Big Surprise: The iPad Is Killing The Netbook Craze

Big Surprise: The iPad Is Killing The Netbook Craze

I’m filing this under “not very surprising” — It appears the netbook fad has already peaked, thanks to analytics from Fortune.com. To be precise, it was last summer, when the popular, affordable tiny notebooks had a 641% year-over-year growth rate. But ever since Apple announced its tablet in January, those numbers have been dramatically decreasing. Personally, I think that netbooks will still continue to sell — they do offer things that the iPad doesn’t. But pricing the iPad to start at $500 was a genius move by Apple. It’ll be interesting to see how those netbook sales look a year from now.

CSL G5

CSL is a leading and most established mobile phone service company in Malaysia. CSL phone is mainly utilizing MTK platform to deliver feature-rich mobile phones with exciting experience that enables you to do all the things you want on the phone easily, which includes analog TV features, camera-enabled, loud and clear music player and of course, the dual-SIM feature which allows two lines to be active at the same time.

So looking for a multifunction phone at an affordable price? Well the CSL phone will definitely suit you.

Specification

General

• Network: |GSM Dualband
  
• Announced: |January 2010
  
• Status: |Available
  

Size

• Dimension: |110 x 54 x 14 mm
  
• Weight: |88g
  

Display

• Type: |Full Touch Bar Type
  
• Size: |3.0 inch WQVGA
  

Memory

• Phone Book: |Yes
  
• Call records: |Yes
  
• Card slot: |Yes
  

Data

• OS: |MTK
  
• GPRS: |Yes
  
• HSCSD: |No
  
• EDGE: |No
  
• 3G: |No
  
• WLAN: |No
  
• Bluetooth: |Yes
  
• Infrared Port: |No
  
• USB: |Yes
  

Features

• Messaging: |SMS, MMS
  
• Browser: |WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML
  
• Games: |Yes
  
• Color: |Green , Orange
  
• Camera: |Yes
  
• Others:

  • VGame
  • Dual SIM Dual Standby
  • FM Radio
  • Analog TV
  • MP3 / MP4 Player
  • Email
  • Java support
  • MSN
  • CSL Fun Club
  • T-Flash/microSD Card Expansion
  • Multi Languages (English, Chinese, Malay)
  • Islamic Features (Azan, Kiblat, *Al-Quran) *optional
  
  

Battery

• Battery: |950 mAh
  
• Stand-by: |Up to 180 hr (Based on Network)
  
• Talk time: |Up to 3 hr (Based on Network)

iPhone 4G dreamed in the wild

Since the public has come down after speculating on the iPad followed by its announcement, it is time we think remember the next gen iPhone 4G and show you some of the latest mock-ups on it. Not just that they appear in an unprogressive fashion, but that this particular one found accidentally on the Web runs pretty close to what everyone is expecting. It gives suggestions on a front camera, microSD expansion slot which will never be there but no matter, bright and happy color schemes. iPhone 4G already has a rather straight forward “must have” hardware and feature list. But from the design point of view, how could it evolve? Even free-minded sketches show no paths of alternative. Whether it is good or bad for the iPhone is quite a question for the ages, so have your say on future of iPhone's design in comments.

Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus are now official

Good news for Palm’s WebOS fans as today Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus were announced to come out soon. Apart from the fact of the announcement, which would have inevitably happened sooner or later, we want to bring in some details on what makes the difference between Palm smartphone models, and those with Plus in the name. Firstly, AT&T and Verizon are now also in the business. So you can couple services they provide to that. Then there is Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g added to Pixi’s feature list. This, I think, fills the most obvious feature gap between Pixi and other smartphones including Pre as well by the way. What’s about Pre Plus, it now has double the memory (16GB), a bit longer battery life and video capture. Pre Plus and Pixi Plus are priced $149 on AT&T, $179 on Verizon and $49 on both carriers respectively. To get one of these when they come out soon you will have to agree on a two-year plan and mail-in rebate.

Asus Eee Top ET2010AGT - 20-inch touchscreen for 0

Earlier this month we have been looking at a new MSI Wind Top All-in-One lineup. A beautiful piece of engineering and design, but, let’s be honest, pricewise it pushes extremes of what even latest hardware can cost. This though, Asus Eee Top ET2010AGT, which seems to me like a very distant but still a rival for a Core i7 powered 24-inch MSI winds things down a bit. I urge you to leave alone prejudice about Atom processors that all Eee PCs tend to have. It’s AMD Athlon X2 1.6GHz for this one, coupled with ATI Mobility Radeon HD5470 with 512MB dedicated memory, 4GB RAM and 7200rpm 500GB HDD should do well for home entertaining. And you can play with that 20-inch 1400 x 900 multitouch display for equivalent of $850 or drop this feature and pay $800.

Onkyo MX1007A4 netbook has 14.4h battery life

What do you do if you are not among world’s major manufacturers but you have desire and ability to make something competitive on the market? Onkyo has picked up one of the all-time good solutions for its MX1007A4 netbook coming out in Japan next week - made one feature noticeable among all the others. This has 14.4 hours of battery life and no, it doesn’t weight a ton. In fact it’s barely over a kilo – 1.16kg (2.56lbs) to be precise. At this point I’m guessing that battery life this long is achieved not by a huge battery in first place, but by very economic power management. Which means the MX1007A4 does not have too many features to play with. I can’t blame Onkyo’s latest netbook for that. I think it makes perfect sense and featurelessness to it will make it cheap also. Mind you though that MX1007A4 has just enough of everything for everyday life. Check out specs we have scraped up together form Japanese press release.

Onkyo MX1007A4


• Processor: Intel Atom Z515, 1.2GHz


• System memory: 1GB DDR2 SDRAM, 400Hz


• Hard drive:250GB, 5,400rpm


• Display: 10.1-inch, 1,024 x 600


• Battery: Li-Ion, 10.8V, 5,800mAh


• LAN: b/g/n IEEE 802.11


• Bluetooth: v2.1 + EDR


• USB: v2.0 x 2


• Operating system: Windows 7 Starter

HTML5 goes mobile with LG Mini

LG launches its Mini (model number GD880) web orientated mobile phone this April in Europe followed by other regions of the world. LG states no price as it will vary according to every particular region. The most interesting thing yet about the GD880 Mini is its Phantom Browser with HTML5 support. Since web orientation is a key feature of LG Mini, they made it a full touchscreen with 3.2-inch display and no physical keyboard. As the official press release says, they tried to keep things as simple as possible, so they like to call it a mobile phone with smartphone-like features. Design is therefore also simple and is March’s iF product design award holder. The bottom line for LG Mini is: HTML5 web experience for all popular web services and web apps, Wi-Fi, HSDPA, A-GPS, fresh design plus 5 megapixel camera. Probably won’t cost too much.