Toshiba Unveils 10-inch Netbook

Toshiba recently announced a new model 10-inch netbook in Japan and Europe. Although being the same model, Toshiba has named them differently in these 2 different regions -- Dynabook UX in Japan, and Mini NB200 in Europe.


The specification for the new Toshiba 10-inch netbook is as follow:

• 10-inch display with 1024×600 native pixel resolution
• Intel Atom N280 1.66 GHz Processor
• 1GB RAM
• 160GB HDD
• Integrated GMA 950 graphics
• 802.11b/g WiFi
• Windows XP Home

Portable Monkey has had a chance to play around with this new netbook, and written a short post on it. Here's the summary of their first impression on this machine:

• exquisite gold metallic hinges
• great build quality and design
• lightweight with 3-cell battery
• smooth trackpad (best netbook trackpad so far)
• nice chickeley-style keyboard (like the Eee PC 1000HE)
• small powerbrick

Also, Megawhat.tv who got a chance to check out the Toshiba NB200 at a UK event has taken a video of the new netbook to give you a better look at it:



In terms of external design and appearance, this netbook seems to be pretty impressive. The performance is yet to be find out though.

MSI Wind U100 Plus Announced

MSI has recently announced a Wind U100 Plus netbook. It's almost similar to its predecessor model, U100, except for a faster 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 CPU and higher capacity battery which is said to last for 7 hours.


Here’s a rundown of MSI Wind U100 Plus specs:

• 10.2 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel resolution
• 1GB of RAM
• 160GB hard drive
• 802.11b/g/n WiFi
• integrated flash card reader
• 1.3MP webcam
• Bluetooth 2.1.
  

In addition to the usual white, black and red colors, the MSI Wind U100 PLUS will be available in 2 new colors: Rose Champagne (pink) and Metallic Blue. No words on the release date and price for the U100 Plus netbook for the moment.

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The first Android Netbook - Skytone Alpha 680

So far, most netbooks run either on Windows or Linux. Now here's the first netbook that run on a different OS, Google Android. The netbook model is Skytone Alpha A680 which is manufactured by a Chinese electronic maker. It has a 7-inch, 800 x 480 resolution touchscreen display with a swivel, a 533MHz ARM11 Processor, 128MB RAM, and 1GB flash memory for storage. The specs are much lower than other standard netbooks today, but it's more than enough to run Google Android, which was developed for ARM-based cellphones. Also, the low-end specs means lower price. There's rumor that the price for this machine will be as little as $100.

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Sharp Release Netbook with With Optical Sensor LCD Pad

While more and more companies are joining the netbook market, most of them comes makes pretty similar machine which comes with a standard specs. But we do get surprise once in a while when a netbook like Mebius PC-NJ70A from Sharp is announced. It's claimed to be the first netbook with LCD touchpad that allow for both stylus and multi-touch finger operation.


The LCD touchpad is an 854 x 480 resolution screen placed right on the palm rest and is able to recognize drawings and text using the bundled stylus, and to perform the same finger-based functions, such as zoom in, zoom out, rotate, and other multi-touch functions which is similar to what you can do with an iphone or Apple’s latest MacBooks.

Check it out in the following video:


Other than the LCD touchpad, Sharps's Mebius PC-NJ70A netbook has a standards specs like many other netbooks on the market: 10.1-inch screen, a 1.6GHz Atom N270 processor, an Intel 945GSE Express Chipset, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 160GB of HDD, 1.3Mp webcam, Bluetooth 2.1 and wireless web over 802.11b/g.

No words on when this netbook from Sharp will be released, but it's expected to retail for ¥80,000 ($814 US).

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Dell Vostro A90 Available in US Now

Dell Vostro A90 netbook which has already been released in Europe for quite some time, is now available in the US.


The Vostro A90 netbook has an identical specs as the Inspiron Mini 9:

• 8.9-inch screen
• Intel Atom N270 CPU
• 1GB RAM
• 16GB SSD
• Windows XP Home
• WiFi, Bluetooth and an optional 0.3 webcam

An obvious difference between them would be the external design -- the Vostro A90 comes in a cool all-black design. The price for Vostro A90 is currently set at $349.