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Anxious to get your claws around an Eee PC that looks — amazingly — nothing like an Eee PC? Feast your eyes on the S101, which was recently toyed with by our brethren over at Engadget Chinese. We must say, this here piece of machinery looks mighty fine save for that not-at-all appealing brown coat, but we suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all. As for launch dates (pricing is still a mystery), we’re hearing that the Asia-Pacific realm could see it as early as tomorrow, while Europe will get it in around a fortnight and North America sometime later this month. Oh, and if you’re in that latter region, you better bite early — just 1,000 of ‘em will be made available here initially.

Whether counting its 23 Eee PCs or 50 plus models of traditional laptops, ASUS isn’t exactly known for its frugality. So seeing yet another press release touting the launch of its bamboo — a renewable material with immense tensile strength rivaling that of many metal alloys — laptops shouldn’t be a surprise. What’s new here, perhaps, is the detail. Now in mass production, these partially biodegradable laptops come with either 11.1- or 12.1-inch, 1,280 x 768 pixel displays, your choice of 3/6/9-cell batteries, and ASUS’ Super Hybrid Engine allowing you to dial down the power when the wails of the Antarctic penguins become too much to bear. The 12.1-incher is the relative powerhouse of the pair offering Vista a ride atop your choice of Intel T9400/P8600/P8400 Core 2 Duo processors, 256MB of NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS graphics, a 320GB hybrid hard drive sporting 256MB of flash, and Intel’s WiMAX / WiFi Link 5100 chipset. Pricing? Sorry, we’ll likely have to wait for another press release for that detail.

[Via The Inquirer]

Well, that took long enough, now didn’t it? We’ve been hearing about an 8.9-inch MSI Wind for months now, but it has just now popped up on the outfit’s website. The Wind U90 will pack an Atom N270 processor, built-in 1.3-megapixel webcam, stereo speakers, microphone, 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth, 512MB or 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a 1,024 x 600 resolution panel, 80GB hard drive and a 4-in-1 card reader. Additionally, you’ll find an Ethernet port, three USB 2.0 sockets, VGA out, a 3-cell battery (optional 6-cell available upon request) and a weight of 2.2-pounds. Your guess is as good as ours when it pricing / availability, but hey, we’re just thrilled to know this thing is destined to be more than a trade show crasher.

[Thanks, Peter]

Newsflash, Samsung: your (previously rumored) new X360 laptop isn’t actually lighter than air. Also newsflash: it’s still pretty special. Samsung shouted a resounding “me too!” today with its new X360 13.3-inch ultraslim / ultralight / ultraportable laptop. Weighing in at 2.8 pounds and measuring as thin as 0.66-inches (1.2-inches on the fatter end), the laptop is based on a Centrino 2 ULV processor and is built to compete. 1GB of RAM is standard — there’s room for up to 4GB — and you can pick a 64GB or 128GB SSD, or opt for a 5400RPM 120GB HDD if you’re feeling boring. Graphics come from X4500 integrated graphics, and the screen runs at 1280 x 800. The best and worst news comes with the inputs and outputs; Samsung didn’t integrate an optical drive, but did find room for a 7-in-1 card reader, three USB ports, PCI ExpressCard/34, HDMI, VGA, LAN and a docking port. There’s naturally WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0+ EDR and a 1.3 megapixel camera. Battery life is specced at 6 to 10 hours, but we’re guessing the upper end of that spectrum will add considerably to the weight. No word on price or availability, but as far as we know Samsung hasn’t gone backsies on its “no computers for those dirty Americans” policy, so it looks like we’re stuck with the other dozen or so similarly specced laptops out there.

We first talked about the $10 Laptop concept back in May 2007 when it was considered merely a piece of fiction. The topic is on fire again and according to a report by Infoworld, India is carrying out deep research on commercial development of such low-cost laptops.

The concept came out last year when India refused to sign up for the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) program which is currently the most successful running low-cost laptop program around the world.

No information about the specifications of the laptop has been revealed yet but I would be surprised if it is not running Ubuntu Linux, which is currently the most easy-to-use and free operating system.

The main hurdle faced by the $10 laptop concept is the low manufacturing cost which is highly unlikley to be attained. However considering India and the advancement in its technological sector, $10 laptop may soon become reality.

Here’s a peculiar one. Medion’s Akoya Mini — you know, just one of the legions of low-cost laptops you’ve barely heard of — is finally on sale after being showcased at Computex. But it’s not the mere fact of being on sale that’s intriguing; for whatever reason, Medion has decided to offer the unit up in Austria’s Hofer, which is the foreign equivalent of America’s Aldi. So you know, while you’re browsing around picking up a few bits of produce and a 20-pack of Fun Dip, why not snag a 10-inch netbook for €399 ($628) to round things out?
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Sure, you’ll be able to pay out the nose for a Vista machine with a XP Professional “downgrade” soon enough, but Dell just pushed back its cutoff for straight-up XP machines. They’ll be selling select Inspiron and XPS desktop with whatever flavor of XP you choose up until June 26th, at precisely 6:59AM EST. Naturally after June 26 you’ll be able to buy a Vista Biz or Ultimate machine and downgrade to XP Pro, but we’ll hope it doesn’t have to come to that. We heard that one guy even got a printer to work with Vista. Things are looking up, folks!
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Sure, we’ve sized these two up theoretically, but how well do Voodoo’s Envy 133 and Apple’s MacBook Air get along when sharing the same meatspace? There are certainly some striking similarities — both have gargantuan trackpads, for instance, but Voodoo has taken things in an aesthetic direction all its own. We just hope these two decide to be friends instead of mortal, cake-cutting enemies.

Packard Bell unleashed a big ol’ set of machines in Italy today. Among the new laptops, the EasyNote RS65 13.3-incher cued some unusual design elements like red and chrome highlights and circular touchpad. It packs an Intel Centrino 2 and dedicated video card with DVI and HDMI. Other machines include the multimedia-friend ML (15.4-inch) and SL (17-inch) based on the Puma platform. Also of note are the MT (15.4-inch) and ST (17-inch) laptops, which include a “Battery Boost” button that allows you to switch between dedicated video and integrated Intel GMA chipsets in order to conserve unwired time. Finally, the TN line (pictured above) is set to appeal to a younger audience with low prices and multimedia features. In the desktop category, Packard Bell intro’d new i-Media, family-Extreme, and i-Max machines that run the gamut from diminutive budget boxes to gamer-friendly powerhouses. Peep the read link (in Italian) to get a deeper scoop.

We know you’ve been sitting on your hands since January, waiting for Samsung to ship this SpinPoint M6 500GB, 9.5mm laptop drive wonder. That whole “released in France” thing was just rubbing it in your face, and we apologize, but it looks like your wait is finally over: OWC’s Woot! shop has the drive for sale as of now. You can’t buy one sans enclosure, but the $310 USB 2.0 + eSATA version or the $350 FireWire 800 / 400 + USB 2.0 version (there’s also a $320 model) should prove useful in housing an old 2.5-inch drive, or perhaps an ant farm.
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