Netbook Evangelist | The blog with information for netbooks & tablets

According to a recent online survey conducted by a market research firm, AT&T is at least considering carrying netbooks in their stores.

Survey materials tease not only a wide variety of netbook models at AT&T, but 30-minute in-store consultation for those who may need a tutorial to get up and running. While AT&T is already in the netbook-subsidy business, the company has relied upon third parties like RadioShack to sell the hardware and service. Now it looks like AT&T is gearing up to geek out on their own accord.

Source: http://i.gizmodo.com/5153052/att-stores-to-stock-netbooks?skyline=true&s=x

Media-player manufacturer Archos is developing a portable tablet-phone that uses the Google Android operating system. The touch-screen device, soon to be known as the Internet Media Tablet, will be released in the 3^rd quarter of 2009, the company announced. No word yet on pricing, but so far the spec sheet looks promising:

* High-resolution, 5-inch display

* TV recording and HD video playback

* “Hundreds of hours” of video storage (up to 500GB)

* An ultra-thin, 10-mm casing

* Adobe Flash support

Given Archos’ expertise with elegant, high-end media players, it’s a logical step for the company to make the leap to the mobile phone market, particularly in light of the popular wisdom that standalone media gadgets will soon go the way of the VCR. A tablet-phone with a 5-inch display may make a dandy mobile device, particularly for users who do a lot of web browsing.

But perhaps the bigger story here is Google’s Android ambitions. Archos’ Internet Media Tablet, with its powerful video capabilities and relatively large screen (for a smart phone, anyway), inches closer to netbook territory. And while Google has made it clear that Android is a mobile operating system-at least for now-there’s little doubt that the OS will soon make the leap to other tech devices, including set-top boxes and eventually even netbook computers, as this VentureBeat FAQ indicates.

Personally, I like the idea of Android on netbooks. The mobile phone version of Android is intuitive and easier to learn than the clunky Windows Mobile, and hopefully Google can extend that success to other computing devices. Microsoft, be very afraid.

As netbook sales continue to pick up in a struggling world economy, Intel, which makes the processors found in many of those netbooks, is mulling over how best to profit from that market.

Intel is now preparing for the mass production of Google Android-based netbooks, a reliable source tells us, though for now we have few other details.

Such an effort could yield Android netbooks as early as this year, but 2010 remains a more likely scenario.

We’ve previously detailed and showed off what a netbook running Android can do. While the platform is just starting to get traction as a mobile operating system, its core is based on Linux, which of course powers many different computerized devices. This means it’s possible for Android to also run on many types of devices, something that Fujitsu is looking into already. But Android running on personal computers might be its most interesting usage. And that’s what netbooks are: Small, inexpensive personal computers.

Intel recently reported poor results for its fourth quarter earnings, as demand for computers in general declined. When chief executive Paul Otellini talked with analysts about the netbook phenomenon during the company’s conference call, he indicated that netbook sales were not eating into notebook sales on a large scale — rather, they were incremental — and a source of excitement in the market. Regardless of the way you look at it, netbook sales are growing, and Intel is probably more than willing to attach itself to any area it sees with growth potential.

Android running on netbooks represents what could be a very viable alternative for those who don’t want netbooks that run an operating system like Windows Vista. Linux has already proven to be a popular OS choice among netbook buyers, and a lot of those users may be more than willing to use Android and its built-in functionality such as an application store.

Source: http://venturebeat.com/2009/01/30/source-intel-prepping-for-mass-roll-out-of-android-netbooks/

AT&T looks to sell mini-laptops, bundled with wireless data contracts, for prices like $99 or less. Is the gambit brilliant or foolhardy?

(Fortune) — Glenn Lurie knows Silicon Valley better than most telecom industry types. As AT&T’s point man on the iPhone, he was the guy who camped out in Cupertino and hashed out the blockbuster iPhone launch with Apple. The next big game in his sights? The netbook.

That’s right, the netbook, that shrunken, low-priced laptop that lately has been a rare bright spot in the moribund PC industry. To hear Lurie tell it, AT&T’s next hit phone might not be a phone at all, but a netbook with built-in Internet access that works anywhere you can get a cell signal.

Get ready for the clincher: Sign up for a two-year contract, and you might get your new PC for $99 or less.

The upshot is that the “free phone” phenomenon that helped make handsets ubiquitous in the U.S. isn’t just for phones anymore. The first signs of change came this past holiday season when, working with AT&T (T, Fortune 500), Radio Shack offered a $99 deal on an Acer netbook, a promotion that went “extremely well,” Lurie says. “That Acer one’s a great example of how partnerships are going to work. That was Radio Shack coming to us saying, ‘We’ve got an idea. Can you help us?’ ”

As president of AT&T’s new Emerging Devices division, Lurie hopes to do a lot more of those deals. His mission is to get just about everything except phones connected to AT&T’s broadband network — laptops, GPS devices, cars, games, medical equipment, “all the way to dog collars,” he quips.

It’s only January, but he’s off to a fast start. At the annual Consumer Electronics Show gadgetfest earlier this month, Lurie teamed with Sony (SNE) and Dell (DELL, Fortune 500) to announce that a new Sony camera will use AT&T’s wireless network to automatically upload photos, and Dell will discount its $449 Inspiron Mini 9 netbook to $99 when buyers sign up for an AT&T data plan. (Of course, there’s a catch: The price gets to $99 only after a $349 mail-in rebate, so you’ve got to front the money and trust the fickle Rebate Fairy to follow through.)

Why is AT&T helping to fund netbook discounts? Well, such deals have already proven popular in Europe and Asia, and U.S. carriers are looking for effective ways to lock customers into data contracts. Even in this tough economy, carriers are spending billions to boost their network speeds and out-duel the competition. But the carriers know bragging rights to the fastest data connection aren’t worth much unless customers actually sign up. They have a hunch that cheap netbooks will get customers to commit to two-year data plans, just like free phones did for voice.

The plan could backfire. AT&T doesn’t know yet whether netbook users will prove to be as loyal (and profitable) as, say, iPhone users. If they’re not, the discounts could turn out to be a waste of money. And there’s certainly no guaranteed that even the lure of a cheap netbook will get the masses to increase their monthly phone bills in the midst of a punishing recession.

But the titans of the PC industry certainly seem to be rooting for the idea of signing on with carriers. Kevin Frost, who runs the consumer notebook division for Hewlett-Packard (HPQ, Fortune 500), said last year that part of the company’s vision is to make laptops as ubiquitous as cell phones, and working with folks like AT&T fits in perfectly.

What about Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500)? Lurie won’t offer specifics of course, but during our chat he mentions that he just sat down with Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook a few minutes earlier. Will AT&T ever sell a discounted MacBook? “We’re having conversations with lots of folks,” Lurie says. “I would very much like to do more business with Apple, and hope that we do.”

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/28/technology/netbooks.fortune/?postversion=2009012810

In today’s Q1 Financial Earnings call, COO Tim Cook, who is currently overseeing day-today activity at Apple, commented on the possibility of a sub-$500 “netbook” or lower priced device. In a nutshell, it doesn’t seem likely.

Backing up what CEO Steve Jobs has said about the netbook category, Cook reiterated Apple’s stance on such a device. “We are watching the space,” Cook explained. But currently Apple does not think that the hardware and software offerings in this space are something their customers would appreciate. “Smaller screens, cramped keyboard,” were just among some of the issues Apple sees in developing such a small or portable device.

When it comes to an entirely separate device, Apple’s stance on the netbook has remained firm for quite some time. CEO Steve Jobs has explicitly stated that the iPhone is what they offer in this space, and expanding on that product is what we should expect. The price margins between Apple’s lowest priced notebook (the white Macbook), and how they would presumably price a netbook would lead to immensely conflicting products, especially in terms of price, something that Apple isn’t particularly akin to have going on.

Interestingly, TechCrunch has recently fueled the fire when it comes to netbook rumors claiming a larger touch device is set to make its debut in the fall of 2009. They claim to have received relatively similar information from three different sources, all with close ties to the Cupertino-based company. One such informant had gone on to note,” “…expect a large screen iPod touch device to be released in the Fall of ‘09, with a 7 or 9 inch screen. Prototypes have been seen and handled by one of our sources, and Apple is talking to OEMs in Asia now about mass production.”

In a nutshell, we don’t expect a tablet-like or netbook device from Apple any time soon. But contradicting rumors do make the case for a prototype to be in existence. Instead, we expect the company to diversify the iPhone product line by adding higher end models, and lowering the price of current models (or at least this is what we’d like to see anyways).

Source: http://www.macblogz.com/2009/01/21/apple-netbook-doesnt-seem-likely-according-to-tim-cook/

The blogosphere is abuzz with a news report that Microsoft has announced a version of Windows 7 specifically designed for netbooks. That news report, however, is flat-out wrong. Microsoft has made no such announcement, and might not even be working on a netbook-specific version of the operating system.

An article on CNet UK says that:

Microsoft has confirmed to CNET UK that it will be providing a version of Windows 7 specifically developed for netbooks and sub-notebook computers, as well as at least one version for consumers, and one for enterprise users.

Note that the article doesn’t say a source inside Microsoft, but rather the company itself has confirmed that. That would mean that Microsoft has officially announced it’s working on a version of Windows 7 for netbooks.

The article surprised me, because the pre-beta and beta of Windows 7 is already being run on many netbooks, by people who have downloaded the beta and pre-beta. The beta and pre-beta are Vista Ultimate — there is no netbook-specific version of Windows 7. That means netbooks are right now running the regular version of Windows 7.

If that’s the case why, I wondered, would Microsoft announce a netbook-specific version?

In fact, Microsoft hasn’t announced a netbook-specific version. I asked a Microsoft spokesman if there were a netbook-specific version in the works, and if so, how it will differ from the normal version of Windows 7.

The answer I received was what I expected — a set of commonly asked questions and the official Microsoft answers about Windows 7. Here’s the most suitable one:

Q: Has Microsoft determined which Windows 7 SKU will be made available on small notebooks?

A: We haven’t made any announcements regarding Windows 7 SKUs.

So although it’s certainly possible that Microsoft will develop a netbook-specific version of Windows 7, they haven’t announced it, as the CNet article claims.

Will Microsoft actually develop a netbook-specific version of Windows 7? That’s not at all clear at this point. Windows 7 has a smaller footprint than Vista, and runs fine on netbooks even in its beta form. In fact, at the PDC when Windows 7 was publicly unveiled, Windows and Windows Live senior vice president Steve Sinofsky showed off Windows 7 while using a Lenovo S10 netbook. He said Windows 7 was using less than half of its 1 GB of RAM. And the Web is full of reports of people running Windows 7 on their netbooks.

Because an unmodified version of Windows 7 can run on netbooks, it’s not necessarily true that there needs to be a netbook version. So for now, the next time you hear someone say that Microsoft has “confirmed” that it’s working on a netbook version of Windows 7, you can safely tell them that it simply isn’t true.

Source: http://blogs.computerworld.com/microsoft_we_havent_announced_a_netbook_version_of_windows_7

While Windows may be more popular than Linux when it comes to netbooks for a variety of reasons, price certainly isn’t one of them. We don’t know whether it’s peoples’ fear of the unknown or just the awful UI facades typically used to hide the open-source alternative, but a lot of people are hoping that Android could sweep in and offer a third choice — someday. Not content to wait, a couple of freelancers at VentureBeat (who also run a startup called Mobile-facts) spent a few hours tweaking Google’s (Linux-based) OS to run on ASUS hardware and, thanks to the availability of open-source drivers for all the wee thing’s wee devices, were up and running in no time. Mind you, the giant buttons and simplistic UI seem more suited to a G1 than an S10, but it surely wouldn’t take long to fix that. So, the only question now is when will a manufacturer step up and announce Android out of the box? There’s a little electronics show coming up soon, so maybe we’ll hear more there.

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/02/android-installed-and-running-on-an-eee-pc-in-a-matter-of-hours/

Dual-core Intel Atom rivals are in the works. Via Technologies is planning a very low-power, dual-core Nano 3000 processor, according to Chinese-language Web site HKEPC. Via’s C7-M processor is used in Hewlett-Packard’s 2133 Mini-Note, which preceded the crop of Netbooks based on the Atom CPU. Via processors, however, were subsequently eclipsed by Intel’s Atom.

Advanced Micro Devices will target its low-power dual-core “Conesus” at the laptop market segment above Atom’s Netbook-centric space. Meanwhile, Freescale Semiconductor has indicated that it will bring out a very-low-power ARM chip that features a dual-core graphics engine targeted at Netbook-like laptops.

All of these developments indicate that the market for ultra-small devices and laptops should heat up in 2009. Intel currently offers the dual-core Atom 330 that is targeted at Nettops–small desktop computers.

The dual-core version of the Via Nano 3000–due in late 2009 or 2010–may use a Fujitsu 45-nanometer or TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) 40-nanometer manufacturing process, according to HKEPC. The Intel Atom is based on 45-nanometer process technology. The Via chip may also include SSE4 instruction support, HKEPC said. Generally, SSE4 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 4) instructions speed up multimedia applications.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10129923-64.html

Apple is in talks with one of its Taiwanese system manufacturers to begin manufacturing netbooks sometime next year, according to a recent report out of the Far East.

An article published by the Taiwanese Government Information Office on Monday cites Quanta vice chairman and president C.C. Leung as saying his company expects to see considerable growth in the global netbook market during the 2009 calendar year thanks to a flurry of new contract orders.

U.S.-based HP and Sony of Japan are said to have signed new netbook manufacturing agreements with the original systems manufacture this quarter. The report adds that in addition to “orders from existing brand clients as Acer, Lenovo, Hewlett Packard and BenQ, Quanta is expected to add Sony [U.S.] and Apple as clients for the contract manufacture of netbook computers in 2009.”

Quanta shipped a total of 9.7 million netbooks during the third quarter of 2008 to its various customers but is expecting sales of the budget notebooks to remain relatively flat for the fourth quarter, which ends shortly.

When asked recently about the prospect of an Apple netbook, chief executive Steve Jobs was quick to downplay the offerings as a “nascent category” in the portable computing market, saying the devices are off to a slow start. However, he noted that his company would be prepared to enter the market should it pick up.

“As best as we can tell, there’s not a lot of them being sold,” he told analysts during an October conference call. “But we’ll wait and see how that nascent category evolves, and we have got some pretty interesting ideas if it does evolve.”

Source: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/12/31/quanta_to_manufacture_apple_netbooks_in_2009_report.html

Apple has slowly entered and conquered gadget domains from portable music devices ala iPod to smart mobile phones ala iPhone. However there are areas where Apple still doesn’t have much of a presence, in fact no product offering at all. Two of these categories include Netbooks and Tablet PCs. Given the fact that Netbooks have recently become really popular and Asus and Dell has managed to rack in significant profits from their offerings, its only reasonable to imagine that Apple would one day – and that would be soon – enter the Netbooks and even the Tablet PC category with sublime offerings of its own. And there wont be a better time to launch such PCs than the current bad times, that have made everyone much more frugal than they used to be. To top it all, people have already started demanding Apple Netbooks.

Source: http://startupmeme.com/is-it-time-for-apple-to-enter-netbook-and-tablet-pc-categories/