and using a Bluetooth* phone as a 3G modem.
• Connection Manager. Connection Manager (ConnMan) has significant modifications particularly in the areas of performance and reliability. The new version of ConnMan now supports Ethernet, WiFi, WiMAX, and 3G.
• Nettop Support. UI scaling is provided for a wide range of nettop resolutions, including the ability to show more information in the Myzone panel based on the available screen space.
• Improvements to Instant Messaging. Improvements have been included for Instant Messaging account setup, integration within the connection manager, and support for transparent connection to your friends on your local network.

Slowly but surely, Moblin is becoming very functional while offering an effective interface for mobile devices. By building such a mobile operating system from the ground up — instead of trying to cram a desktop environment into a smaller device — Moblin has a real chance of gaining an audience. It may not happen on netbooks, but the groundwork here will help on even smaller devices.

The discovery that developer builds of OS X 10.6.2 had removed support for the Atom processor kicked off a storm on the web. On the surface it seemed that the only reason for Apple to remove the hardware support that was already in the OS was to kill off the “Hackintosh” projects. Those are the projects that have hardy souls installing OS X on netbooks and UMPCs to fill the void that Apple is reluctant to fill.

Word has surfaced that the current beta build (10C535) of 10.6.2 has regained support for Atom processors. Whether this is due to the reaction to its removal, or to fixing an accidental removal we will likely never know. Of course, until 10.6.2 is finalized, we’ll have to wait and see if the Atom support stays.

While I’m more than happy with the Toshiba NB205 netbook I purchased in August, there are refreshed models out from Toshiba. The model numbers are different, but the hardware looks to be the same. Windows 7 Starter Edition is the big difference, since my device came with Windows XP. I have my netbook set to dual-boot in either XP or Windows 7 Ultimate for the moment, but for a true review of the Windows 7 experience, I recommend reading Brad Linder’s latest look.

Aside from the second opinion on the device, I was most intrigued by some Toshiba software that I don’t have on my device. And I can’t find it for download on the Toshiba site either. Specifically, there’s some nice power management bits, a PC health monitor and some diagnostic tools that I’d love to get on the Windows 7 partition for my Tosh.

I had a feeling that something was missing when I got the latest power management bits for Windows 7 from Toshiba directly. The XP version has a well-detailed graphical user interface that I lost with the Windows 7 utilities from Toshiba. I can’t even find the software available on Toshiba’s site under the new NB205-330 model that Brad reviewed. Bummer!