News Bits: HP Shipped the Most Notebooks in Q3, 802.11n ExpressCard Coming Soon, Wireless USB Hub

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HP takes over top spot in Q3 notebook shipments

According to DisplaySearch, HP overtook Dell in Q3 of this year in notebook shipments by about 50,000 units. HP grew at 36% sequentially in shipments in Q3, which is almost double the average market growth of 19% during the quarter.

Although HP led on a worldwide level, they were only able to hold the top spot in two regions - Asia Pacific and Latin America. Dell currently leads HP in North America by a 6% share, and Acer leads HP in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East by a 4% share. Only Acer was able to beat the on-year 29% increase in the total notebook PC market, with an astonishing 49% on-year growth.

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D-Link 802.11n ExpressCard en route to US

MobileWhack reports that the D-Link's 802.11n Notebook ExpressCard has been approved by the FCC, and should appear in the US anytime now. The card's full name is the D-Link DWA-643 Xtreme NTM ExpressCard Notebook Adapter. Got it? Now say it seven times fast. Jokes aside, it will operate at 2.4GHz, have a maximum throughput of 300Mbps, and a data transfer rate of 11Mbps. It is only compatible with Windows.

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Compal notebook shipments decline in December

After notebook shipments peaked earlier this month, there is less demand on the market. Compal Electronics expects to see a decline in notebook shipments from the 1.74 million in November to 1.4 - 1.5 million in December. Compal will still beat its original forecast of 4.6 million units for Q4 however; the shipments will reach 4.8 million or higher.

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Gefen Announces Wireless USB with 100-Foot Range

Last year Gefen announced a wireless USB hub with a 30-foot range. In a couple of weeks at CES Gefen is announcing a wireless USB hub with a 100-foot range, along with wireless extenders for component audio, HDMI and VGA. Gefen claims that three of these products are already in production.

• The four port USB extender uses Wisair's 3.5GHz ultra-wideband and will have up to 400 Mbps throughput for $249.
• The component audio extender can deliver up to 1080i resolution within 300-feet line of site. It will cost $1,499.
• The wireless HDMI extender uses TZero's ultra-wideband, will have a 30-foot range, and support resolution up to 1080i and 400 Mbps transfer speeds for $499.
• The VGA extender has a 100-foot range and supports 1280x1024 or 780p resolutions, no word on pricing.

A word of caution though, Gefen announced a similar device at this time last year and we're yet to see it. This could be similar vaporware.

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iTunes store chokes on holiday traffic

Many customers met error messages and unusually long download times on and a short while after Christmas when accessing the iTunes Music Store. Many analysts believe that the source of the problem was a surge in Christmas gift card redemptions. iTunes received four times more traffic this year than it did during the same period last year according to online market research company Hitwise.

Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director at Jupiter Research, said, &quot;No doubt it was a very, very popular gift, and no matter how well you plan on the server side of the equation, there are always times when you get caught short.&quot;

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HP is sure making moves. Happy for HP, sad for Compal .

I love the idea of wireless USB--but isn't there at least one more company working on the technology? The picture of their hub looks kinda 80's-style to me.

 

Acer is quite popular regardless of the cheap look & construction. My friend has one for over a year and loves it.
Wireless USB, including TV, we used to call that an antennae, or rabbit ears. I wonder if they still have a fuzzy picture also, ah well, good to see the technology developing, even though i would never buy one.
HP notebooks are near top spot, with good reason, a great product

 

Is dell still the number one PC maker?

 

The report I wrote about was only concerning notebooks. I believe Dell is still #1 overall.

 

"HP is now the No. 1 ranking in worldwide personal computer shipments, surpassing rival Dell, market research firms Gartner and IDC reported in October 2006."

Wikipedia. Not 100% reliable though.

HP will defeat Dell sooner or later, if they haven't already. But Dell might rebound, after all they have lots of cash to push costs down or raise the quality and design.

 

I guess the 802.11n standard has been ratified by the IEEE? Or is that ExpressCard adapter a pre/draft end item?

 

Compal did well overall for Q4, and considering the low visibility of ads compared to HP/Dell, it's doing good.

802.11n isn't expected to be officially ratified by IEEE until 2008, according to their official website for working group timelines.
http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/802/11/Reports/802.11_Timelines.htm

 

Yeah in my country, so many people people use Acer as it provides cheap notebook with decent config(cheapest Core2Duo and Core Duo) though Acer's quality is not so good.

 

802.11n @ 300Mbps is pretty darn fast, but I thought 802.11n was supposed to go up to 480Mbps?

 

Not quite.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196600911

 

compal is a manufacturer. hp dell are a retail seller.

compal makes the dell inspiron and the acer aspire. I think they make the hp dv too but i havent actually heard who makes that.
I think they do though. One thing you can see on a compal, its those media buttons. audio dj, they have that down in almost all of their models.

Other manufacturers its only the top end models.


however if compal doesnt make the hp then this news is all congruous. HP sales took over the bottom end machines and fewer dell inspirons and acer aspires were sold meaning compal moved fewer units...

 

No, I'm pretty sure it is another draft card. If IEEE had ratified N, I'm sure it would have been front-and-center on a number of tech news sites.

As far as draft-N goes, I'm avoiding it until the final product is ratified and 3rd party testers say it is better than 802.11G. If I remember correctly, the last range of N parts mostly received negative reviews saying the tech is promising, still flawed, but to just give it time to surpass G.

I know of at least one company that is... see here for info. I'm also fairly sure that WiFi-USB is still undergoing an FCC approval review. It is undoubtedly because a large amount of power is required to hit 480Mbps wirelessly with a promised range of 30-100 feet. The probably have to experiment to see if it interferes with other nearby electronics.

 

Dell needs to take HP's winning route. Sure Dell puts in the best parts for the cheapest price but their build quality/design are nowhere near as good as HP.

Seems HP's imprint finish and quality build won people over , but of course Q3 won't mean as much as Q1/Q2 when the new models come out and then it's anybodys game.

 

Well, at least with that draft-N wireless card, there's starting to be some useful things coming out for Express Card. It doesn't work with Macs, but at least the latest Macs seem to already have draft-N cards by Atheros built-in already. I wonder how many antennaes that D-Link has. The MacBook Pro's has 3 antennaes, which is probably useful to have even in G mode, while the iMac only has 2 I believe.

 

Acer is quite popular in Asia and even here in North America, despite the poor build quality and hardware problems. Their notebooks are quite cheap in price, which attracts plenty of people. Now, HP and DELL notebooks are very affordable too. IMHO, it probably has to do with the prices. You'll never find an ASUS on a black friday sale saying "ONLY $199!"