Intel Atom D510 Review, Performance, Etc. Round-up
It’s been a long time since we’ve looked at what Intel is up to these days and counted the Intel Pine Trail updates among those things. So, in honor of it being almost a year since talking about what Intel has been planning for their ever expanding netbook and nettop line, let’s look at what is finally on the verge of coming out in the near future to a netbook or nettop near you.
Atom Patch for Snow Leopard 10.6.2 = Happy Netbook
Once again I find myself in the position where I’m unable to test this for myself, namely because I’ve had problems getting Snow Leopard to install on any of my netbooks, but some people are reporting success with this. Therefore, with the intention of disseminating information and possibly helping some folks out, allow me to redirect you to Insanely Mac where there’s a forum thread with a patch and some translated instructions. (Scroll down to post 7 for short and sweet instructions.)
If it works for you, let others know!
OS X 10.6.2 Is Out And Nixes Atom — Netbooks Beware
I hesitated to post anything about this when it originally came out in one of the developer seeds that OS X 10.6.2, the latest update to Snow Leopard, had removed (or intentionally sabotaged unofficial) Atom support. It looked like that was certainly the case, and then a few days later another build had Atom support restored. However, 10.6.2 is officially out today and the various sites are reporting that Atom support is in fact gone.
Intel SU2700 and Intel GS40
Computex is going on strong right now in Tapei, and that of course means there’s a whole hell of a lot of announcements, product appearances, and generally, news, than I could possibly ever hope to cover. However, I’ll probably throw a note out here for the more interesting things, and it just so happens that I find the Intel SU2700, a new CULV CPU, and the Intel GS40 to be interesting. What are they? Glad you asked.
Samsung N120 Netbook Review
Update: thanks to an astute reader who pointed out I never got around to posting pictures, I posted pictures. Enjoy.
Samsung N120 Netbook Front
The netbook scene has become something of an Asus show since they brought out the Eee PC 1000HE, and for good reason. In my review of the Asus Eee PC 1000HE, I talked about the positives and the very few negatives, which were pretty much limited to the negatives all netbooks have (surprise: Samsung’s touchpad sucks!), but honestly, it was most positives, and for good reason. Asus really outdid themselves with the 1000HE. Sure, it’s not the prettiest netbook out there, but it’s massively functional. How does the Samsung N120 netbook shape up? Read on to find out.
OS X 10.5.7 Battery Boost For Hackintoshes?
Update: 10.5.7 appears to be installed and working on my Samsung N120 netbook. At the lowest brightness setting (since brightness control is flaky in the Samsung N120 netbook) OS X is predicting over 7 hours of battery life (6 hours for the LCD at full brightness). This is up from ~5 in 10.5.6. Apple has definitely tweaked OS X for the Atom, or something close enough that it still affected it.
As you may or may not know, Apple released the 10.5.7 update to OS X just a couple of days ago, and reports are trickling in to various sites (including our forums here) and they seem to suggest that the 10.5.7 update adds support for Intel Atom CPUs. Furthermore, it would seem that officially (?) recognizing the CPU, Apple has worked out superior power management that is resulting in a significant boost to battery life.
Asus Eee PC 1000HE Netbook Review
I take a different approach to doing reviews and prefer to look at real-world use, so let’s look at the Asus Eee PC 1000HE netbook with that idea in mind. Aside from actual user impressions, I’m going to include what it’s like to use this netbook with Windows 7, OS X, and possibly linux (but I don’t promise). I’m not going to bother with running all of the benchmarks and getting the numbers, however, so if that’s what you’re looking for, please read any of the other excellent reviews that are out there. (Here’s a spoiler: it performs as well as 95% the netbooks out there.) However, if you’re looking to find out what it’s like to actually use and work on, keep reading.