UK Netbook Review

AMD’s new low power, moderate performance chips feature in the new Acer Aspire One 521 and Dell Inspiron M101z.  But, AMD is not content to leave it there.  Today AMD unveiled new details about its upcoming Bobcat platform for small, low power devices such as netbooks, nettops, and tablets. The new Bobcat is the processor [...]

A few weeks ago AMD announced that it’s new low power Ontario chips for netbooks should begin shipping to PC makers by the end of 2010. Today DigiTimes is reporting that big name PC makers including Acer, Asus, and HP plan to launch Ontario-powered machines in the first quarter of 2011. This new Ontario chip from AMD features a CPU and an integrated graphics processor, which is like the Intel Atom chips have been from the start.

DigiTimes reports that processor manufacturer AMD is waiting to see if the tablet market even takes off. The silicon firm will still work on desktop PC products and graphics cards, but is currently focused oultraportables, including netbooks and thin & light notebooks.   Aaccording to the publication, they’re also not terribly interested in following in competitor [...]

If reports are true, Acer’s new Aspire One 521 will swap out the ubiquitous Intel Atom processor for an AMD instead. That’s not incredibly shocking for a larger netbook/thin and light, but for a 10″ netbook, that’s surprising. Acer is reportedly preparing to launch the new Acer Aspire One 521 with AMD’s 1.2GHz V105 single core processor.

The Gateway LT3100 is now official. It packs a 11.6 inch screen, and more importantly, an AMD Athlon 64 L110 processor running at 1.2ghz. This netbook application is a first for AMD, who previosly has shunned netbooks.

In addition to the AMD processor, the Gateway netbook features an integrated ATI Radeon X1270 graphics chip with WXGA resolution. Like most netbooks, it can handle up to 2GB RAM and 250GB HDD, card reader, 802.11b/g, webcam, three USB 2.0 port, and a 6-cell Li-ion battery. It’s due to ship with Windows Vista basic, but we’re sure you can swap that out for XP or your OS of choice. Available in NightSky Black and Cherry Red, it should be out soon-ish with prices starting at $400.