SFF is something that has been around for ages, but because of technological limitations, it has historically been limited to low-power operations, both in the sense of low wattage and low processing ability. With the advent of the Atom, Intel has brought SFF computing the front and almost single-handedly reinforced the stigma that SFF computing means computing with caveats. So what is a person to do if they want SFF and want a powerful, usable computer? Well, there are choices.
I’m not sure how to read this, exactly, because it may be easier to overstate what is actually happening. Remember VIA and how I keep mentioning their Nano? The Nano is their CPU that actually puts up a fight against the Atom, and in many cases, eclipses it. Well, it’s been taking a long time for it to come out, and in light of HP dumping them for Intel, VIA’s netbook possibilities may be under fire. (more…)
So it was just last week that Dell decided to let the world know that they’re going to be releasing what looks to be a compelling netbook, the Dell Mini 12 Netbook / Dell Inspiron 1210 Netbook, and this week we have HP re-entering the market with their HP Mini 1000 netbook. What separates this from the original HP Mini netbook? Well, let’s take a look. (more…)
Hot on the heels of the news of the Commodore netbook announcement comes more information, sort of, and a boatload of pictures of that and some other projects Commodore has been working on. Maybe it’s the old school geek in me, but I look at these things and I want one. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I’m almost willing to spend the money on one just so I can carry a Commodore around and see who the other hardcore geeks are who recognize and remember the brand. (more…)
It seems my idea of doing retro reviews on old, crappy hardware that no one really cares about except to laugh at has already been done. This review of the Everex netbook, which must be somewhere around a year after the netbook was originally released, goes into the gory details of how big a failure it is. Of course, if you’ve read any of the reviews that have been around for a while now you’d know this is the case. That doesn’t make it less enjoyable to read, however. (more…)
First on the list is another netbook tablet being powered by the Atom from Arbor (who?). I know I railed on poor Kohjinsha’s upcoming netbook tablet, but this one is a little more interesting to me because it’s a 7″ tablet computer, and it’s been ruggedized. The market may not be the standard consumer market but rather military or other similar “rough” markets where computers need to withstand a beating. (more…)
DigiTimes is reporting that VIA is prepping to launch Mobile-ITX, which is supposed to be even smaller than Pico-ITX. Read that again: smaller than Pico-ITX. I have to wonder if that’s a typo considering how ridiculously small Pico-ITX is, especially when you consider that Mobile-ITX is going to support the C7 and Nano. DigiTimes speculates that this could be applied to robotics, but I’m wondering what about a Nano based phone or internet tablet? (more…)