Looks like Intel may get some real competition for their market dominating Intel Atom netbook processors.  AMD is finally going to accept netbooks and make a dedicated chip specifically for netbook, in their “Fusion” range of chips, which will be released sometime next year in 2011.

This new netbook based chip is said to have a power consumption in the 10-15 watt range (the current AMD chips draw about 35 watts) and have integrated graphics good enough to prompt them to say “you won’t need the Ion graphics to give it half-decent performance”. It will be aimed at netbook / notebooks between 10” – 12” in size.

Source: Hardware Central

JooJoo tablet Fcc filing

The JooJoo tablet, formerly known as Techcrunch’s ‘Crunchpad’ (long story) hass just hit the FCC with full documentation and a teardown and there’s a surprise!  It’s a NVIDIA Ion GPU – answering some questions regarding how they would get the tablet to playback HD video.   It will be paired with the normal accompliment of an Atom N270, SSD,WIFI and an optional 3G card.

We’ll be interested to see how this old-gen N270 processor and Nvidia Ion car impact battery life.   Hopefully there will be a revised version soon with Intel’s Pine Trail chip and NVIDIA’s Optimus-based Ion 2.

There’s a few more pics after the break, courtesy of Engadget.

There’s been quite a bit of news on the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t – we did a roundup of the stories here and had an unboxing video as well.  Now, Joanna over at Engadget, has put up another review of the  10.1” Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t tablet netvertible.  The model tested had an Atom N470 processor, 4-cell battery and Windows 7 Home Premium priced at $649 USD (~434 GBP).

Pros:
- Nice weight, comfortable to use in two hands.
- No potruding battery from the back.
- Capacitive touchscreen is responsive and flicking through web pages is enjoyable.
- 4-Cell battery lasted a solid 4.5 hours.

Cons:
-  Atom N470 felt sluggish, seems slower than the HP Mini 210 with the default Atom N450 processor.
- Built-in accelerometer worked poorly Joanna resorted to manually pressing the button on the screen bezel for rotation.
- Keyboard felt cramped and flexy, trackpad is too small.
- Poor viewing screen angles.

So, some definite plus points, but also some serious drawbacks for this netvertible that looked so impressive on paper.  Check ou the full Lenovo S10-3t review at Engadget if you’d like to read more.

Lenovo appears to be adding a  WiMAX option to the IdeaPad U150  inch thin and light notebook. Wireless Goodness spotted an FCC filing for the U150 that containes a wireless card supporting not only 802.11b/g/n WiFi wireless, but also WiMAX mobile broadband.

The Lenovo IdeaPad U150 features an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display and an Intel CULV processor. It runs Windows 7 Home Premium, and falls into the category  called thin and light notbooks – generally larger displays than netbooks, and more powerful Intel CULV processors.

No word on pricing or a release date for the WiMAX version.

If you can do without the 802.11N wireless, and Windows 7, the Asus Eee PC 1001P may be the right netbook for you.  Launched as the little brother to the recently launched Eee PC 1005PE, the 1001P shares the same 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processors, 1GB of RAM, and“Seashell” style case design.   Brad, over at Liliputing took a quick look at this new Asus netbook today, and seems genearally impressed with it.  He notes that it has a matte (non-glossy) display, as well case lid and palm rest.  (no fingerprints!)

The best feature, however, may be the price.  Amazon UK currently has it listed for a bargain price of just £229.00 with free shipping.

Check out the unboxing video after the break.

The first commercial for Apple’s upcoming iPad aired last night in the States during the Oscars. It’s pretty much what most are expecting – a larger iPod touch, but the comericial brings up an interesting question.  How do you hold this thing?  Sure, you can prop it up on a table, but what about when there isn’t a surface to place it on in front of you?   Almost every shot of a person actually using the iPad shows legs contorted into unusual positions.

Check out the video after the break.

Pixel Qi founder Mary Lou Jepsen says that you’ll be able to pick  your very own Pixel Qi Screen by this summer, in the form of a DIY Kit.  What makes the Pixel Qi screen special is that it combines the benefits of the low power, high contract e-ink dispalys found in many ebook readers, and the full colour displays currently in netbooks.  The Pixel Qi display’s power consumption is said to range from just .5 watts, without backlight, to 2.5 watts with the backglight on.

Pixel Qi’s assures us that their LCD displays combine some of the best elements of a fully saturated color display, with incredible power consumption numbers.  As an added bonus, there will be a ePaper mode that makes reading the screen possible in direct sunlight.

Pixel Qi’s LCD displays combine some of the best elements of a fully saturated color display and a high contrast e-Ink screen. In a nutshell, you can treat the screen as a slightly thicker, more expensive color LCD and never take advantage of the ePaper mode. But you can also turn off the backlight to reduce the screen’s power consumption from 2.5 watts to about 0.5 watts.

There’s no word on pricing yet. Jepsen says the company will make an announcement prior to the release of the DIY kits.  You can check out the Pixel Qi screen in action after the break.

Samsung have launched an updated version of the Samsung N310 ‘Go’ netbook called the N315.  The new N315 netbook looks identical to the original Samsung N310 and has the same rubberized case and chiclet-style keyboard which got rave reviews laster year but swaps out the N270 processor for the new 1.66GHz Intel Atom Pine Trail N450 processor.

Here’s a full rundown of the specs, or you can check out the official page at Samsung:

• CPU: 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450
• Graphics: Intel GMA 3150
• Display: 10.1 inch 1024 x 600 pixels
• OS: Windows 7 Starter
• Memory: 1GB
• Storage: 250GB HDD
• Connectivity: 802.11b/g/n WiFi, 10/100 Ethernet
• I/O: 3 USB, VGA, mic, headphone, SDHC card slot
• Battery: 4 cell
• Dimensions: 10.3″ x 7.3″ x 1.1″
• Weight: 2.7 pounds

No word yet on UK availabiliy or price for the upcoming N315, but Expansys, through Amazon UK, has  a good deal on the N310 for £254.99

via Netbooked

Remember the M1000 and Q1000C netbooks Gigabyte launched at CeBIT 2010? Well it turns out the new M1000 is also going to be one of the first netbooks to get the next generation NVIDIA ION graphics.  Netbook News.de reports that there a new version of the M1000, called the Gigabyte M1000N and will feature a 1.83GHz Intel Atom N470 CPU, a 1366 x 768 pixel HD display, and of course, the next gen. Ion graphics.

Nvidia’s next generation Ion platform will come in two flavours – one designed for 10″ netbooks and another for 12″ netbooks.  The 10″ version of Ion has only half the  CUDA cores of the ION chip found in nettops and notebooks with 11.6 inch or larger displays. That means Gigabyte M1000N  won’t have the graphics processing power of larger netbooks like the Acer Aspire One 532G and Asus Eee PC 1201N, but there will also be fewer pixels to push on the smaller screens.

As they did with the Tord Boontje Mini 110, HP have teamed up with designer Vivienne Tam to create a special edition of the new HP Mini 210 netbook.  It is scheduled to ship on March 19th, in the States at leaste, and the netbook features a butterfly motif which was designed by Vivienne Tam.

The regular HP mini 210 runs about $280 in the US, and this ‘designer’ edition will sell for $600 – so quite a premium.  For your extra dosh you get the designer lid, desktop wallpaper and optional matching wireless mouse.  Under the hood it’s less designer, and more standard Pinetrail era netbook fare.  Namely, it has 2GB of RAM, a 320G hard drive, and runs Windows 7 Home Premium rather than the Windows 7 Starter Edition that normally hobbles 10 inch netbooks.

You can check out the Vivienne Tam US edition here at the US Amazon, or you can order the regular HP Mini 210 here in the UK at Amazon for £264.97.

via Chip Chick