Dell is trying to give itself a green makeover to not only help the environment and give it more of a green reputation, but to save money as well by reducing the amount of packaging it uses. Dell has announced that it is now using renewable bamboo packaging for some of its products.
Here we go with another week in review. Monday IDC released their data on the number of CPUs shipped for Q3 2009. The number of CPUS shipped grew 23% for the quarter compared to the previous year. ZiiLABS unveiled its new ZMS-08 Blu-ray quality media processor this week. The processor promises to be full 1080p HD video support and more for portable devices like tablets.
Dell’s compact desktop, the Inspiron Zino HD, has finally made its way out of the shadows and into your online basket. Teased all the way back in August, the Zino HD might only measure 7.75 x 7.75 x 3.5 inches but Dell have squeezed in up to AMD’s Athlon Neo X2 6850e 1.8GHz processor, up to 1TB of storage, 8GB of RAM and an optional optical drive; you can even have discrete graphics, in the shape of ATI’s Radeon HD 4330.
With the holidays fast approaching cell phone carriers are stocking up on inventory and amongst the new Motorola DROIDs, HTC Heroes, and Palm Pixies are a slightly larger, yet unfamiliar crop of devices – netbooks. AT&T is all giddy about its exclusive availability of the Nokia Booklet 3G and Sprint announced just yesterday that it will be selling the Dell Inspiron Mini 10V. Verizon already has three netbooks in its arsenal, including HP’s new powerful Mini 311. Clearly, lining up the selection isn’t a problem, but what the carriers haven’t figured out yet is that selling netbooks requires a totally different approach than selling phones. The deals and the subsidized model, in my mind, make as much sense for netbooks as building and then plowing a virtual Farmville farm!
Sprint have announced their first EVDO-enabled netbook, though they don’t quite seem to have figured out the magic tipping point that really pulls in the customers. The carrier is offering a Dell Inspiron Mini 10 with integrated EVDO Rev.A, but rather than do the sensible thing and hack great chunks off the up-front price (while knowing you’ll make it back with the mandatory two-year agreement) their netbook is in fact $199.99, and that’s after the rebate.
Leading computer manufacturers along with Intel and Microsoft have inadvertently created a monster. And like Frankenstein, it is a monster they’d like to destroy. Although the industry’s hot-selling brainchild is physically quite small –perhaps more analogous to a gremlin in scale— with its small 10-inch screen, underpowered Intel Atom processor, cheaper version of Windows and under $400 price, netbooks are devouring corporate profit margins.
Weeks are flying by and it’s time for another week in review. Monday we learned that a new hack was available from the iPhone Dev Team that adds MMS to first generation iPhones and tethering to 3.1.2 OS for the later iPhone models. We also found out that Microsoft is set to issue a new update for the Xbox 360 that will break unauthorized storage devices. That means that some gamers will be unable to access the saved game data after applying the new update.
Dell have announced their first netbook running Intel’s Moblin platform, and it’s available for developers to buy now. The Dell Inspiron Mini 10v Ubuntu Moblin Remix Edition is priced at $299 and comes with the usual Mini 10v specification – Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard-drive – but uses Canonical’s combination of the core Moblin Version 2.0 interface, libraries, and applications with the internals of Ubuntu Linux 9.04.
Video demo after the cut
Here we go again with another week in review for your perusal. A mystery Android-powered MID tipped up this week looking very much like those renderings of the Apple tablet to my eyes. It’s cool to see android showing up on so many devices. Logitech unveiled an update to the coolest racing wheel ever, the G25, called simply enough the G27. The new wheel promises more accurate force feedback effects and keeps with the slick clutch and gated shifter we loved from the G25.
Dell may have canned their Inspiron Mini 12, but they’ve replaced it with a new CULV ultraportable in the shape of the Inspiron 11z. The new notebook has an 11.6-inch display running at 1,366 x 768, paired with Intel’s Celeron 723 1.2GHz processor, 2GB of RAM and a 250GB hard-drive. Thanks to stepping up to CULV rather than Intel’s Atom range, the 11z gets past the CPU/storage limitations the chip company insists upon; that should mean buyers get a more capable ultraportable for their money.
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