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And rather better than a US$35 tablet, if you need a Windows 10 machine lurking around Among the many bizarre and stupid mistakes Microsoft made with Windows 8.x was the decision to require screens to have resolution of at least 1024 x 768. That decision meant that hordes of Netbooks, the very small laptops popular in the late noughties, had no obvious upgrade path from Windows XP to Windows 8.x. Back in November 2013 I therefore tried to figure out how to extend the life of my own Netbook. Along the way I confirmed that Windows 8 was indeed a...

Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) just explained the business case for Chromebooks in a press briefing at I/O, and it’s crystal clear that they’re not a consumer product. Rather, Google is going after Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) heart — the corporate IT department.The pitch: Chromebooks are so much cheaper and easier to manage than PCs, it will free up the IT department to do other more interesting (and profit-centered) things.According to Gartner, the cost of managing each Windows PC in an organization is between $3,000 and $5,000 a year. That’s how much it takes for an IT person to do things like push Windows and...

Though we still like to think of Intel first and foremost as a computer CPU company, the fact of the matter is the company is trying its hardest to expand their horizons. Among their expansion efforts are a push in to the smartphone space, and to further that Intel is at Mobile World Congress 2011 making their latest smartphone-related announcements. The first announcement, and of course the one nearest and dearest to our hearts, is on the CPU side of things. Medfield – Intel’s next-generation Atom-based smartphone SoC is now sampling and will ship later this year. Intel still hasn’t...

We've yet to test AMD's Fusion platform for ourselves, but the support being shown by the industry can only be a good sign.We're seeing Fusion-based notebooks and computer systems pour out of this year's CES, and joining the likes of HP, Lenovo and Gigabyte is Zotac, whose ZBox Blu-ray AD03 aims to take Fusion into the living room. The compact mini-PC, pictured above, isn't entirely new, but unlike previous models, the new AD03 packs a dual-core AMD Fusion E-350 APU complete with integrated Radeon HD 6310 graphics.AMD's platform is showing plenty of early HTPC potential, and Zotac's ZBox is shaping...

"That tablet thing? Yeah, we'll get back to you on that." That's a crude but fairly accurate encapsulation of the attitude Microsoft, Intel, and Advanced Micro Devices have toward the iPad and the tablet market in general. The iPad has not only been a hit in the U.S.The technologically-finicky Japanese love it too.—(Credit: Apple) Why the cavalier attitude? Before I defer to the opinion of an IDC analyst I interviewed (below), here's one pretty obvious reason I'll put forward. All three companies look at their revenue streams--traditional PC hardware and software on laptops, desktops, and servers--and come to the conclusion...

In what will surely provide a boost to Google's Android platform outside the smartphone arena, computer maker Acer reportedly announced on Wednesday that all of its upcoming dual-core netbooks will run both Android and Windows 7.The announcement was made at Acer's Taiwan launch of its new dual-core Aspire One netbooks, which will feature Intel's Atom 550 processor as well as Android, according to a report in DigiTimes. The move is expected to increase demand by providing "more efficiency to consumers" while costing Acer very little, the report said. Also included in the new "Happy" Aspire One netbooks will be a...

IDG News Service - Shipments of laptops rose by 43.4% in the first three months of 2010, compared to the same period last year, according to Gartner Inc. The researcher cited a 71% increase in netbook sales, which it said shouldn't be affected by the arrival of Apple's iPad and other tablets. The year-over-year growth was the highest the laptop market has seen in the last eight years, Gartner said, and buyers spent about $36 billion. A total of 49.4 million PCs were shipped worldwide in the first quarter of 2010. About 20% of those were netbooks, which made up...

I've seen a flood of mostly unbranded 7" mini notebooks via online retailers priced at $89.95 - $125. Has anybody got any feedback on these little guys??

Desktops, laptops out - small, cheap computers in ARM CEO Warren East believes that netbooks will come to dominate the PC market - and it won't be that long before it happens. "Although netbooks are small today – maybe ten per cent of the PC market at most – we believe over the next several years that could completely change around and that could be 90 per cent of the PC market," PC Pro says he says. Alas, the magazine doesn't quote East explaining why he believes we all - well, 90 per cent of us - will be buying...

Intel (INTC) said Thursday that it would acquire Wind River (WIND), which makes software for embedded devices, in a deal valued at $884 million. With the move Intel is making a move to diversify into software and away from its dependence on the PC and server markets. The chip giant said in a statement that it will pay $11.50 a share in cash for Wind River, which closed at $8 on Wednesday.The purchase is interesting on a few fronts: Wind River bolsters Intel’s embedded software strategy;The purchase indicates that Intel thinks its future growth is in embedded devices such as...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Remember the line from the famous Clairol commercial? Does she or doesn't she? Only her hairdresser knows for sure.That popped into my head while I was listening to Oracle Corp. Chief Executive Larry Ellison at this week's Java One conference, a geek-fest for software developers who use the Java programming language. And no, I was not wondering if the famously egotistical 64-year-old tech icon -- who looks younger than his years -- has had any work done, or if he colors his hair. Ellison's comments that Oracle might develop software for stripped-down netbooks fueled speculation the...

Intel has announced plans for complete domination of the mobile market using new ultra-low voltage processors, a cool and sexy ultra-thin form factor and the promise to provide consumers with a full PC experience without sacrificing mobility. We had the opportunity to attend Intel’s global webcast for the launch of the Montevina Plus mobile platform today live from Computex 2009. The host of the event was Nick Knupffer, Intel’s Global Communications Manager and Uday Marty, Director of Product Marketing for the Mobile Platforms Group, was the featured speaker. Intel used this webcast to launch three new standard volt processors, the...

Windows 7 to debut Oct. 22; Google, Oracle make waves with 'netbook' designsSAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Oct. 22 should prove a key date for the brewing competition in the market for netbook computers among players including Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and potentially Oracle Corp.Microsoft on Tuesday set the October delivery date for a new version of its Windows operating system, which is designed to help it better exploit the rapidly growing market for netbooks. A Microsoft representative acknowledged that the company plans to announce the October availability date for Windows 7 at a conference in Taiwan on Wednesday. While Microsoft...

Back when the whole netbook thing started, Asus was king of the hill with a focus on netbooks with Linux pre-installed. Since they were kind of popular, it didn't take Microsoft long to start working together with Asus to 'port' Windows XP to the Asus line of netbooks, and with that, to other netbooks as well. The result was that Linux netbooks are now harder to find for many people. While Dell committed itself to Linux on netbooks, Asus has decided to just skip the first date and jump right into bed with Microsoft.

SSDs (solid state drives) are great. They’re shock resistant, consume less power, produce less heat, and have very fast seek times. If you have a computer with an SSD, such as an Eee PC, there are some tweaks you can make to increase performance and extend the life of the disk. The simplest tweak is to mount volumes using the noatime option. By default Linux will write the last accessed time attribute to files. This can reduce the life of your SSD by causing a lot of writes. The noatime mount option turns this off. Open your fstab file:sudo gedit...

It's not news that Microsoft will get Windows 7 out as fast as possible this year. Vista has been a complete dog, so Microsoft will rush to deliver what is essentially a cleaned-up, lightweight version. What is news is that Google will have its own contender, Android, in the desktop operating system market. Android, you ask? What would a Linux-based phone operating system be doing on the desktop? Running it, perhaps. You see, Matthäus Krzykowski and Daniel Hartmann, founders of start-up Mobile-facts, discovered late last year that Android has two product policies in its code. Product policies, they explained, are...

Walk by the netbook display at Best Buy and you're likely to hear cooing and exclamations of how cute the little laptops are. But take one home and you may realize your new baby just can't do the same things that a standard notebook can do. Netbooks are just about the only thing these days that are generating any excitement in the hardware space. The form factor is appealing to many, for sure. With about a 10-inch screen, these are much smaller than the standard-sized notebook, and certainly much lighter, and quite a bit less expensive, too. Some are as...

Another Netbook? No, not exactly. Hewlett-Packard's new Pavilion dv2 is an ultraportable, thank you. And the new Athlon Neo silicon inside from Advanced Micro Devices will try to prove that point. AMD is introducing new chips at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that target the no-man's land between Netbooks and notebooks. Typically, these designs are referred to as ultraportables--the most salient examples being Apple's MacBook Air, the Toshiba Portege, and the Sony Vaio TT series. So what makes AMD's platform different? In one word, price. Ultraportables fall into the boutique category of laptops: very stylish, very slim, very...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- For the first time in ages, I experienced serious computer lust.I'm not exactly what you'd call a gadget geek. I write about technology as a business, not usually as an end user. There are enough gadget-obsessed boys out there doing that. Who wants to compete with them? But when I saw Hewlett-Packard Co.'s unusual new netbook computer in photos last year from New York's Fashion Week, I fell for it. During the debut of fashion designer Vivienne Tam's spring collection, a model in a red, slinky dress carried the small computer in one hand, as if...

Episode One Thanks to their design as appliances, you can get down to useful work straight away with any of the new breed of Linux-based netbooks. But sooner or later, a fair few folk come up against the unfamiliarity of Linux. And, like the legendary tribe of pygmies, you may find yourself jumping up and down in the head-high long grass shouting out the incantation that gave the tribe its name: "We're the Fukarwi." This series is designed to address that cri de coeur. Let's plunge straight into the practicalities by taking a look at Acer's Aspire One - the...