Just when you thought you were safe from the netbook horde, along comes HP’s new Mini 5101 to tempt you with the same basic specs once again, but this time with a slick aluminum and magnesium chassis to appeal to the “mobile professional” or anyone else with a bit of class. In a crazy twist, HP has **finally moved the mouse buttons below the trackpad (because only professionals like clicking), and has included other perks like a 7200 RPM hard drive, Bluetooth 2.0, 2 megapixel webcam, and options of either a WSVGA (1024 x 600) or “HD” (1366 x 768) 10.1-inch LED screen. There are also options for 80GB or 128GB SSD drives, four-cell or six-cell batteries, with the latter rated at an improbable eight hours of runtime, and of course WWAN. There’s a start price of $449, but with some of these options we could see that shooting up pretty fast — especially if you pick the optional USB-powered external disc drive, external speakers or port replicator. It’s not cheap being cheap. The Mini 5101 goes on sale in July. Read More

We like a good netbook that’s so small it doesn’t have room for any pesky, legacy inputs keeping you tethered to the wall (and thus The Man) — but we’re not sure we’d consign VGA and Ethernet to to the Closet of Obsoletion just yet. Onkyo seems to be opening the door, moving the two ports to a USB break-out box on its latest Sotec, the DC204A3. That wouldn’t really be a problem if the adapter didn’t look to be about a third as big as the netbook itself (see for yourself after the break). Otherwise we have a slender but standard Atom N270 netbook, with 945GSE graphics, 1GB of ram, and a 10.1-inch 1024 x 600 display. Notable is the 32GB SSD, which sounds quite nice, but with a ¥49,800 ($529) asking price, you’re certainly paying for it. Available to forward-looking Japanese starting at the end of the month.

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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.

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Largely under the radar since its CES debut — and even then there wasn’t much to say, frankly — Velocity Micro’s 10.2-inch is on sale with an April 30 estimated ship date. Base price is $380, and color notwithstanding (it comes in red, blue, and black), the only customization option really is a DVD writer for $70. What you do get, however, is the usual spec list that comes along with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, along with the pleasant surprise of a 6-cell battery. The big question now is if there’s really enough here to divert attention from any of the other, more dominant brands in this hyper-saturated netbook market.

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Faster, Bigger, Prettier, Stronger, Pricier!

ASUS is responsible for introducing the netbook to the PC market as an affordable and simple laptop solution for students. Since the release of the original Eee PC, almost every major PC vendor has released competing models — many taking alternate design paths moving the netbook concept in different directions away from the original Eee PC. As such, the netbook has evolved in ways many people probably weren’t expecting: they got bigger, more powerful, more expensive, and have even become luxury items! Furthermore, Windows XP has dominated over Linux as the installed operating system. Read More