Dell’s Mini 9 netbook may be a little old in the tooth these days, but its angular casing makes it a great donor machine for a netslate project. That’s just what MyDellMini forum member Rob did (to his Dell Vostro A90, the business-rebrand of the Mini 9), adding a touchscreen layer, flipping the display and relocating the power button.
Looking quite strikingly like some of the DIY netbook tablets we’ve seen before, this is in fact one of GLB Industrial’s two new 10-inch internet tablets, the PP-P68 and PP-P88. Caught on video last week by Charbax, the Atom-based slates each have Intel’s 1.6GHz N270 processor, a 1024 x 600 touchscreen and optional 3G and GPS.
Video demo after the cut
Another week has come and gone leaving us with memories and a hoard of cool stories to throw your way for weekend reading in case you missed them over the week. An Asus 900HA netbook was hacked into a touchscreen slate on Monday and we really liked it. DIY gear is so cool, especially when it turns out this good. Monday also brought some details on the Blackberry Storm 2 piezo touchscreen tech. We really hope its better than the original Storm.
We’ve a soft-spot for DIY netbook tablet PC conversions here at SlashGear, so it’s always nice to see a user turn their budget notebook into something a whole lot more interesting. EeeUser forum member Maine_Coon turned his ASUS Eee PC 900HA into a finger-friendly 8.9-inch slate, flipping the display around and adding a touchscreen layer on top.
If the Eee PC touchscreen tutorial left you envious and disgustedly eyeing your Acer Aspire One, never fear; there’s now a new tutorial for turning the best-selling netbook into a finger-friendly marvel. The guide uses one of the commonly available 8.9-inch touchscreen panels, easily found on eBay, which come with just about everything you need bar a screwdriver.
Ultraportables with integrated optical drives are rare beasts – the netbook world only has one, for instance – and they usually carry a pretty high price premium. That was certainly the case when the VYE S41A first arrived, complete with its convertible 7-inch touchscreen, DVD burner and 800MHz Intel A110 processor: you were looking at around $1,500 when it first launched. Now, Expansys UK have it listed for just £449.99 ($661).
Some of our most popular netbook pages here on SlashGear are those describing DIY touchscreen projects, where a touch-sensitive layer is added to the budget ultraportable’s display. There are already kits available on eBay and elsewhere offering straightforward 7- and 8.9-inch panels, but what we’ve lacked to date is a really simple tutorial – something that takes you from stock Eee PC to touchscreen marvel. Happily, courtesy of argentum, such a guide is now available.
While seeing OS X running on various traditionally Linux or Windows netbooks is nothing new, there’s still a frisson of pleasure to be had from a new machine getting its unofficial Apple stripes. When said-new-machine is the HP Compaq Mini 700, the Euro version of the HP Mini 1000 and a particularly desirable and impressive machine in its own right, that gets all the more interesting.
Video demo of the OS X HP Mini 700 after the cut
DIY touchscreens for netbooks aren’t new – we’ve seen them on the ASUS Eee PC and Acer Aspire One, and even a plug-&-play kit back in June – but they just seem to be hitting eBay now. Options seem to be primarily for the ASUS and Acer machines, with the Aspire One and 900/901 being the lucky recipients.
ASUS plan to unveil their touchscreen Eee PC at CES 2009 in January, with a launch early in the new year, according to Samson Hu, general manager of Eee PC business at the company. No specific details of what format the touchscreen Eee will take have been released; ASUS could choose to add a touch-sensitive panel to the screen of an existing netbook (similar to the aftermarket mods we’ve seen) or it could develop a new Eee Slate PC.
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