It was all going so well for Gigabyte’s M528 MID. After the preorder pricing news broke late last week – suggesting $685 in the US or £429 in the UK – a surprisingly large number of people started to imagine an immediate future with a MID in it. Now some slight clarification on the part of Expansys has scuppered those hopes: the M528, in its standard configuration, won’t include 3G.
Retailer Expansys has listed the Gigabyte M528 MID for preorder on its US and UK sites. According to the listing, the 4.8-inch touchscreen device will cost $684.99 in the US and £429 in the UK, figures that tally with the Taiwanese pricing Gigabyte recently confirmed. Although both Expansys sites now list the MID as “ordered on request”, an earlier screenshot suggested availability on September 17th.
The fight got dirty in the netbook arena this week, as Monday saw VIA’s Nano CPU take on Intel’s Atom with a 1080p smack-down video only to become mired in controversy when bloggers ran the tests themselves and came up with wildly different outcomes. Still, we had Lenovo’s finally-official IdeaPad S10 and S9 to cheer us up, together with the rumor that Gigabyte plan a 10-inch dual-core version of the coveted M912 tablet-netbook.
Of course, ASUS couldn’t bear to be out of the headlines for a single minute, and so announced the S101 (the size of an Eee, the branding of an Eee, but it’s not an Eee) together with a cloud storage option. Netbooks are so much the niche of the moment that this week’s “He Said, She Said” editorial was all about whether the best value comes from there or from a second-hand laptop off of eBay.
According to Engadget Chinese, Gigabyte are preparing a 10-inch version of their M912 convertible touchscreen netbook. Not only will the larger netbook – they suggest the M1012 – have a bigger display than the 8.9-inch M912 but it will also use Intel’s upcoming dual-core Atom 330 CPU.
It’s become somewhat traditional to start the week’s review with what’s happening in the netbook world, a niche that’s arguably the fastest developing right now in consumer tech. Fujitsu kicked things off with the proclamation that budget ultraportables “don’t add up” and that the current race to the bottom line doesn’t give manufacturers enough room to make profit; Fujitsu were rumored the week before to be planning a netbook of their own, only with the emphasis on build quality rather than solely the price tag. Sony also picked up a few netbook-in-progress rumors, tipped for Q4 2008, and HP revealed that they’re working on a follow-up to the 2133 Mini-Note that will be less sturdy but also less expensive.
LG, too, are said to have a netbook in the works, with a model tentatively named X110 running Intel’s Atom CPU and made for them by MSI. It’s uncertain whether, if this turns out to be true, the X110 would be a rebadge of the MSI Wind or a whole new design. Finally, ASUS confirmed they wouldn’t be letting up the pressure as firm most associated with the segment; there’s talk of an “all day” battery and cloud storage option for release later on in 2008.
After teasing with an unboxing video yesterday, Chippy made good on his promise and ran benchmarks and gave in-depth opinions on the Gigabyte M912 touchscreen ultraportable last night. Turns out that Gigabyte themselves were watching, and have confirmed that there will only be two versions of the M912: both will run Vista or XP (no Linux option), but where the M912 will have a 1280×768 CCFL-backlit LCD, the M912M will have a 1024×600 LED-backlit LCD.
Watch Chippy’s overview review video after the cut
Having found out on Monday that Gigabyte’s diminutive M912 convertible touchscreen tablet would start from just $556, interest in the Atom-powered ultraportable has steadily increased. UMPC Portal’s Chippy has one of the first demo models, and he’s put together his unboxing and first impressions video (which you can see after the cut).
Pricing details for Gigabyte’s M912 mini-convertible have emerged, courtesy of UMPC Fever’s user forum. From the start, OS details were confusing; now it appears that three versions of the touchscreen notebook will be available, the M912V running Vista and the M912X and M912M both running XP.
Unsurprisingly the iPhone 3G has overshadowed just about all other news this week, with Steve Jobs taking to the Keynote stage at WWDC 2008 on Monday and announcing Apple’s updated cellphone. Packing 3G, GPS, improved software and more into an only slightly thicker (and curvier) chassis, the iPhone 3G is destined to make waves when it launches on July 11th, especially given the lower price of $199 (for the 8GB model). We live-blogged the Keynote and many of you were good enough to join us; check out our coverage here, and click over to iPhone Buzz for more up-to-the-minute iPhone news.
Gigabyte have revealed pricing for their M528 MID, which we last saw back at CeBIT 2008. The compact device has a 4.8-inch touchscreen, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, GPS, 3G HSDPA and dual cameras (VGA up front, 3-megapixel with autofocus round the back). Storage is courtesy of a 4GB SSD, while the processor is an 800Mhz Silverthorne/Poulsbo (Menlow). The Taiwanese end-user price is a recommended $750.
SlashGear Japan
