We’ve been struggling to keep awake for the large majority of this year, as netbook after netbook lands in our laps with identical specs, form factors and general shoddiness. No longer. HP is giving the market a shot in the arm with its new “clutch-style” skinny form factors, polished Linux OS and aggressive price points — even if the specs are about as boring as the Mini-Note 2133. As rumored, HP’s new Mini 1000 netbook is ditching VIA and going the Atom route (1.6GHz N270, in case you hadn’t guessed). Also new is an option for a 10.2-inch display, though it’s a mere 1024 x 600 instead of the 1280 x 768 display on the 2133 — for a bit cheaper you can get a 1024 x 600 8.9-inch display, but that would just be boring. HP is offering 512MB, 1GB and 2GB RAM configurations, though the XP option limits you to 1GB (thanks, Microsoft). For storage you can score a 60GB 4200 rpm HDD or your choice of a 8GB or 16GB SSD. If you go the SSD route there’s also room for a 2, 4 or 8GB “HP Mini Mobile Drive,” which is a regular USB drive that inserts all the way into a special slot for added integration. There’s also an SD slot, VGA webcam, 802.11b/g, optional Bluetooth, Ethernet and dual USB plugs. Where things get extra interesting is in choice of OS. You can go the standard XP route, or for $20 less you can go for HP’s brand new Ubuntu-based Linux “experience,” MIE, which reminds us not just a little of HP’s TouchSmart interface. The XP version is available today starting at $399, with a 10.2-inch version costing just a little bit more. The Vivienne Tam Edition, which brings a whole lot of style but little substance to the offering, will go for $699 in mid-December, and the MIE version will land in January for a mere $379.

Gallery: HP’s new Mini 1000 and MIE Linux

from engadget

Just in time for your holiday wish list, Mitsubishi has announced that its stunning 65-inch LaserVue HDTV is now on sale at select specialty retailers nationwide. From what we’ve personally seen and from what we’ve gathered from those lucky enough to critique it in detail, this here set is a real winner. Of course, coming up with the $6,999 in order to bring one home is another matter entirely, but those who feel like stimulating the economy and their retinas can absolutely do so starting today.

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from engadget

Microsoft’s Windows 7 announcement earlier today was followed up by an extensive demo of the new features during the PDC keynote, and since then even more info about the new OS has flooded out, so we thought we’d try to wrap up some of the more important bits here for you. Microsoft seems to have done an impressive job at this early pre-beta stage, folding in next-gen interface ideas like multitouch into the same OS that apparently runs fine on a 1GHz netbook with 1GB of RAM, but we’ll see how development goes — there’s still a ways to go. Some notes:

• Obviously, the big news is the new taskbar, which forgoes text for icons and has new “jump lists” of app controls and options you can access with a right-click. You can select playlists in Media Player, for example. Super cool: when you scrub over the icons, all the other app windows go transparent so you can “peek” at the windows you’re pointing at.
• Gadgets now appear on the desktop — the sidebar has been killed. That makes more sense for all those laptop owners out there with limited screen space, and you can still see gadgets anytime by peeking at the desktop, rendering all other windows transparent.
• Window resizing and management now happens semi-automatically: dragging a window to the top of the screen maximizes it, pulling it down restores; dragging a window to the edges auto-resizes it to 50% for quick tiling. Nifty.
• The system tray now only displays what you explicitly say it should — everything else is hidden, and the controls have been streamlined.
• User Account Control settings are now much more fine-grained — you can set them by app and by level of access.
• They demoed multitouch features on an HP TouchSmart PC — it was pretty cool, although the usual nagging “what is this good for / that’ll get old fast” concerns weren’t really addressed. The Start menu gets 25 percent bigger when using touch to make it easier to handle, and apps will all get scroll support automatically. There’s also a giant on-screen predictive keyboard. Again — could be amazing, but we won’t know until it’s out in the wild.
• We’ve always known Microsoft intends Windows 7 to run on netbooks, and we got a small taste during the PDC keynote: Windows SVP Steve Sinofsky held up his “personal” laptop running Windows 7, an unnamed 1GHz netbook with 1GB of RAM that looked a lot like an Eee PC, and said that it still had about half its memory free after boot. (We’re guessing it was running a VIA Nano, given the announcement this morning and since most Atoms run at 1.6GHz.)
• At the other end of the scale, Windows 7 supports machines with up to 256 CPUs.
• Multiple-monitor management is much-improved, as is setting up projectors — it’s a hotkey away. Remote Desktop now works with multiple monitors as well.
• Media Center has been tweaked as well — it looks a lot more like the Zune interface. There’s also a new Mini Guide when watching video, and a new Music Wall album artwork screensaver that kicks in when you’re playing music.
• Devs got a pre-beta today; a “pretty good” feature complete beta is due early next year. No word at all on when it’ll be released to market apart from that “three years from Vista” date we’ve known forever.

That’s just the good bits — hit the read links for piles of more info and screenshots, and we’ll keep our eyes out for anything else interesting. Exciting times!

Read – Keynote videos on the PDC site
Read – Technologizer Windows 7 hands-on
Read – Ars Technica Windows 7 interface walkthrough
Read – Laptop Windows 7 hands-on
Read – Windows 7 Media Center revealed

from engadget

If our overly fannish announcement post didn’t give it away, we’re pretty excited about the HP Mini 1000. It has little to do with the specs — the drop in screen resolution from the 2133 is a little disappointing, plus we would’ve liked to at least see what one of these netbooks could do with a VIA Nano under the hood — and everything to do with the fit and finish HP is bringing to this pricepoint ($399), in both hardware and software. Peep our impressions after the break.

Gallery: HP Mini 1000 hands-on

From engadget
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We had a chance to gaze through the wireframe of this 8.1 megapixel Casio W63CA Exilim cellphone back in August courtesy of the FCC’s finest. Now check it in high-gloss, plastic flesh. The latest Japanese super-phone squeezes 480 x 800 pixel into a 3.1-inch OLED display. Let that sink in for a second… the very same 384,000 pixels on a display smaller than the 3.8-inch LCD heralded by the Touch HD. The camera features a wide-angle lens, 9-point auto focus, face detection, anti-shake, and a YouTube video mode that records VGA video at 30fps to microSD. All this in a Japanese-only flip measuring 110 x 50 x 17.4 ~ 22-mm when it launches in early November.

[Via Impress]
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from engadget

We’ve always had a soft spot for Canon’s G-series of prosumer compacts, and it looks like the new G10 won’t be any exception — Photography Blog just put the boxy camera through its paces and found that it’s “undoubtedly the best ever” in the line. High marks were particularly given to the new wider-angle 28-140mm lens (which suffers less barrel distortion than the G9), higher-res LCD screen, and the new exposure dial, which allows you to fine-tune exposure settings without a trip to the menus. The new 14.7 megapixel sensor didn’t receive the same praise, however: ISO 400 images were quite noisy, and the 800 and 1600 settings were “virtually unusable.” That’s not exactly news for the G-series, but it’s pretty unfortunate — especially considering that the G10′s $499 pricetag edges into low-end DSLR territory. Still, if you’re looking for a compact with deep manual controls and real optics, it sounds like the G10 is worth a look — hit the read link for the full review.

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from engadget

We knew more Inspiron Minis were in the works, and Dell’s just officially announced the next member of the family, the Inspiron Mini 12. Yep, the same machine we first spotted all the way back in June, and nothing much has changed in the meantime — you’re looking at either a 1.3GHz Atom Z520 or 1.6GHz Atom Z530 processor (a step up from the usual 1.6GHz Atom N270), up to an 80GB drive, 1GB of RAM, Bluetooth / WiFi, and that 12-inch, 1280 x 800 display, all in a 2.72-pound package less than one inch thick. The bad news? It’s Japan-only for now, but it’ll hit the States late next month with a starting price under $600. That’s a pretty hot price / performance ratio on paper — if this thing performs like it should, it could potentially take away sales from more full-featured ultraportables like the Envy 133 and the MacBook Air. We’ll see how it goes — the netbook market suddenly got interesting again, eh?

Update: It’s worth pointing out that this netbook runs Vista Home Edition, albeit sluggishly according to APC (XP and Ubuntu variants by end of year). It also ships standard with a 3-hour 3 cell battery or optional $79 6-cell battery for up to 6-hours of power.

Read – Dell announcement
Read – Laptop hands-on
Read – APC hands-on
Read – Dell Q+A
from engadget