Although none of the machines are expected to be either as eye-catching or as well marketed as the top-tier ultrabooks from Dell, HP, Lenovo and others, what they will have in their favor is affordability. Intel is pushing for $599 to $649 machines, accounting for around 6- to 7-percent of the notebook market overall in 2012.

The new models are coming in Q2 2012, the sources say, as part of a 15m 2012 push for second-tier vendors as the ultrabook market takes off.

Meanwhile, Quanta Computer – believed to be manufacturing HP’s ultrabook for the company – has apparently bought its own CNC machines so that it can create unibody casings in-house. The investment is being seen as an attempt to cut manufacturing costs, reducing the need to outsource chassis production. Rival Wistron, though, is apparently looking to non-metal options, which would open the door to alternative color ultrabooks.

ECS (aka Elitegroup) will have a range of 6-, 8- and 9.7-inch ereaders with integrated WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G along with capacitive touchscreens. They’ll run either Android or another Linux based OS, and support not only ebook content but video and other multimedia. As for tablets, both Android and Windows 7 models will be in evidence, either running Atom CPUs or Marvell/Samsung ARM-based chipsets, hitting both the 7-inch and 10.1-inch sizes.

MSI, meanwhile, will have a 10-inch Windows tablet on Intel chips on show, and will be showing off its ARM-based Android slates. One of those will be a Tegra 2 machine, running Android Gingerbread and expected to go on sale in April or May 2011.

Finally, there’s a smaller ASUS – believed to use a 7-inch panel with either Tegra 2 or a Qualcomm chipset – running Android, along with a second version that adds 3.5G cellular connectivity with voice call support. Both are expected to launch in March or April next year.

Best Buy tossed the Samsung Instinct HD online confirming its most important specs in the process. The phone will sport a 5MP camera that can play and record HD video along with Wi-Fi and lots of social networking. We found out early in the week that Apple’s latest OS, Snow Leopard, will ship on August 28 for $29. Bill Gates should be ashamed.

Shuttle swiped some of the team form ECS a while back and it looks like the new employees are going to be working on a netbook for Shuttle. That is just what we need, another netbook on the market. Speaking of another netbook, Nokia whipped its new Booklet 3G out this week with a promise of 12 hours of run time per charge.

The Nokia N97 Mini was reviewed early on Tuesday and the verdict was the keyboard is horrible. That may as well be the kiss of death for the smartphone. Asus’ new Eee Top nettop computers were confirmed as coming to the U.S. with the ET2002T and the ET2203T coming with some very nice features like NVIDIA Ion.

Nintendo filed a patent application on a new football controller this week that looks really weird. From the line art, it looks like you plug your remote and nunchuck into it. I wonder how long it will take for someone to put a football through their TV when this thing hits market. Sony let it slide this week that they are still losing money on the PS3 Slim from a hardware perspective. The motion controller spawned from Project Natal is due to hit market in 2010 as well.

Elecom unveiled a cool SSD this week that has 16GB of storage in a design so small it plugs directly into the internal SATA port on your mainboard. It looks like you have to give up any ports beside it though thanks to the fat drive. HIS launched a new HD 4890 iCooler x4 video card this week that is overclocked and has a unique cooling solution. I wondered if putting the heat back into the chassis would cause any issues for the other components of a computer using the card.

Corsair unveiled a new SSD with 256GB of storage called the X256 with seriously fast read and write speeds Tuesday. The SSD will support TRIM for Windows 7 reducing unneeded delete cycles to prolong the drives life. Samsung’s Omnia 2 was spied on the Samsung mobile website sporting a Verizon logo. Details are scant, but we know it has a 3.7-inch screen with AMOLED tech.

Motorola announced that it will be holding an event on September 10. The event is expected to be the unveiling of the Sholes and Morrison handsets thanks to the Android drawn on the logo. Sony finally offered up a real competitor to the Kindle this week with the unveiling of its first 3G eReader with a 7-inch touchscreen at $399.

A rumor tipped up Wednesday that has the cheap, plastic MacBook getting an update and possibly a lower price tag. That would be a welcome addition to the Apple line. It’s almost disgusting to see cool gadgets gutted and filmed for our enjoyment. The Sony PS3 Slim was torn down and snapped Wednesday and it was almost enough to make the gaming geeks cry.

I talked about the new PocketDock Wednesday that allows you to charge your iPod or iPhone with a plain USB cable rather than the Apple cord you typically use. It also has a 3.5mm output to connect to your home stereo. We also saw a new external Blu-ray player perfect for netbooks this week sporting both USB and eSATA interfaces. The power sipping optical drive gets all the juice it needs from the USB port.

Sirius XM unveiled the XM SkyDock for iPhone and iPod touch. The dock turns the iPhone into a touchscreen controller for satellite radio programming and keeps the phone charged up. The Super USB mobile phone charger showed up this week and charges all sorts of devices at once, it reminds me of a Swiss army octopus.

Thursday we showed off the official video of the slick new Nokia N900 along with its Maemo 5 operating system. This may be Nokia’s best chance to fight RIM and Apple on even ground. We found out that Apple will be having an event on September 9 and while what they will be showing off is unknown, we suspect it’s the iPod devices with cameras to go along with all those leaked shots of iPod cases.

Thursday Microsoft officially confirmed the rumored price cut on the Xbox 360 Elite. The console price dropped to $299 to combat the new PS3 Slim selling at the same price. The PS3 seems to be the better deal with the Blu-ray player in it to me. Navteq issued a study this week that claims using a GPS with traffic data can save drivers four days per year of sitting in traffic. That’s four more days you can spend at the office.

I ran across an external laptop battery later in the week that promises to work with 10,000 different laptop models. The battery claims to be good for about three more hours of use. TiVo filed a lawsuit in an East Texas court against Verizon and AT&T over DVR patents. The court is that of the judge that ruled against Nintendo and other big companies in recent patent suits.

Sony unveiled several new DSLR cameras this week, all of which can store to SD and SDHC cards. The cameras are due in October with the most expensive one selling at $950. Logitech’s new Squeezebox Touch was spotted running wild Friday with accessories showing up on the Logitech website. The thing looks a lot like the Harmony tablet style remotes to me.

Yet another iPhone blew up this week in France leaving the teenage boy using it with a headache that lasted about two days. I bet he had to replace his tightie whities too and just didn’t mention that part. What’s with all the European explosions? Altec Lansing brings back the 80′s with a new style boom box called the MIX Boombox sporting all sorts of digital media docks and inputs. I could totally see the thing sighting beside a cardboard dance floor while dancers spin around on their heads.

The Nokia N900 went on pre-order in Germany and Italy Friday at 599 EUR. There is no word on pricing and launch date for other countries yet. We posted up reviews of the new Nokia E52 and E55 mobile phones Friday. We liked the E52 better than the E55.

Another week has come and gone and another week in review in the history books for your perusal. Till next week!

Shuttle have experimented with Intel’s Atom processor range, in the shape of the X50 all-in-one desktop, but are yet to venture publicly into netbook hardware.  It’s unclear whether they would offer a barebone design, in which buyers could select and install their own memory, storage and the like, or a more mainstream preconfigured model.

ECS, for their part, are claiming to have “no knowledge of any raid” on their workforce, and are presumably carrying on business-as-usual.  The company are responsible for the OEM manufacturer of many brand-name netbooks, as well as producing their own reference platforms including an Android-based model back at Computex.

Video demo after the cut

You also get 512MB of RAM, a 2.5-inch hard-drive or SSD and two USB 2.0 ports, together with a memory card reader and headphone jack.  The webcam is a choice of 0.3-megapixel or 1.3-megapixel resolution, and there are two Mini-PCIe card slots saved for WWAN duties: ECS suggest HSPA and WiMAX.

The whole thing measures just 246 x 121 x 20 mm and weighs 800g, and it’s apparently set to launch in the second half of 2009 priced under $500.  We’re already salivating; we reckon you will be too after watching this hands-on video.

MSI’s model is expected to slot into the X-Slim X340 range and is codenamed the MS-135X.  It has a 13.4-inch display and uses the Celeron 723 processor and GS40 chipset; integrated WiMAX will be an option, and shipments are expected in June.  Clevo will also use the Celeron 723 and GS40 in their two models: the W8x0V has a choice of 13.3-inch or 14-inch display, while the R130x has a 13.3-inch panel, and production will begin in August and June, respectively.

Meanwhile ECS will use the Celeron 723/GS40 pairing for its 13.3-inch ECS 130 model, hitting mass production in August, and the 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo SU9600 and GS45 chipset in their T30, production of which kicks off in June.  Compal will have their own 13.3-inch ultraportable, codenamed NTUCO, about which little is known aside from the production schedule, which begins in September.

Pegatron have already demonstrated their CULV notebooks, the 13.3-inch DC3e, RX8 and DC2, as have Mitac with their 13.3-inch 9213 and 12-inch 9212 (which both use the SU9400 CPU and GS45 chipset).  However Mitac will follow that in June with the 13.3-inch 9223, which has the SU2700 processor and GS40 chipset.

Unwired View’s David had a chance to play with the J10IL at the Mobile Asia Congress, and thankfully it looks as though the black & white color scheme that so upset us last time has quietly expired.  In its place is a white version that, while not espcially distinctive, David reports is nonetheless “very good” to use.

The keyboard is criticised as not as good as that on the MSI Wind or the Acer Aspire One, but the built-in WWAN keeps the J10IL in contention.  Now they need to pick a better name and improve availability: ECS claim the J10ILis available now in Spain and certain Asian markets, but with the holiday shopping season upon us they really need to expand throughout Europe and the US.