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The US$999 MacBook may not feature the same swank aluminum togs as its older siblings, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t get its share of the family love. On Wednesday, Apple marginally bumped the specs on the base configuration, giving customers a little more bang for their sub-thousand bucks.

Strangely enough, the white polycarbonate MacBook actually now sports a 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor–faster than its nearest relative, the $1,300 aluminum MacBook. Other specs on the $999 configuration have been brought closer to the mid-range model: it now sports 2GB of 800MHz DDR2 RAM (up from the previous incarnation’s 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 RAM) and a 160GB SATA hard drive instead of the last model’s 120GB drive.

Otherwise, though, the MacBook remains unchanged, retaining a mini DVI port instead of the aluminum’s mini DisplayPort connector, the Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics it added a few months ago and–we’re sure you’ll all be happy to know–keeping its FireWire 400 port. Clearly Apple isn’t ready to put the white MacBook out to pasture just yet

The latest Hewlett-Packard Mini netbook was unveiled on Wednesday and in a tip to its popularity the company has made few changes from the previous model.

The new HP Mini 110’s hardware is similar to that of its popular predecessor, the Mini 1000, but it adds extra USB and monitor ports and software including a program that synchronizes files between PCs. The Mini 110 will start at US$299 and run Windows XP or HP’s Mobile Internet software built on Linux.

The netbook, weighing in at 1.06 kilograms with a 10.1 inch screen, will ship worldwide this week, See Chin Teik, senior vice president for HP’s personal systems group in Asia, told reporters. The netbook will ship in black first, followed next week by white and a pink model with a floral imprint.

HP also announced a dual-core processor version of its Pavilion dv2 laptop to go on sale next week. The 1.6 GHz processors offered will come from the Athlon and Turion chip lines from Advanced Micro Devices. The laptop’s other components, including its 12.1-inch screen and ATI Radeon video card, will remain the same as the current dv2 machine.

Also announced was the Pavilion MS200, HP’s first all-in-one desktop without a touchscreen. The entertainment PC, aimed at home users, will hit store shelves in China in June and other countries in coming months.

The piano-black PC will sell for $599 and come with an 18.5-inch screen. Wireless mouse and keyboard functions let the machine use only one cable, for power.

HP’s new products are a response to the difficult economy and rising consumer concern about style, executives at the launch event said.

What It Is: Netbooks have hit a nerve. According to DisplaySearch’s forecast, sales for these small, low-cost notebooks will rise 65 percent in 2009, compared to just a 3 percent growth for standard notebooks. The form factor is attractive. For example, the HP Mini 2140 costs just US$500, sports the low-power Intel Atom processor, has a battery life of six hours and weighs just three pounds.

More on CIO.com

Six Reasons Netbooks ARE Enterprise Ready: IT Pro Speaks

How to Choose: Netbook Vs. Ultraportable Laptop

Why The Hype: Netbooks meet a need. Smartphones, such as the Apple iPhone, are intended for what DisplaySearch analyst John Jacobs calls a three-minute experience–enough time to check e-mail or call the office. A notebook is for longer sessions, maybe three hours. A netbook fits in between. It’s designed for a 30-minute experience including Web access, e-mail and document editing. Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, says netbooks are travel-friendly, fit well with enterprise hot-swap repair procedures (since they are easy to manage) and thus can work for both IT managers and mobile professionals such as sales agents.

The Real Deal: Netbooks seem viable. JeffreyBreen,the CTO at Yankee Group, tells of an employee who bought his own netbook and found it worked well for quick Web and e-mail sessions. Yet, if there was a jury for enterprise decisions, they would still be deliberating netbook value. Gottheil notes that more robust e-mail products, such as Outlook or Notes, run best on a dual-core processor. In a mass deployment of netbooks, an enterprise might have to add more wireless access points or change wireless configurations to avoid interference issues, which add to the cost. “Netbooks may be an optional [device] in enterprise environments in the future,” says Thomas Endres, CIO with Lufthansa. But right now, they’re not fit for engineering and other complex applications.

Bob Hersch, the global managing director of the workplace technology and collaboration practice at Accenture, thinks netbooks work well for consumers of information but not creators of information.

The company, with 180,000 knowledge workers across the globe, has given a solid “it depends” answer on netbooks. Hersch says it is important to match the needs of the end user to the device. In many ways, that’s even the consensus among netbook manufacturers. Lenovo, which makes the IdeaPad S10, markets the netbook as an accessory.

Should You Invest? In an enterprise environment–where standardization is key and superfluous accessories are verboten–the netbook is a hard sell. It’s another form factor for IT to support, and the more limited processor is not a good fit for anyone who creates information–say, in an Excel spreadsheet. Interestingly, netbooks–and related nettops (for example, thin desktops)–may become a good option for thin computing after the hype of massive consumer interest subsides. According to Jacobs, the sub-$500 price point is also attractive as a quick replacement unit in the enterprise–a Hyundai loaner while your Audi gets repaired.

John Brandon is a Minnesota-based freelance writer.

In an effort to counter the growing dominance of Microsoft’s Windows OS in netbooks, Intel on Tuesday announced a beta version of a Linux OS it has developed for low-cost laptops and mobile devices.

The chip company on Tuesday announced a beta of Moblin 2.0, a stripped-down distribution of Linux optimized for smaller screens on netbooks and mobile Internet devices (MIDs). Intel has fine-tuned Moblin for netbooks based on Atom chips with a simple user interface and improved power-saving features.

Most netbooks today ship with Intel’s Atom chip but run the Windows XP operating system, which Microsoft ships for low-cost laptops. But Intel wants to ensure that every “ounce” of technology — including Moblin — put into Atom is optimized for size and power consumption, said Doug Fisher, vice president and general manager of the software and services group at Intel, during a conference call on Tuesday.

Netbooks are low-cost laptops characterized by small screens and limited graphics capabilities. The laptops are designed for basic purposes such as Web surfing, e-mail and word processing. Shipments of netbooks grew sevenfold in the first quarter of 2009 to reach around 4.5 million, with the number expected to reach 22 million by the end of the year, according to IDC.

Intel has contributed a new user interface to the beta, which is optimized for the smaller screens of Atom-based netbooks and MIDs. The new UI aggregates social networks under a single interface, which should make interacting with friends easier, Fisher said. Moblin also includes features that take advantage Atom’s sleep state to extend battery life of netbooks, Fisher said.

The beta release comes ahead of Microsoft’s planned release of its next-generation Windows 7 operating system, which will include a version optimized for netbooks. However, Fisher said that Moblin was not designed to compete with Windows. Both offer unique user experiences, and there are no points of comparison, he said.

“It depends on the user experience the [PC maker] tries to put in the [netbook],” Fisher said. Moblin is being designed as a slim version of Linux optimized for size and power that can boot up within five seconds, he said. That is much quicker than Windows XP, which is a full-featured operating system that in some cases could take up to one minute to load.

However, the Intel officials seemed to recognize Windows as the dominant OS and were willing to concede that the popularity of Windows XP might carry over with Windows 7.

“Windows 7 is a good choice and our customers will use that too,” said Noury Al-Khaledy, general manager for netbooks and nettops at Intel, during the conference call.

Netbook users are familiar with Windows environments and may feel uncomfortable moving to a Linux distribution, said Jay Chou, research analyst at IDC. Netbooks started off as devices to run basic applications, but consumers today want to do more, like run more powerful applications or play games, Chou said.

“Client-side Linux is a tough nut to crack,” Chou said. Limiting features in the Linux OS or giving users the inability to install more applications may limit capabilities of devices, Chou said.

Development of the Moblin OS was initiated by Intel in 2007 and was last month handed over to the nonprofit Linux Foundation, though Intel continues to contribute to the efforts.

The beta version of the Moblin OS is available on Moblin’s Web site.

A number of operating systems designed for netbooks are available, including GoodOS’s gOS3 Gadgets and Canonical’s Ubuntu Netbook Remix, which was launched late last month. Built on the Ubuntu 9.04 Linux core and mostly known by its Jaunty Jackalope moniker, Netbook Remix builds applications into a one-touch interface and uses fewer software resources to save battery life. The OS has received positive reviews from Linux enthusiasts.

Thought Out has released the MagStay Uni, a version of the company’s MagStay accessory compatible with the latest “unibody” MacBooks and MacBook Pros (but not the MacBook Air). An update to Though Out’s older MagStay Pro–we covered that version last year–the MagStay Uni is a plastic collar that fits around your laptop’s MagSafe jack, using the adjacent Ethernet port for support, and makes it more difficult for your power cable to detach. A small opening in the collar lets you view the charging light on the MagSafe connector.

The idea behind the MagStay is that Apple’s MagSafe connector, designed to prevent damage to your laptop by allowing the power cable to easily disconnect under strain, makes it too easy to accidentally disconnect. The MagStay avoids such accidental disconnections in situations where it’s safe to circumvent the MagSafe’s protection.

The US$18 MagStay Uni is available now from Though Out Web site.

An anti-microbial keyboard and a “network activity light” to let teachers know when students are surfing the Web instead of paying attention to their lessons are among the features of a netbook aimed at schools unveiled Tuesday by Dell.

The germ-killing keyboard on the Dell Latitude 2100 is coated with a naturally-occurring silver material, according to David Lord, senior manager for product marketing in Dell’s business client division. It is a $20 add-on option to the Latitude 2100, which starts at $369.

Other features of the Latitude 2100 include a rubberized case to help protect against bumps and drops, and a carrying handle designed for smaller hands.

The netbook is based around Intel Corp.’s popular Atom N270 1.6-GHz CPU.

The $369 version weighs 2.9 pounds and runs Ubuntu Linux 8.1 on an 8-GB solid-state disk (SSD) drive with a three-cell battery that lasts 3.5 hours, said Lord.

The price goes to $500 for a fully-loaded version with Vista Home Basic, a 160-GB conventional hard drive, anti-microbial keyboard, touchscreen and six-cell battery for up to seven hours of battery life.

Dell already produced a line of consumer netbooks under the Inspiron Mini brand.

The Latitude 2100 “is an entirely new platform,” said Patrick Burns, senior manager for product marketing at Dell. “It is not a rebranded Dell Mini.”

Dell said the Latitude 2100 could prove useful to some companies, too. Lord said that enterprises are “gravitating to the form factor,” but he declined to comment on whether and when Dell would unveil a true business-oriented netbook, something rival Hewlett-Packard Co. did with its Mini 2140.

The Dell netbooks come in five colors with students in mind: blue, red, green, yellow and black. That, said Burns, can help for identification purposes in schools, i.e. yellow for third-graders, blue for fifth-graders.

Dell is also offering a locking, moveable cart for storing the netbooks securely in classrooms after hours. The $3,900 cart comes with a router and power to recharge the netbooks.

Intel Corp. said today it intends to appeal the European Commission’s $1.44 billion fine for anticompetitive behavior in the chip market, with CEO Paul Otellini arguing that the EC “ignored or disregarded” evidence “refuting” its judgment.

“There were a number of documents from OEMs or between Intel and OEMs that refute what was claimed here,” said Otellini during a hastily called teleconference with the news media after the EC’s massive fine was announced this morning.

Paul S. Otellini is president and chief executive officer of Intel Corporation.OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) are PC makers that are Intel’s primary customers for processors. The EC ruled that Intel paid rebates to OEMs and to Europe’s largest IT retailer, Media Markt, in a way that shut out Intel’s closest rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., which brought the complaint to the European Union. The EC is the executive arm of the 27-member-state European Union.

Although the rebates resulted in a reduction in retail prices, Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said that the harm to consumers stems from their not getting the choice of computers that they would have if AMD hadn’t been suppressed.

“Intel has harmed millions of EU consumers,” Kroes said earlier today, adding that the large fine should “therefore come as no surprise.”

Otellini “strongly disagrees” with the EC’s ruling.

“There is no evidence of consumer harm or competitor harm,” he said. “It’s just a matter of competition at work, which is something we all want to see, versus something nefarious.”

Otellini said Intel “has the right to do this” and that it causes “no harm and no foul.”

Otellini disputed one of the EU’s key allegations, that Intel paid “conditional” rebates to PC makers that unfairly locked out chip competitors.

The EC “alleged exclusive deals but couldn’t find them, so it said we must have hidden [the evidence],” he said. But the EC “got all of the documents that they wanted … so I’m really baffled.”

Otellini declined to release these documents, which include contracts with OEMs, citing a protective order in the U.S. case in Delaware. That order, according to Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy, was agreed upon by Intel, AMD and the PC makers.

In those contracts, “there is no condition” demanding that OEMs buy exclusively from Intel, Otellini said.

Intel’s contracts with customers are “straightforward” and based primarily on volume. “The more you buy, the less you pay,” he said.

Otellini, who had only seen a three-page summary of the EC ruling, not the full 500-page document, said Intel plans to abide by the ruling even as it appeals it. The company has no plans to change its business practices.

Otellini pointed out that as far as he knew, no PC makers had joined the AMD complaint, which was raised nearly a decade ago. Thus, it was “absurd” to suggest that PC makers were disgruntled, or that Intel held any monopolistic sway over them.

“In most cases, our customers are larger than Intel. They have more buying power and are incredible negotiators,” Otellini said. “So on the face of it, the scenario is absurd.”

Despite the ruling, Intel has no plans to change its investment in Europe, Otellini said. Intel employs 6,000 workers in the EU countries, mostly in Ireland, where it has large chip plants.

Otellini took umbrage at Kroes’ tone when the fine was announced.

“I saw her remarks and they sounded like a joke. This is not a joking matter,” he said.

I’ve long said that Windows 7 may mean the death knell of Linux on netbooks, and here’s more evidence: A top Lenovo analyst says that Windows 7 will dominate netbooks, and Linux will fade away.

Lenovo’s Worldwide Competitive Analyst Matt Kohut spoke with Tech.Blorge about the future of netbooks, and what he had to say will likely make Linux fans fume. He touted Windows 7, particularly for its touch features. But when it came to Linux, he was not impressed. Here’s what he had to say about Linux on netbooks:

“…in order to keep the price points down, a lot of people thought that Linux would be the saviour of all of these netbooks.”

You know, there were a lot of netbooks loaded with Linux, which saves $50 or $100 or whatever it happens to be, based on Microsoft’s pricing and, again, from an industry standpoint, there were a lot of returns because people didn’t know what to do with it.

Linux, even if you’ve got a great distribution and you can argue which one is better or not, still requires a lot more hands-on than somebody who is using Windows.

So, we’ve seen overwhelmingly people wanting to stay with Windows because it just makes more sense: you just take it out of the box and it’s ready to go.

That’s exactly what I’ve been saying for a while. Although Linux is generally easy to use these days, upgrading and installing software on it is no easy task. Linux’s only future on netbooks is as a niche, and what Lenovo says is one more piece of evidence.

The first uptick in consumer confidence in 17 months is good news for Apple Inc., market research firm ChangeWave said Thursday.

According to Paul Carton, ChangeWave’s research director, the company’s April survey of 3,200 consumers showed a two-point increase, from 6% to 8%, in the number of people who said they planned to buy a laptop in the next 90 days — the first gain since November 2007.

If it pans out, the increase means Apple can breathe a little easier. “The economy is finally starting to move in Apple’s direction,” Carton said during a conference call Thursday. “Overall, laptop sales look like they’ll be hopping in the future, and that means Apple is well-positioned going forward.”

Carton based his optimism on the fact that, of those consumers who said they would buy a laptop in the next three months, 29% planned to buy an Apple laptop. While that number is down a point from February, it’s up two points from January.

That would be good news for Apple, which last month said it had sold just 2.2 million Macs — 1.4 million of them laptops — to report its first year-to-year decline in computer sales in nearly six years.
But netbooks, the smaller, lighter and cheaper laptops that are quickly gaining market share, are the proverbial fly in Apple’s ointment, said Carton. Almost one-fourth of the people who said they planned to buy a laptop added that the machine would be a netbook; the 23% who said last month they planned to buy one in the next 90 days was up from February’s 18% and January’s 14%, a noteworthy surge.
Apple doesn’t have a product in the under-US$500 range that traditionally defines the netbook category — its cheapest laptop is the $999 last-generation MacBook. And although rumors continue to swirl about Apple rolling out something to compete in the category this year, nothing has been announced.
“There are some contradictory trends here [for Apple],” acknowledged Carton, referring to the upside of a better outlook for laptops in general but the downside of encroaching netbooks. “Sometimes the world is filled with many shades of gray.”

Mike Abramsky, a Wall Street analyst with RBC Capital who joined the conference call, was blunter, though like Carton, he was optimistic about Apple. “The market is definitely shifting down in price, so Apple may need to introduce products to target that low end,” said Abramsky. “That could show as lower pricing of existing products, or it could be a tablet, but it’s not likely that Apple is going to shift away from its existing value proposition.” That last phrase is Wall-Street speak for Apple’s high prices, and resulting high margins, something rival Microsoft Corp. has used to its advantage in recent television advertising.
“How Apple wrestles with this growing netbook category will be important,” Abramsky said. “But the Mac franchise isn’t dead at all.”

Like other analysts, Abramsky added that although Macs will remain a major revenue stream, he’s pinning most of his hopes for Apple’s growth on the iPhone and App Store business. “At June’s WWDC [Worldwide Developers Conference], we think Apple will introduce a “pro” version of the iPhone, as well as a price cut on the existing iPhone,” he said. “The pro won’t be as revolutionary as the iPhone 3G last year, but it will continue the advantage that Apple has in the smartphone market.”

Contrary to other rumors, Apple won’t launch a smaller, cheaper version of the iPhone — some have dubbed it an “iPhone Nano,” referencing the small iPod — said Abramsky. “We’re not convinced that a nano iPhone will be introduced this year, but we know one’s in the pipeline for next year,” he said, adding that such a model would be perfect as pre-paid phone or as an inexpensive iPhone to sell in countries like China.

“What [ChangeWave's] data shows is that consumer sentiment is improving, and will allow Apple to sustain support for its value proposition,” concluded Abramsky.

Microsoft has released the beta version of its Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, a free utility that tells you if your PC is ready to run Windows 7. It scans your computer, checking internal components, external peripherals, and programs, and alerts you to potential compatibility issues. It also offers upgrade suggestions, such as which drivers to replace, should you make the move to Windows 7.

It’s a good idea to run Upgrade Advisor, which takes only a few minutes, if you plan to install Windows 7 Release Candidate, which is also available as a free download. (The RC expires August 1, 2010.)

After downloading and installing Upgrade Advisor, you’ll see an opening screen that advises you to connect all of your external devices, such as hard drives, cameras, MP3 players, and so on:
I ran the Upgrade Advisor on a 2-year-old Gateway MX8734 notebook that with a 1.6GHz Intel Pentium T2060 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive. This system runs Vista sluggishly-no surprise given the 1 gig of memory-and based on initial reports from Redmond, I thought it might perform better with Windows 7. However, a recent PC World Test Center report says that may not be the case.
The compatibility check took about 6 minutes and found a few potential issues. While the Gateway’s processor, memory, and hard drive met Windows 7’s minimum requirements (I expected this), Upgrade Advisor recommended that I download the latest driver for the Realtek Wireless 802.11b/g USB 2.0 network adapter before installing Win 7. It didn’t find potential conflicts with any installed programs.

Upgrade Advisor also pointed out that Windows 7 doesn’t include Web filtering (Windows Mail and Parental Controls), and it included a link to Microsoft’s Windows Live Essentials site, where you can download the free Family Safety utility.

Upgrade Advisor runs on Windows Vista and Windows XP Service Pack 2.
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