netbooks

It's been 10 months since the code for the Windows 7 beta leaked to BitTorrent. That leak was quickly followed by an official free beta release the first week of January and a release candidate in April. Hardware manufacturers have had their hands on the final version since July, and today is finally your day--the day you can buy a machine running Windows 7 pre-installed.

This is the week of the Internationale Funkausstellung (er, International Consumer Electronics Show) in Berlin, which is pretty much just what it sounds like. It's one whopping, European CES. The trouble with IFA for us on the State-side, though, is that a lot of companies forget one key thing: the magical Internet can cross water. Because of that, a lot of "new product announcements" are "things we have already seen," so it takes a little more effort (and flexing what's left of my undergrad German skillz) to figure out what's worth paying attention to.

Over the last two days, the IFA press preview has kicked up some real goodies -- even before the show floor opens to the public today. IFA '09 has already shown us a real taste of how our home theaters will look in the next half-decade, laptops on serious diets, and a couple cool new toys.

What happens when a mobile phone company makes a netbook? You get a "mini-laptop" that's connected to the brink. (The epically failed Palm Foleo notwithstanding, of course.)

Nokia's Booklet 3G has (duh) 3G HSPA connectivity, a SIM card slot, and WiFi. Its super-thin 0.8-inch-thick, aluminum-encased body houses an Intel Atom processor, an HDMI-out port, and an SD card reader.

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Tags

Gadgets, Acer Aspire Timeline 3810T, HP dv2z, macbook air, MSI X340, netbooks, September 2009, What's New

Why Now
Netbooks, this year’s hit, show that skinny sells. So chip makers are releasing new varieties of the tiny, energy-efficient chips—usually found in sleek $2,000 laptops—that make faster thin machines possible.

How You’ll Benefit

It's official: Google is making a play to replace the Windows or Mac OS X operating system on your computer with a new, web-based OS based on their Chrome browser. It's expected to hit netbooks by the end of next year, and after that? It could fundamentally change the way we use computers.