Asus Eee PC 1201N is ION-powered

Asus
has announced a new 12-inch Eee PC 1201N netbook powered by Nvidia ION graphics and dual-core Intel Atom processor. This new 12-inch Eee PC 1201N netbook will come pre-loaded with Windows 7 Home premium and would be available in black and white colour options. As noted earlier, Asus has now made this netbook official and it will be available by mid-December for $500 (Rs. 24,000 approx.). This 12-inch netbook joins the Lenovo IdeaPad S12 and Samsung N510 as ION-based netbooks.

The new Asus Eee PC 1201n sports 12-inch LED Backlit display screen offering 1366x768 pixel resolution and supports 720p HD content playback. Asus has packed in dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Atom 330 processor, up to 3GB DDR2 memory and 250GB SATA 5400RPM HDD for storage. Samsung N510 netbook boasts superior Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics compared to Lenovo IdeaPad S12 and the Eee PC 1201N.

Other features of Eee PC 1201N include HDMI out, WiFi (802.11 b/g/n), Bluetooth, Ethernet and 1.3 megapixel webcam comes built-in. Asus may add 6-cell Lithium-Ion battery that will last about five hours. With isolation keyboard, the build of this netbook resembles Asus' Seashell family netbooks.


Technical Specifications:

* 12.1-inch LED-backlit WXGA screen (1366 x 768)
* Genuine Windows 7
* Intel Atom 330 Dual Core processor
* NVIDIA ION Graphics
* DDR2 SO-DIMM 2GB/3GB
* 250GB HDD/320GB + 500GB* ASUS WebStorage
* 802.11b/g/n @2.4GHz, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
* 1.3M Pixel Webcam (with digital zoom function)
* Hi-Definition Audio CODEC
* Stereo Speakers
* VGA Port (D-sub 15-pin for external monitor), HDMI out, three USB 2.0, LAN RJ-45 port, 2 x Audio Jack (Head Phone / Mic-in), Card Reader: MMC/ SD(SDHC)


As this is an announcement (read launch), expect this netbook to be available in India by the end of December or January 2010.

Snow Leopard netbooks resurrected

So you dared to temp fate (and Apple) by converting your netbook to run Mac OS X. But when you upgraded your netbook to the latest version of Snow Leopard (10.6.2) suddenly your Hackintoshed netbook became toast. It rebooted in a never-ending cycle rivaling the infamous Macintosh “spinning ball from hell.”

For reasons never publically stated, Apple quietly made a change in the most recent version of Snow Leopard. “The changes Apple made to the latest mach_kernel removes support for (the Intel Atom) processor, leaving (Snow Leopard) updated netbooks in a useless state.” This according to the folks at InsanelyMac.

Now that we know what went wrong, it was simply a matter for those who understand things Macintosh to dig under the hood and fix the problem. And that’s exactly what they did. Again, according to InsanelyMac, “Fortunately, insanelymac user ‘teateam’ patched the new kernel just two days after Apple rolled out the update.”

They go on to tell netbook users that, “Many users are reporting success with this patch, so if your (sic) an Atom user looking to update to 10.6.2, give it a try.”

For readers concerned with this kind of activity, let me state that Apple does not support nor do they condone using Mac OS X with non-Apple hardware. In fact, Apple’s EULA specifically prohibits this kind of use of their Operating System. Remember, that Apple sells both hardware and software and these are designed to work together. Therefore, Apple isn't pleased to see their OS running on other vendor's hardware. In addition, in these circumstances there can be issues with hardware not working as expected.

On the other hand, many users, even those who are faithful to Apple, are miffed that Apple has stubbornly refused to release a Mac netbook. Wanting something that doesn’t feel like a chunk of heavy metal sitting on their laps, they’ve opted to convert their feather light netbooks to Hackintoshes. Now those users have the option to download the patch and run the latest, greatest, OS 10.6.2 on their netbooks.

Before long we can expect Apple’s engineers to put an Intel Atom processor squelch on the next version of Snow Leopard (10.6.3.) Then we can count on those creative and motivated hackers to figure a way to overcome this with another patch. Point and counter point! So it goes with Hackintoshed netbooks.

Google Chrome OS will be adobted From Broad Enterprise in 10 years

IDC analyst Al Hilwa said Chrome Operating system will take some hard selling by Google and its partners to get on netbooks, those hard disk-less machines from Asus, Dell, HP and others that let users access Web applications. He wonders if consumers and enterprises will accept only running Web applications and not local apps. Gartner analyst Ray Valdes wonders how serious potential hardware partners will be about Chrome OS. Will netbook makers use Chrome OS as a bargaining chip to get better deals on Windows operating system licenses from Microsoft?

Should Google Chrome Operating System sees the light of day a year from now as the company expects, it will take 10 years before it begins to see serious enterprise adoption, an analyst told eWEEK.

IDC analyst Al Hilwa said Chrome OS, which Google officials released to open source Nov. 19, will take some hard selling by Google and its partners to get on netbooks, essentially smaller laptops that let users access Web applications. Some of these machines don't have integrated CD-ROM drives to let users download software locally to the machine.

During a demonstration at the Chrome OS launch to open source, Google Vice President of Product Management Sundar Pichai showed how Chrome OS can boot in seven seconds, a supremely faster load than Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating systems. Google is able to do this by removing or consolidating the boot processes in Chrome OS, which seems super lightweight.

Moreover, the notion that Google does all of the updating in the cloud for Chrome OS netbook users without giving them the choice may be welcomed by some consumers, but it's not something that enterprises will easily cotton to.

"[The cloud-based updates] are not going to eliminate problems. You'll still have occasionally an update that comes in and it will screw up something. Enterprises don't want to see that kind of thing. I think they're making some bets on this and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

He also said he was amazed that Google is releasing Chrome OS without the ability to download local apps to the machines it runs on. That is, Chrome OS and its Chrome browser will run only Web apps. Hilwa added:

"You wonder if netbook users are going to be okay with that, and if they will want to store everything in the cloud. Before it's all over, there's going to be some offline applications and then there will be some offline usage of data. They're going to have Flash memory and people will store data locally. There's almost no way around that."

For these reasons, Hilwa said Chrome OS will be a consumer phenomenon for the first five years, but it will be 10 years before Chrome OS can conceivably corral 5 percent of the enterprise computing market.

What will happen? Assuming Google Chrome OS gets that far, some netbook makers will show interest in it to put pricing pressure on Microsoft and will dabble in it. "The market is ready to try new things, but it's going to be a long time before a new OS has serious share and Google has to keep a sustained marketing push on this."

Gartner analyst Ray Valdes wonders how serious potential hardware partners will be about Chrome OS. Will netbook makers use Chrome OS as a bargaining chip to get better deals on Windows operating system licenses from Microsoft?

Chrome OS is also another validation of Google's broad strategy to disrupt the computing markets it enters. It's done it in search, it's doing it in mobile with Android, and now, in general computing.

It was clear from reporters' reactions to Google's pledge to abstain from offering local applications on Chrome OS netbooks; several media members asked Pichai if Google would depart from this stated strategy. Pichai did not waver; only Web apps need apply for Chrome OS.

Indeed, Valdes said Google is trying to redefine the value proposition of netbooks, which have to this point largely been viewed as watered-down versions of laptops -- cheaper but not as good.

"The proposition is that it will be a faster, safer, richer way of accessing the Web than a laptop, or a smartphone," Valdes told eWEEK. "It depends on the execution from not only Google but their hardware partners. If they can do that, netbooks won't be a temporary, transitional hardware category."

Valdes has another valid question: Will the emergence of Chrome OS dilute the value proposition of Android, the company's mobile OS? Or will Android bury Chrome OS, as some suggest.

More broadly, will consumers who already own laptops and smartphones make room for a third computing device? If they do, will they part with their laptop or smartphone?

So many questions, so few answers.

Regardless, Google Chrome OS has a long, hard road ahead of it as it seeks to challenge Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and other Linux distributions that are finding their way in the still largely Windows computing world.