Netbook Reviews

According to a number of reports we should expect to see a number of Smartbooks available in the fourth quater this year!

According to industry sources, Acer, Foxconn, Compal, Pegtron and a number of other Taiwanese manufacturers are due to deliver Snapgragon and Tegra chipset based smartbooks by the end of this year.

News that there would be no new netbooks from Acer or Asus this year spread very quickly around the Internet a few days ago. Many people were concerned about the upcoming release of the Android-based Aspire One from Acer.

Netbooks generally do not feature an optical drive of any sort. Which can be a problem if you need to access some optical media.

An external USB DVD drive would be an obvious solution, which I have written about in the past, with a number of recommendations.

In a report from DigiTimes, they state that HP has contracted Quanta to start production on some all new 11.6-inch netbook in August this year, and also a new 10.1-inch model before the year end.

Acer have announced that they will release a new version of the popular 10.1-inch Acer Aspire One D250 netbook with a 720p HD display.

The Acer D250 has been a popular netbook since it’s release, but has previously only been available with a 1024×600 (WSVGA) resolution.

The ViewSonic VOT 120 and VOT 121 are two new nettops announced alongside the Ion powered VOT 130 nettop.

The ViewSonic VOT 120 features the Intel Atom N270 CPU, while the ViewSonic VOT 121 has the Intel CULC SU2700 CPU.

No long normally passes by without a new netbook release on the horizon. But that looks set to change from Asus and Acer for the near future.

It has been said that the Acer and Asus will be freezing the release of any new netbooks until next year! This delay has been made to coincide with Intel’s recent decision to postpone their new Pinetrail platform, which includes the new Atom N450 processor.

ViewSonic have introduced a two new netbooks to the market, along with two new nettops. The ViewSonic VOT 130 / 132 are the most interesting nettops as they feature the impressive Nvidia Ion graphics / chipset.

Users will have a choice between two nettops, the VOT 130 and the VOT 132.

As soon as you get a look at the HP Mini 5101 you will see that it is no ordinary netbook, and some would say it was a set up from the common netbook.

The HP Mini 5101 is a durable business class netbook with a compact design, long battery life and a high quality aluminum and magnesium chassis.

As you might guess from the name, the ASRock ION 330 features the dual core Intel Atom 330 processor, and the Nividia Ion chipset / graphics.

It is one of the more unusual netops on the market as it features an optical drive. Previous this has been a DVD drive.