UK Netbook Review

There are already Apple iPad cases with builtin keyboards, but the new Crux Loaded case is something more. This case doesn’t just add a keyboard to your iPad – it also has a built-in touchpad and an extended battery that essentially turns your iPad into a netbook. Crux says that when you dock your iPad to the case you can get an extra 7.5 hours of run time, making the total run time just about 20 hours with the iPad’s impressive built-in battery.

Pixel Qi has announced that they’r working on an external USB (or wireless USB), version of their display. In other words, you can use the Pixel Qi display as a second screen for your notebook, tablet, or desktop computer

Chip maker Marvell has announced a new 1.5GHz tri-core processor called the Marvell ARMADA 628. The new ARM-based chip which can handle 1080p 3D video and 3D graphics performance. There are two “high performance symmetric multiprocessing cores,” and a third core which is “optimized for ultra low-power.”

Good news everyone! Pixel Qi‘s 10.1 inch, outdoor readable display is finally shipping! [UPDATE: Already sold out!] You can now the DIYnetbook screen kit which will replace your current netbook screen and swap it with one from Pixel Qi display. Supposedly, the whole process takes just 5 to 10 minutes. The kits cost a whopping $275 (only available in the US for now), but to be fair, the kits are aimed at early adopters and enthusiasts at this point and the price should come down as more quantities are produced.

Netbooked reports that the latest version of Flash 10.1 RC4 allows the Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics chipset to playback 1080p HD Flash video smoothly! If this has you scratching your head, you may have missed that these latest (pre-beta) versions of Flash allow for video hardware acceleration (rather than just relying on the Atom processor). One of the previous releases (RC2 or RC3), provided fullscreen 1080p Flash on Nvidia ION devices, but this appears to be the first one to support the built-in Intel Graphics.