Tokyo-based jig.jp has been developing mobile browsers since 2003, claiming its “jig browser (which was downloaded over 4 million times so far) is the world’s first Java-based browser that made it possible to view PC sites on cell phones. And now the company has released an ambitious Android app called SPIDERSS, which combines a browser with an RSS reader and an aggregator for social network updates.
Available in English and Japanese, the free app’s main selling point is that all elements are accessible from a single screen: You can either choose to directly type in a URL or search term in the top bar (to then open a full browser window), check your Facebook newsfeed and Twitter timeline in the “Application Deck” under that or scroll through your RSS feeds in the bottom part. All feeds and web pages can be easily shared by SMS, Email, Twitter or Facebook with the push of a button.
The Webkit-based browser supports HTML 4.0.1/XHTML 1.1 and JavaScript 1.5, provides native support for the VGA and QVGA resolutions and can be used with Android OS 1.5 or higher (full specs). Feed formats supported include RSS (0.9, 0.91, 1.0 and 2.0) and ATOM (0.3 and 1.0). Users can bookmark pages, use tabs, choose between four different search engines, keep a record of links visited etc.
The browser is pretty hard to use though, as it “magnifies” websites, displaying the top left part first (skip to 1.00 in this video to see what I mean). SPIDERSS does offer different layouts and a zoom-out function (50% maximum), but still, most of the times you need to scroll in various directions to view a website in its entirety.
But SPIDERSS is still in beta, with jig.jp saying future updates will bring a better overall browsing experience and additional functions (versions for Nokia (Ovi) and Windows phones are scheduled for release in the near future). The app is free, so take it for a spin if you’re not satisfied with your current Android browser.
Other Android browsers available or currently in development include Opera Mini, Steel, Dolphin, Firefox Mobile and Skyfire.
ASUS Eee PC 1005PR packs Broadcom Crystal HD and high-res screen originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Chinese companies have been producing cheap knockoffs of big name laptops for years. But you know what most of them lack? Big name branding. Fortunately, at least one Chinese manufacturer realizes that the same thing is true for fake brand name laptops as fake brand name handbags: They’re more attractive if you don’t know they’re fake.
With that in mind, said company has slapped the HP name on a laptop that bears a more than passing resemblance to the HP Mini 5102. Except it’s not an HP Mini 5102. How do I know? Because the HP Mini 5102 has a 10.1 inch display, not an 11.6 inch screen.
Of course, that means the knockoff also has a larger keyboard, which might be a bonus for some people. The screen is a high resolution 1366 x 768 pixel display, and the computer packs some of the same features as the HP Mini 5102, including a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, attractive red cover, and chiclet-style keyboard as well as 802.11b/g/n WiFi.
The knockoff also sells for just about $337 in China, although it probably won’t be available for that price in the US — or anywhere else, anytime soon.
On the down side, the real HP Mini 5102 has a 7200RPM hard drive, while the fake has a slower 160GB 5400RPM HDD.
via M.I.C. Gadget
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HP Mini 5102 clone, complete with the HP logo
MSI today officially brought its chief designer netbook, the Wind U160, to US shores through Buy.com and Newegg. The system is the same as its international counterpart and revolves around a gold-and-bronze look with chiclet keys. It runs on Intel's newer Pine Trail platform and, with a 1.66GHz Atom, potentially breaks records with a maximum 14-hour battery life....
MSI has updated their netbook line once again. While the U130 and U135 already packed Intel's latest Pine Trail processor, the U160 is throwing down the battery gauntlet. Fifteen hours on one charge? That's nuts.
Of course, it's not really fifteen hours, since actual battery life is never anywhere close to listed. And the claim only applies to when the netbook is in "Eco" mode, which undoubtedly requires a significant performance trade-off. But even if the U160 can achieve 60% of its claim during normal usage, that's as impressive a netbook battery life as we've seen.
The $380 price tag also includes a 10-inch LED display (1024x600), the Pine Trail's standard 1GB RAM, and and Windows 7 Starter. But you'll have to make do with a 160GB HD and an island-style keyboard, which on a netbook doesn't leave a lot of room for error. But—especially if the battery life claim holds up—you could certainly do worse for more money.
MSI North America Announces Availability of the 2010 iF Product Design Award Winning Wind U160
Stylish new netbook features Pine Trail Platform, 15-Hour Battery Life, and Windows 7CITY OF INDUSTRY, CA – March 08, 2010 – MSI Computer, a leading manufacturer of computer hardware products and solutions, is proud to announce the availability of the 2010 iF Product Design Award Winning Wind U160. The U160, MSI's second netbook to feature the new Pine Trail platform, is powered by the Intel® Atom N450™ Processor. The incredibly efficient and Energy Star compliant U160 boosts a 15 hour battery life when running in MSI's exclusive ECO mode. This allows users to get through a full day of work or school without having to bring their adapter.
Abandoning the traditional clamshell form, the Wind U160 ushers in a new era of netbook design. From the illuminated MSI logo on the netbook's outer surface to the power button placed on the U160's cylindrical hinge, the newest Wind model sports a slim new footprint. Just 0.98 inches at its widest point, the U160 is the thinnest Wind model to date.
The units' raised chiclet keyboard and seamless wide touchpad increase both accuracy and comfort while typing. The U160 is available in a fashionable sparkling gold or a more formal black, and its Color Film Print finish gives it a sleek stylish new look.
The newest edition to the Wind family will also ships with 10-inch backlit LED display, 1 GB of DDR2 memory, a 160GB hard drive, a 6-cell battery, Bluetooth connectivity and Microsoft's Windows 7 Starter. MSI also included its user friendly EasyFace facial recognition security software to help U160 users protect their information.
The MSI Wind U160 costs just $379.99 and is available now at Fry's (Fry's product number L1600) and online at Newegg and Buy.com.
The HP Slate’s resemblance to Apple’s iPad looks to be no more than skin deep. Sure, the two devices do basically do the same thing, but Slate looks to offer a bit more potential, if the HP/Abode promotional videos are to believed, with Windows 7 and Flash support.
The tiff between Apple and Adobe raises some key concern about the quality of the Flash application. Sure, it drives a lot of content on the web, but at what cost to hardware? One, it appears, Apple doesn’t want to bear (and thus has hitched it’s wagon to HTML5). Adobe, understandably, doesn’t want to give up its content delivery hegemony on the Internet. Touting the amount of Flash content on the web, and demonstrating it can be used, and used without troublesome hardware consequences, is a good move to negate any bad public relations emerging from Apple’s very public stance.
Adobe may be stacking the deck in its presentation, however. According to Engadget, “Flash is said to be hardware-accelerated on the Slate, which suggests something other than a bone-stock Atom setup in there--we'd guess it's an Atom plus a Broadcom Crystal HD Accelerator”. How much of an impact this has is open to discussion, but it suggests that non-accelerated versions may move slower. Could Adobe’s approach later backfire, when users of other tablet devices don’t get this promised level of performance?
How well Apple’s Flash strategy plays out will be known shortly--if the iPad not just sells, but satisfies, then Apple made the right bet (for its customer base). We’ll have to wait and see later this year, when it is expected HP will release the Slate, whether Flash means all that much to consumers.
Image Credit: HP
In an announcement published last week, Nokia's Valtteri Halla revealed that Intel and Nokia are planning to launch the public MeeGo source code repository by the end of the month.
The MeeGo project began to take shape last month when Intel and Nokia announced plans to merge their respective Linux-based mobile computing platforms into a single open source software project. The unified software platform, which consists of technology from Maemo and Moblin, will be designed for use on a wide range of device form factors and will support both ARM and x86 architectures.
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I’ll leave the comparisons between the Ezy Tablet PC and a certain device to be launched in a little under a month up to you. Actually, aside from the casing and the 10.2-inch multitouch LCD, there’s not a whole lot else in the way of commonality.
The Ezy Tablet PC features the following:
The product sells for $680 with 2GB of RAM and no operating system–Windows 7 or Vista will set you back $180 each. It’s also not quite clear what kind of 3G card is built in to this thing other than the product number “WCDMATD-SCDMACDMA2000.” I see “CDMA” in there.
It ships from Malaysia, too. That’s far, far away for most of us.
Ezy Tablet PC [ShopKami.com via Chip Chick]
Apple is facing indirect competition in the form of the newly spotted Ezy Tablet PC. The device takes at least some design cues from the iPad and, like some recent clones, uses netbook foundations to make its attempt. The handheld device has a larger, 10.2-inch screen and runs on Windows 7 with multi-touch, but in a much heavier (2.2 pounds) casing and with a 1.6GHz Atom....
Apple is facing indirect competition in the form of the newly spotted Ezy Tablet PC. The device takes at least some design cues from the iPad and, like some recent clones, uses netbook foundations to make its attempt. The handheld device has a larger, 10.2-inch screen and runs on Windows 7 with multi-touch, but in a much heavier (2.2 pounds) casing and with a 1.6GHz Atom....
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Continue reading HP Slate makes an appearance to show off Flash, stays for a rock concert
HP Slate makes an appearance to show off Flash, stays for a rock concert originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Since day one, Intel’s Atom chips have come in two flavors: desktop and mobile. While the desktop chips have come in dual core and single core versions, the Atom chips designed for netbooks and other portable devices have traditionally been single core only. But it looks like that could soon change.
PC Inpact reports that Intel may be working on a dual core Atom chip for netbooks. It will reportedly be called something like the Atom N500, which makes sense, since the latest dual core chip for desktops is called the Atom D510 — and most of the company’s netbook-specific chips have started with the letter N, such as the Atom N270, N280, N450, and N470.
Up until now, any PC maker that wanted to build a laptop with a dual core Atom processor had to use a desktop chip such as the Atom 330 dual core CPU found in the Asus Eee PC 1201N. But those chips tend to draw more power and generate more heat than chips designed for netbooks.
Bear in mind, even with two cores, an Atom chip is an Atom chip. They’re designed as low cost, low power alternatives to beefier processors. As such, I’d expect the Atom N500 to be a little faster than a single core Atom processor and better at multitasking and other tasks which can benefit from multiple cores. But don’t expect miracles.
There’s no word on how much the Atom N500 would cost or when it would be released. And right now, this is just a rumor, although PC Inpact reports that the information comes from companies that work with Intel.
via Blogeee
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Intel may be working on a dual core Atom chip for netbooks
Samsung has quietly upgraded its Go range of netbooks, the N315. Most significantly, it has the newer 1.66GHz Atom CPU from Intel's newer Pine Trail platform versus the older 1.6GHz version, along with a matte screen. The chassis and keyboard are carried over, and a Wi-Fi radio is integrated as well. The New York Times' Reader software is preloaded onto the larger 250GB hard drive, along with Windows 7 Starter....
LG’s X300 notebook will be available in Asia, the Middle East and South America starting this month. The laptop, which first showed up at CES in January, has an 11.6 inch 1366 x 768 pixel HD display and runs Windows 7 Home Premium. It ships with a 2 cell battery, plus a spare battery which should provide up to 7 hours of run time, combined.
The notebook uses a low power 2GHz Intel Atom Menlow chip and a 128GB solid state disk. It has a fanless design, which should make operation pretty darn quiet.It also has an integrated 3G module
The most impressive thing about the LG X300, though, is its size and weight. It’s less than 0.7″ thick and weighs just 2.1 pounds. Not bad for an 11.6 inch notebook.
On the down side, this thing ain’t going to come cheap. While no US pricing has been announced yet, Engadget reports that it will sell for the equivalent of $1424 in Korea.
It’s possible that the US version will be called the LG X30 instead of the X300. The FCC has already published some documents for an LG X30 laptop which looks strikingly similar to the X300.
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LG X300 thin and light notebook launches this month
It looks like a lot of products unveiled at CES 2010 are finally getting some release and shipping dates. Now the MSi Wind U160 netbook is also now shipping in the US.
Selling for as low as $379.99 (before taxes and shipping), the MSi Wind U160 netbook is a worthy contender for those shopping around for a netbook right now - especially considering it promises up to 14-15 hours of battery life.
You might have to search around though, as Newegg and some other sites are already shipping, but Amazon is still only on pre-order mode.
Just to keep in mind, some of the specs on the MSi Wind U160 include:
It’s available in black and gold, although based on the photo, that’s a very dusty dark gold. (I don’t like it when colors in PR photos can be misleading, especially when shopping online.)
The Fujitsu LifeBook UH900 is a tiny laptop with an an Intel Atom processor. But there are two things that keep it from being a true netbook. First, with a starting price of about $849, it’s more than twice as expensive as a typical netbook. Second, with a 5.6 inch display and keyboard that’s barely touch-typable, the UH900 almost feels more like a smartphone than a laptop — you know, if smartphones could run Windows 7 Home Premium.
Pocketables has published a review of the Fujitsu LifeBook UH900. The verdict? Sure it’s expensive, but good luck finding another device this small and light with this many features.
The unit Jenn reviewed for Pocketables is a Japanese model that has a 2GHz Intel Atom Z550 processor, 2G of RAM, and a 30GB solid state disk. It includes Bluetooth, WiFi, and WiMax capabilities and has a 1280 x 800 pixel 5.6″ touchscreen display. Oh yeah, and it only weighs about 17 ounces.
She wasn’t that impressed with the build quality. And while the UH900 has a multitouch display, she found it was actually faster to use the mouse controls to zoom or rotate content than to use the touchscreen gestures.
Make sure to check out the full review for the results of Jenn’s battery test, typing test, and overall impressions of the UH900.
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Fujitsu LifeBook UH900 mini-laptop reviewed
TestFreaks published a Puget Echo I HTPC System Review Quote from review: " The Puget Systems Echo I is built upon the Zotac IONITX-F-E ATOM N330 Mini-ITX platform. It is housed within an Antec case and is slightly smaller in size than an Xbox 360. ...
While there’s a lot of buzz around the upcoming iPad and dozens of other internet slates, tablet PCs have been around for nearly a decade. The difference is that most Windows-based tablets available today feature full sized keyboards and swivels that let you fold the touchscreen down over the keyboard for use in tablet mode. The iPad is a touchscreen-only device with a low power processor. As a result, the iPad will be lighter, get better battery life, and be altogether more portable than most existing tablet PCs.
But what happens when you take Microsoft’s original vision for a tablet PC and shrink it down to netbook size? I’ve reviewed a couple of convertible tablet style netbooks and to be honest, I haven’t been that impressed with the results. But there are a number of new models slated to come out in the next few month, and Sascha at Netbook News got a chance recently to sit down with three of them and give us a good look at the similarities and differences.
The Gigabyte T1000, Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t, and Viliv S10 Blade all have 10 inch touchscreen displays. But the Lenovo has a 1024 x 600 pixel display while the Gigabyte and Viliv models has a 1366 x 768 pixel HD display. The Gigabyte laptop dis a bit larger, and overall more solid looking. But the Lenovo is significantly cheaper.
The Viliv S10, which shows up about 9 and a half minutes into the video below is much slimmer than the other models. But it also uses a different chipset. While the Lenovo and Gigabyte laptops have Intel Atom N450 or N470 processors, the S10 has a lower power Atom Z530 or Z550 processor.
Overall, it looks to me like the Viliv has the best case design of the bunch, but as we learned yesterday, the touchscreen isn’t particularly responsive.
You can check out Sascha’s hands-on video with all three tablets below for a closer look.
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A tale of three tablets: Lenovo, Gigabyte, and Viliv’s convertible netbooks
MSI's Wind U160 netbook up for grabs in the US originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 07 Mar 2010 05:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We’re fans of videos ’round these parts, especially when they go to ridiculous lengths to show off a certain products coolest features. You can thank Chippy from UMPCPortal, where he goes above and beyond the call of duty, and brings you a 14 minute video starting from the machine’s unboxing, to a segment where he starts to scribble. Scribble, and scribble. Like we said, we like when a reviewer showcases the coolest features. Chippy was lucky enough to get a pre-production model, but it is one of the final samples before the start of final production.
The S10 Blade is shipping with the Windows Aero feature running, but the reviewer wants everyone to know that turning this feature off may be the best bet, as it’s a resource hog if left on. But on the other side of the coin, Chippy seems pretty pleased with the S10 so far. The build quality is nice, the SSD is very fast (with some great application start times), and the 3G reception is top-notch.
Overall, even if this model is a pre-production version, the Viliv s10 seems to be a winner. Of course, there still needs to be some extensive testing done on the finished version, but from what we can see right now, the company is on the right path. Especially if that $699 starting price point holds true. Then again, for the features and the price at the top of the ladder, you could probably find better things to buy when the time comes.
[via UMPCPortal]
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