2009 New Year Tech Predictions.

As I sit here on a comfy couch, 4 hours away from home, listening to the waves crashing, I'm inclined to wonder about what the new year will bring.  2008 saw lots of interesting trends take hold in the tech industry, and in consumer electronics.  But we are also seeing some the downturn in the economies of the countries of which most of the tech industry lives, and most of the consumer electronics is being produced.

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Medion E1210 Netbook

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One of the UMPC's I have been following is the Medion E1210.  There are two reasons why the 1210 has been on my radar, one is the feature list which puts it up with the big name Netbooks, and even makes a couple of their offerings look silly.  The second is that this Netbook looked like it would be available through our local ALDI store.

Well, I have the Aussie details, as ALDI will start selling the E1210 from the 23rd of Oct, and with the $599 price tag, it might have been worth the wait.  So here are the details:

- 1.6GHz Atom N270

- 160GB SATA

- 1GB RAM

- 802.11 b/g Draft N

- USB dongle

- 10" Screen

So we get a better chip, and a bigger Hard Drive, but the rest is much as we expected.  You can choose between White and Black, but as with anything from ALDI, you'll get what is available in-store at the time.

I'll be trying to get some play time with the E1210, but as I only have access to a small regional ALDI, they might be a bit thin on the ground.  I wonder if being exclusive to ALDI will effect sales?  I can't see that the normal ALDI shopper is going to be looking for a Ultra portable netbook to supplement their busy lifestyles, but in the same week as the E1210 they have a $499 BBQ, so maybe I'm wrong.

The good thing is that we have a 10" netbook in the sub-$600 range and with a solid feature set here in Oz.  And with a new Cloud OS from Microsoft on the horizon, the E1210 could be the mobile weapon of choice for the masses, if we can find one, and in white.

Jason Remnant

..if it's broken, why fix it?

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The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 details, and Price drop.

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We are starting to see the details emerge for the Dell E Netbook, and as you know from previous posts, I'm one interested puppy.  The name given to Dell's offering to the UMPC market is the "Inspiron Mini 9", but was it worth the wait?

Last month I posted on leaked details which weren't too far off the mark.  The changes that we will see are a 1.6GHz Atom processor, the rest looks pretty standard.  I'm still waiting on being able to do a proper order to determine the real price, at this stage it is justpre -order with a AU$599 online price.  Because of the way Dell works, I'm interested as to how much we'll be able to customise the Mini 9, and what the real price will be in the end.

Last week I was fortunate to be able to spend some time with the Asus Eee PC 901 - Windows version (thanks, Tim!), which was quite impressive.  The only flaw I could see was having the 2 small drives.  Tim said that he had to reconfigure the 901 and install XP onto the larger drive.  This was because when he installed MS Office, he was out of space.  Now, the Linux version of the 901 comes with a 20GBSSD, not sure why if it is the 4GB + 16GB combo.  If it is, then I would say that you would be having similar problems with space.

The Dell seems to get around this by just offering up to 16GB SSD.  So I guess this means that it will be just the one drive.  Another difference is that the 901 also has the larger battery pack, 6 cells I think, where the Dell comes with a 4 cell.  Again, I'll be keen to see if the battery is an  upgrade option.

In the all important $ column, I note that the 901 was dropped to AU$649, and so at this time, with the Dell weighing in at AU$599, it seems a good deal.  But I'll be waiting till I can order one before I get too excited.

Jason Remnant


While i was editing this article, Dell updated the website so you can order the Inspiron Mini 9, just to make me look silly. There is not much to say, but the options are limited, limited to the details above really.  There are no options for the SSD, you get the 16GB, or the battery.  Also no Ubuntu version yet, just XP Home.  I still like it, and at the price, the Mini 9 could be aEee PC killer.

Jason Remnant Again.

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