News Bits: New Eee PC in April, AMD Cuts Workforce, Yahoo! Says No To Microsoft ... Again

Asus second-gen Eee PC to hit late April

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According to DigiTimes, the second-generation Asus Eee PC will hit the market in the second half of this month. The most surprising element of the story is that it will not have the new Intel Atom processor, but rather an older Intel Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) dual-core processor. Intel will ship the Atom processors in May, and companies such as HP and Acer will not ship products including them until June. Asus will most likely include the Atom in future versions of the Eee PC. The second-gen Eee was originally slated to be launched in June.

Full Story (DigiTimes.com)
NotebookReview.com review for the Asus Eee PC

Acer to introduce low-cost 12.1-inch notebook

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Acer is planning to launch a low-cost 12.1-inch notebook in June according to DigiTimes. The price range is $300 - $450 and the PC will feature an Intel Atom processor. Acer expects to ship over six million low-cost notebooks in the second half of this year alone.

Full Story (DigiTimes.com)
Via (CrunchGear.com)
Special thanks to forum member Jayayess1190 for submitting this bit

AMD versus Nvidia: the Mobile Lineup

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VR-Zone.com has compiled a list of the new AMD/ATI and Nvidia mobile graphics chips and put them in a chart for comparative purposes. At the top of the chart, the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 is slated to compete against the Nvidia GeForce 9800M-GTX. In the high performance arena, the HD 3870 will go head to head with the 9700M-GTS/GT. For mainstream computers, the HD 3650 will have the GeForce 9650M-GT/9600M-GT/GS and 9500M-G as competitors, and in the value range, the HD 3430/3400 will verse the the 9400M/9300M-9200M-GS.

Have you memorized all that? Good, there is a test tomorrow on it (not really).

Full Story (VR-Zone.com)
Special thanks to forum member bigspin for submitting this bit

Yahoo to Microsoft: No, again

After making another offer for Yahoo, Microsoft has been turned down again. CEO of Yahoo Jerry Yang and Chairman Roy Bostock rejected the bid Monday, stating that Microsoft undervalues Yahoo. Yahoo is still open to making a deal, but Microsoft needs to make a better offer, they say.

Full Story (NYTimes.com)

AMD to cut workforce by 10%


AMD said on Monday that it plans to cut its workforce by ten percent and warned that Q1 sales numbers will be lower than expected. The company's sales have dropped about 15 percent over the last three months compared to the same period a year ago.

Full Story (Yahoo.com)
Via (Engadget.com)

 

I fear what these ultra-portable, ultra-cheap laptops are going to do to the industry. Companies are having a hard enough time as it is with the budget segment, now you have these undercutting Dell and HP's budget laptops - ones that they barely made a penny on in the first place.

 

I was just reading an article about acer's new little guy. It seems they have tried to address all the comments about the asus, so I may lean towards that as my old acer was not too bad. I understand these companies want corporate privacy, but for those of us that attempt to plan tech purchases and budgets, they are killing us. Even the new cloudbook looks promising. my ~3.14 cents

 

I have been waiting for the 900 for quite some time now. I don't think the Atom will give that great an advantage besides battery life(which I am not sweating). So I will dive in on this one. I have never been a fan of Acer anyhow.

 

I like the way yahoo handle M$ deal & i hate to see Microhoo! mail add

 

Wait, an EeePC with a ULV Dual Core, as in Dual Core...no way...

 

Dual Core for the win!

 

You only have to fear these little guys if they stand a chance of replacing typical budget 15-inch notebooks ... and in most cases they don't.

These budget "subnotebooks" aren't targeting the same consumer that Dell and HP are targeting with a 15-inch notebook that sells for $500.

The Eee PC and 2133 Mini-Note are targeted first and foremost toward students who need to haul a notebook along with multiple other textbooks to classes all day. The secondary markets that these subnotebooks are targeting are:

1. Business professionals who need a cheap but small laptop for travel
2. Average consumers who want a tiny "mobile companion" that is smaller than a regular notebook but bigger than a smartphone.

The Eee PC, 2133 Mini-Note, and others like them will never "replace" a full-featured notebook or desktop (at least not for 99 percent of the market).

The problem that these subnotebooks are having is that consumers insist on cheap prices for these things but also insist on better performance than what you can get from a smartphone ... and phones like the Apple iPhone, Motorola Q, HTC Touch, even the various Blackberry models, etc. are raising the bar in terms of performance.

It's hard to convince a lot of consumers to buy one of these cheap subnotebooks if they can get a smartphone with better features and performance for less money.

Subnotebooks have an advantage because of the appealing form factor, but they're caught between a rock and a hard place (between smartphones and budget 15-inch notebooks).

 

... oh boy, AMD get your act together we really need you to compete with intel to keep there prices in line... where is Puma? I have seen some promising results from the new integrated graphic area and this would compete very very well against the integrated intel offering.

 

I go to one of the biggest universities in the US and barely anyone brings their laptops to class. I'd say < 5%. So that market probably isn't the primary one. You'll see a lot of people with laptops at the libraries but they're mostly in the 13.3-15.4" range.

 

I believe the largest potential market for the small and cheap notebook is the traveling business person, even more so that the student. Most of my business trips are short: 3 to 4 days, and lugging my T-series ThinkPad along with all of the file folders, etc. in the laptop bag can get to be a hassle. However, something like the Asus or other small mini-notebooks fit the bill very nicely. I don't need something super-fast or with tons of memory, as all I need is to keep up with my basic business work while on the road. A good Wi-Fi card and operation is mandatory. The Asus Eee PC running Xandros is really all that I need. I'm certainly not looking for a desktop-equivalent for an application such as this.

 

I don't know, if I were purchasing (or selling) a notebook, I'd give heavy consideration to these subnotebooks, especially when the EEE is now packing Windows XP. That makes it fully capable of replacing a budget notebook, albet with as smaller screen.

As much as I can do on my Palm Centro, or even someone with an iPhone, browsing the web is still a chore. Now when it comes to writing papers, that's when you need a computer, and that's when the subnotebooks look more and more appealing, since for $300-400 you can get the same tasks done, in the same amount of time as if you had a $500 budget notebook.

 

Anyone else notice the main news page are all articles from 2003?
4/09/08 11.39 MST

 

I am dying for this stupid thing. I think it is hugely appealing for the student - I go to UGA, where if you are in the 300 person lecture, you will be in the <5% if you DON'T have a notebook in class. I was one of them. I have an ancient Inspiron 8100 that has to be plugged in, weighs a whopping 8lbs. or more, and with my monsterous textbooks seldom makes the trip with me to class. IF ONLY this thing was around when I was entering (I graduate in May), it would have absolutely been my choice, so well done, Asus. I don't have to pay a freaking fortune for a ridiculous m1330 just to take notes and have a compact notebook. You shouldn't pay that much to scroll on a 13.3" screen, though the specs and optical drive are nice additions. And I am a convert - I was once of the crowd who thought there was no market. After travelling, college, and planes, trains, and automobiles, my feelings are really different.

 

I can't wait to see how silverthorne (Atom) processors, especially the ones with the 533mhz FSB and hyper threading, compare to these older ULV dual cores.

 

You're school must be very different from where I went. At the U of I, you're in the <5% if you do have a laptop in class. And if you did, you weren't paying attention to the lecture (on facebook, internet, minesweeper...). And I'm talking CS, CE majors here.

 

Yea I don't see this as a big threat to pen and paper. Tablet PCs were supposed to be all the rage for students and that never panned out (although price could be a reason there). Some courses are entirely PowerPoint lectures though and they make the .ppt's available online, so a notebook might be nice for annotating those. But then you lose the ability to capture diagrams and such along with your notes.

So I guess it depends on the classes you're taking. Point being that subnotebooks probably won't have widespread appeal with students, at least at my university (Wisconsin).

 

When I was in engineering school (a year or 2 ago ) not that many people brought laptops to class, maybe 2-3 max.

It wasn't for paying attention in class either hehe.

I'm really interested in the 2nd gen EEE pc with Atom processor. If the reviews are good I'd very likely buy one. That would be in addition to my 15.4" T61p.

 

I wonder if the case for any absence is due to the nature of the bigger laptop - if there might be more in class if the notebooks were smaller. All I know is that I see many on campus and in lecture halls (it may have something to do with the school not having strong policies against their use in the class). There is definitely an attention problem with them (depending on how the professor handles laptops being in class). The TAs for one of my classes were called upon to monitor the students in their breakouts during the lecture class for notebook screens with browers open. They were then docked absences based on looking at facebook, hot or not, email (nice that the campus has wireless everywhere).

This is in the bigger lectures - some of the smaller 80 person lectures restrict the use of computers. UGA is not as big as UW, so we may be talking a bigger pool or smarter students who realize that notebooks can pose a distraction and aren't so necessary for good note taking.

Go Badgers, by the way. It's my dad's alma mater, and like all good UW daughters, I hate Ohio State.

 

LOL, that is about my situation - I am just under that idea with a T61 15.4" and wanting an Eee PC just with the regular processor (though I understand the Atom should add battery life, which is one of the things I am lookin for).

 

We have so many computers here at UOW that sometimes we hold DotA lans during lectures. Also, out uni has a lot of asians, and they love their laptops.

 

Hah, funny to see someone actually telling Microsoft to go away. Good for Yahoo.

 

I have a feeling that Microsoft will not take No for an answer and that this whole circus show is going to keep us entertained for months to come.

AMD's graphics card lineup is very attractive unlike Nvidia's. I really hate how Nvidia has just as many versions of their graphics chips as there are versions of Vista. It's overcomplicated and I think it's all in an effort to charge consumers more, of course. It looks like I may be switching back to a Radeon next year. I especially like the dual core nature of their top-end chips.

On the CPU side, I still think AMD has a lot of catching up to do, and I hope they come back.

 

If I had a choice in college, I'd have gone with an even smaller laptop. My Thinkpad X20 was still too big sometimes.

But when these laptops are $500+ you have to think twice - and compromise between usability and portability if you only have enough money for one notebook.

Here are my thoughts on ultraportables from an earlier thread...
I actually went the other way, from an ultraportable Thinkpad X Series in college to a boat anchor 6.5lbs Acer out of it. The Thinkpad was great in college, and impressed my to-be girlfriend, and she struck up a conversation with me about my tiny laptop. We're still together.

The Acer cost me peanuts last year, less than an Eee and its powerful enough to replace a desktop. The Thinkpad was very portable but dog slow.

However, today's laptops are fast enough and cheap enough that you can get the slowest one and it will still run XP and most applications smoothly.

I'm now looking at either the new Eee or HP, or upping my budget to a new Thinkpad X Series to replace my 15.4" laptop because I now value portability more than size.

But still, sometimes I think about how much portability I would really be gaining by moving to a 12" screen. This is why I'm eager for the new crop of ultraportables to come out.

 

For me, portability is more about weight than size. The upcoming 12.1" Dell Latitude E reportedly weighs less than 2.5 lbs (that's lower than the HP Mini Note) and the X61s weighs just under 3. Granted, they cost about 3x as much as the EEE PC, but you get a lot more too. And oddly enough both will probably get better battery life than the current subnotebooks, although that could change when the Atom processors come out.

 

You're right. But the Latitudes and the X200s are going to be more expensive by far.

 

WHy does nividia have so many GPus out? 5 versions of an 9800???

 

1. Because they can.
2. I only count 3 9800's. The GS, GTS, GTX.

 

Shoot, if I were NVidia, came here and saw all of these "money is no object" posts in the "What should I buy?" thread, I would make five, price the highest for the person who just wants pretty numbers but not much better performance - take advantage of the computer hierarchy image that some of the gaming community has. Think about the kudos you get for having the absolutely BEST chip - it's like a description of your manliness or something.

By the way, chicks dig your high-end GPU... (and if your notebook is cute, that is a plus).

 

The performance betwen all the cards should be somewhat of a reasonable margin

 

no, there is 5 in the updated model

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=237112&page=2

 

Pretty soon they are going to create a chip that can run all high-consumption games at the same time, that way, you won't have to choose your games anyway...

 

The new 900 series EEE was just posted as being unboxed. Looks very nice but I think those atom processors would be a nice kicker. It would be nice to be able to get the 12gb SSD preinstalled with both Linux and XP

 

There's really very little point to doing a dual boot especially on a 12gb. I had dual boot unbuntu and vista going for a while, but I barely ever used ubuntu. Vista works fine for me. It might be fun to play around in linux but on 12gb.. forget it.

 

Yeah, Vista uses 10GB of hard drive space on its own. It'd take a lean Linux distro to fit in 2GB. Doable, but not comfortably. Ditch Vista and dual boot Linux and XP.

 

I think that using XP for any tasks best suited for its use and windows only tasks at school, then using linux as your day to day, quick and easy. Besides, 12GB is alot...unless you use vista, which on the eee is a bit underpowered imho; my current G2S runs it with ease, but thats 3GB ram and 2.4 GHZ :/, I have had to run it on less and it was a lag fest (Dell AMD 15").

 

Is there any word on how much Atom is supposed to improve battery life? If it is significant, that would be my only reason to wait to purchase an Eee.

 

Mediocre explanation here: http://www.intel.com/technology/atom/index.htm In short, since its so small it should save battery life, but I have not seen any benchmarks yet.

 

And a point for you. It just sounds so cool with all its transistors and "microarchitecture" that I want to wait for it. But you bring up a good point that there aren't any benchmarks. I guess I am assuming that I won't have to sacrifice processing speed for longer battery usage.

 

True. Everything these days seem to be getting smaller, faster, and more efficient. I was a big fan of the Pentium M but not the Celeron M, maybe this Atom will be a good upgrade, if not, I hear overclocking the little eee is not out of range and the new versions would be a perfect fit for a gadget loving college student with some spare dough. For my situation, I think the race is still between the eee and the new cloudbook :/, the HP and the Toshiba just seem to have little things that do not fit for me.

 

The new cloudbook is definitely cool! The CeBIT version I saw has all of the "cartridge" type adaptors like the VoIP phone that are interchangeable - very smart. I don't know how competitive price wise it will be with the Eee. I am the college student that will pretend to have extra dough and buy it, LOL. It is going to be my ultimate old-school videogame console - portable and I can take notes with it. Oh, well, I would be the college student...I graduate in May...

 

The new info concerning the eee over at engadget about an ultimately processor upgrade and the permanent and non permanent ssds is interesting.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/16/eee-pc-900-details-launch-dates-come-trickling-out/

 

Much thanks - I've been reading Jkk mobile and engadget since I first started obsessing over the UMPC market...

 

A dual core Atom would be nice on a EEE ...
And maybe a 20 GB standard hdd...or flash memory,whichever works ...Cause 4 gb is ridiculous, I have more crap in my Recycle Bin than that

 

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6845&Itemid=1

Dual core Atom is not coming till next year. The only laptop atom processor coming this year is the N270 @ 1.6GHz. I will buy an EEE 900 when this is released in June.

 

Dam, 1.6, thats enough to run an armada Those dual cores would be sweat on such a small package, but if it is everything it is hyped to be, the new little eee's should be a ton o fun.

 

I know it`s not coming, that`s why I said it`d be nice.
A 1-2W CPu would definitely bump up the battery life.
Althoug I`d like a 6 and 8 cell battery option on the EEE. Otherwise it`s a kiddies` toy...

 

I am glad they are going to have designs in June that they will release. I read the interview with the ASUS CEO and he got me excited (in the clean sense, ).

What can I say? They were totally right when they thought that chicks would like this thing! I saw a plastic casing for it too, and was thinking if they made casing opaque with designs, there could be a whole skinning line for these things.

All right, I need to calm down...

 

That is great news, I promised my mother one, so I was just going to resort to painting it...well it should make life a bit easier. I hope the new version will pull away from the competition, I would hate to have to choose between others.

 

Yeah, the CEO said that there would be an "oriental style" and a "western style". So he also put it in terms that there would be an "LA" style and a "NY" style.