The PC Report

The Asus Eee PC T101MT is the latest touchscreen addition into the Eee PC range – and it also packs a swivel display. The official word on this laptop is that it comes with a 10.1″ swivelling resistive multi-touch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1,024×600, an Atom N450, up to 2GB of RAM and 320GB hard drive, Windows 7, webcam and the usual netbook-style ports and a 6.5 hour max battery life.

As per usual, Asus has denied us info on a price or release time frame, but we also know that with the netbook purchase you get a free one year 500GB Asus WebStorage trial.

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The latest thing to appear from Intel at CES 2010 is the AppUp Center: an app store designed specifically for netbooks with an Intel Atom processor on the inside. The AppUp Center, which is available now in its beta stages, will be bundled with new Atom netbooks from Asus, Acer and Samsung and also available for the public to download for either Windows or Linux. Intel has been working with over 3,000 developers to make this happen, so we decided to load it up and give it a try.

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Looks like we have another contender for the netbook Pine Trail competition. Acer’s Aspire One AO532h is nothing special, really: it has a fairly standard 10″ display in a fairly standard looking case. It packs the latest Intel Atom “Pineview” N450 processor at 1.6GHz, GMA 1350 graphics, 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive – again, nothing particularly special apart from the Pineview CPU.

It does pack a 4,400 mAh six-cell battery that is stated to last for 10 hours without a recharge, which isn’t bad although we’re always skeptical of battery life claims. It will come loaded with Windows 7 Starter Edition for US$299, which is cheaper than the other two Pine Trail netbooks we’ve seen (the Asus Eee PC 1001P and 1005P/PE). You should be able to grab one in the coming weeks.

Another Pine Trail Eee PC has surfaced, this time on Amazon.de. Available now for pre-order at ~US$360 is the Asus Eee PC 1001P (what seems to be the little brother of the 1005P/PE) which packs the usual 10.1″ display in a clamshell body alongside a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N450, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive loaded up with Windows XP. Oh, and no dodgy bumpy trackpad! If you pre-order one now it will ship by January 6.

Intel’s latest Atom upgrade to Pineview seems to be all ready to go with the latest Eee PC being revealed and containing the latest Pineview processor. The Eee PC 1005P and 1005PE both have sexy 10.1″ LED backlit displays, Intel Atom N450 processors, 1GB of RAM and GMA 3150 graphics (still not the best of GPUs). The PE carries a larger (250GB) hard drive and a battery that should last up to 12.5 hours.

Of course as these netbooks have yet to be announced, we don’t have a price or release date, however we expect that to be very soon. We do know, though, that the netbooks will pack Windows 7 Starter Edition, which isn’t the greatest of the Windows 7 distros but should suit you just fine. If you’re looking for a new, cheap and small laptop then the latest Eee PC with a Pineview processor should be a good purchase.

The Windows 7 installation isn’t suited to netbooks really: their lack of DVD drives makes it difficult to install and you had to go through a complicated process of making a bootable flash drive through partitioning and other software, copying the contents of your Windows 7 DVD onto it and booting into it to install. Quite a pain in the ass if you just want the latest Microsoft operating system on your netbook.

Lucky for you though, Microsoft has decided to officially release a simple tool that makes the process quite simple. The open-source Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool will do all the work converting your Windows 7 ISO into a bootable USB flash drive ready to install Windows 7. Grab the easy to use tool now from Microsoft’s CodePlex.

The next generation Asus Eee PC has been shown off in an international event. The Eee PC 1201T is one of the first laptops to adopt the AMD Congo platform – the 1201T is going to be powered by the 1.6GHz AMD Neo MV40 and HD 3200 graphics for some netbook grunt comparable to the Intel ION platform. Other internals include 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 250GB hard drive and a 6-cell battery.

All of these bits and bobs will fit inside the sleek looking Eee PC 1201T shell with a 12.1″ display at 1366×768, which unfortunately still carries the borderless trackpad with dimples that many people dislike. No word yet on pricing or availability, but we expect them to be announced soon. It will be interesting to see if 1080p playback really is possible as AMD said…

Menq’s latest super-cheap netbook has hit the market – the EasyPC E790. The netbook is slow, but that is to be expected when you pay only US$80; the netbook packs a Samsung ARM 400/533MHz processor and 128MB of RAM, making most smartphones more powerful than it. It also packs 2GB of storage which can be expanded by an SD card, a 7-inch 800×600 display and WiFi.

The Menq EasyPC E790 comes with Windows CE 5.0 and is apparently powerful enough to play back DivX files and talk to friends over Skype (though not necessarily at the same time). Menq also has stated that Android will be coming to this netbook next month, however Android really isn’t the greatest for netbooks and Windows CE is probably the better choice, after all you probably want the most out of your $80 netbook.

Microsoft has finally decided that OEMs and ODMs can install whatever version of Windows 7 they like on their netbooks, including Windows 7 Starter which won’t have the three applications restriction any more, as they removed it after consumer complaints. I expect that most OEMs will still install the cheaper Starter edition, even though it lacks some of the features of the other versions such as Aero Glass, Media Center and DVD playback.

However, if they feel that their “netbook” can handle some of the features of the other versions such as Home Premium or Business, they can install it. Or if you would like Ultimate on your underpowered netbook, feel free to install it (and have your system choke). Finally Microsoft has come to their senses.

Intel said earlier this year that the next-gen Atom processors, Pineview, would be released by the end of this year. However according to a new report the Atom N470 running at a nice 1.83 GHz along with the N450 running at 1.66 GHz will be released in early 2010.

Both CPUs have an integrated memory controller and graphics, cutting down on a chip and using less power for longer battery life. Hopefully the price will be good enough that they will spread to new netbooks quickly and cheaply and give a solid boost in performance.