MSI's 10-inch Wind U100 falls to $349 at Best Buy

In an apparent effort to move every last unit before ASUS drops a $200 Eee PC in 2009, Best Buy has knocked $50 off of MSI’s 10-inch Wind U100. The Atom N270-powered netbook now checks in at just $349, a price that just seems to fit so much better with the term “netbook” than, say, $500+. The real question, however, is: three fifty low enough for you?

[Via Wired]

Toshiba NB100 netbook for Japan

Toshiba has finally launched its first netbook in the Japanese market. Dubbed as the NB100, the netbook boasts an 8.9-inch LCD screen (1024 x 600 resolution) with a 1.6GHz Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive, and WiFi. Available in Cosmic Black, Champagne Gold, and Bright Silver, this portable computer will be available in either Ubuntu or Windows XP OS. The price starts at $757, which is more expensive than the price in Europe for approx. $472. [Akihabara]

Touch-screen kit for Aspire One and Eee PC 900/901 hits eBay, no soldering required

You know you’ve made it when your little-laptops-that-could sit atop a market-share big enough to support third-party device-hackery like this. It’s “easy,” it’s “fun,” it’s a solder-less DIY touch-screen kit made specifically for the Acer Aspire One and Eee PC 900/901 netbooks. The 4-wire, resistive panel display with Mac, Linux, and Windows drivers sure looks easy enough to install. But we’ll wait for the reviews to see just how well the $96 panel (a cool 25% of the netbook’s price) performs under day-to-day use, thankyouverymuch. We’ve got our Windows 7 pre-beta ready just in case.

[Thanks, Joe L.]

Aspire One shipments on pace to beat Eee PC

Acer’s Aspire One has been somewhat overlooked in the face of a relentless barrage of Eee PCs and other netbooks, but slow and steady tends to win the race — Acer says it’s on track to ship six million machines this year, which is ahead of ASUS’s target of five million Eees. Acer’s mostly pulled into the lead due to its size and ability to push the Aspire One globally, while ASUS (which less than half the revenue) has been building the Eee market by market. Of course, that doesn’t mean ASUS is going down without a fight — we’ve already seen some aggressive ads, and Acer doesn’t have anything to match machines like the S101. Looks like the netbook market is starting to get heated — it’ll be interesting to see how this all shakes out over the next few months.

Acer Upgrades HDD Capacity For Aspire One Netbook

Here is good news for those who have the Acer Aspire One netbook. Acer has upgraded this netbook with the larger 40GB hard disk drive so the total storage capacity will be 160GB. Other features include 1GB of RAM, an N270 Atom CPU, and a 8.9 inch WSVGA screen with LED backlight. The price for the upgrade version is around €430 in Japan. [Akihabara]

Lenovo netbook gets instant fix

 LENOVO has added an ‘e’ to its dinky S10 Ideapad netbook for those of you who just can’t wait to get on t’internet.The company has released the S10e preloaded with a custom version of Splashtop Linux which means you can be online and browsing away to your heart’s content before you can even say World Wide Wibble.

Quickstart, which bypasses Windows XP completely, will allow users to (nearly) instantly get online, fiddle with photos, chat or listen to music. µ

Overclockable MSI Wind Netbook

MSI has recently released the official firmware update for its famous MSI Wind netbook that enables users to overclock the performance of this netbook. The official v1.09 BIOS update for the MSI Wind is available for download at the MSI site. Users will be able to push the performance of the netbook by 8%, 15% or 24% beyond the normal limits. [MSI]

HP Mini 1000 hands-on

If our overly fannish announcement post didn’t give it away, we’re pretty excited about the HP Mini 1000. It has little to do with the specs — the drop in screen resolution from the 2133 is a little disappointing, plus we would’ve liked to at least see what one of these netbooks could do with a VIA Nano under the hood — and everything to do with the fit and finish HP is bringing to this pricepoint ($399), in both hardware and software. Peep our impressions after the break. Continue reading…

HP's new Mini 1000 and MIE Linux make netbooks fun again

We’ve been struggling to keep awake for the large majority of this year, as netbook after netbook lands in our laps with identical specs, form factors and general shoddiness. No longer. HP is giving the market a shot in the arm with its new “clutch-style” skinny form factors, polished Linux OS and aggressive price points — even if the specs are about as boring as the Mini-Note 2133. As rumored, HP’s new Mini 1000 netbook is ditching VIA and going the Atom route (1.6GHz N270, in case you hadn’t guessed). Also new is an option for a 10.2-inch display, though it’s a mere 1024 x 600 instead of the 1280 x 768 display on the 2133 — for a bit cheaper you can get a 1024 x 600 8.9-inch display, but that would just be boring. HP is offering 512MB, 1GB and 2GB RAM configurations, though the XP option limits you to 1GB (thanks, Microsoft). For storage you can score a 60GB 4200 rpm HDD or your choice of a 8GB or 16GB SSD. If you go the SSD route there’s also room for a 2, 4 or 8GB “HP Mini Mobile Drive,” which is a regular USB drive that inserts all the way into a special slot for added integration. There’s also an SD slot, VGA webcam, 802.11b/g, optional Bluetooth, Ethernet and dual USB plugs. Where things get extra interesting is in choice of OS. You can go the standard XP route, or for $20 less you can go for HP’s brand new Ubuntu-based Linux “experience,” MIE, which reminds us not just a little of HP’s TouchSmart interface. The XP version is available today starting at $399, with a 10.2-inch version costing just a little bit more. The Vivienne Tam Edition, which brings a whole lot of style but little substance to the offering, will go for $699 in mid-December, and the MIE version will land in January for a mere $379. Continue reading…

Eee PC 1002HA Netbook Rumored

According to the rumors, Asus will release another version of Eee PC very soon. It is actually an update version of the Eee PC 1001HA, known as the Eee PC 1002HA. It will be powered by a poor 2-cell battery, an Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor, 1GB RAM and a 160GB hard drive. The netbook will retail for around $559. Stay tuned for more updates. [Eeepc]

Dell Inspiron Mini 12 NetBook

The spanking new Dell Inspiron Mini 12 netbook has been released in Japan. It is a little bit larger than the Inspiron Mini 9. Priced at $600 upwards depending on the configuration, the netbook is powered by either Linux Ubuntu or Microsoft Windows XP OS with 1GB RAM, a choice of 60GB or 80GB hard drive, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, an integrated webcam, and a 12.1 inch WXGA display screen. [Press Release]

Super Small Netbook By Imovio

Here is the new and smallest netbook from Imovio. Dubbed as the iKIT, it comes equipped with a 2.8 inch display screen, 64MB RAM, Full QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi connectivity, a 0.3MP webcam, one USB 2.0 port, SD memory card slot and Bluetooth support. This Linux-powered netbook will be pre-loaded with some applications including instant messaging, a media player, Opera Mini and a contact manager. [Eee PC Net]