3 New Netbooks!!!

Just this week Samsung introduced two netbooks that reportedly last up to 11-hours on battery power alone – an impressive number.

The first of the new netbooks is the N110, a machine that features an Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB HDD, Intel’s GMA 950 graphics, a 1024x600 screen, and 802.11g WiFi.

Second up is the N130 (pictured), with an Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB HDD, Intel’s GMA 950 graphics processing, a 1024x600 screen and, of course, built-in WiFi.

Now, I do realize that I just repeated myself almost completely over the last two paragraphs, but other than aesthetics (and price) there’s nothing setting these two apart from one another. The N110 will cost $469 and be available during the first week of April, while the N310 is coming “in the next couple of months” for about $580.

Acer is reportedly on the verge of releasing a brand new Aspire One that will feature a larger 11.6-inch panel (notably bigger than the 10.1-inch versions available today), and will go down in history for dancing on the line between netbook and notebook.

This new Aspire one will come with a 1366x768 16:9 screen, an Intel Atom Z530 processor and the Poulsbo chipset, along with GMA500 graphics. There’s even supposed to be an extended battery option that will allow up to eight hours of battery life.

No word yet on pricing or availability, but once we know, you will too!

The HP Mini 1001xx is easily the classiest-looking little netbook we’ve come across. Like most of HP’s recent computers, from the Blackbird to the HDX 18, the Mini 1001xx opts for subtle design flair instead of solid colors—in this case, faint gray spirals on a glossy black clamshell lid. The interior is smooth and matte black, and the keys are soft and very square but still provide an audible click—no mushiness here.

The keyboard is the most comfortable we’ve ever used in a netbook; it doesn’t feel cramped at all, although those with large hands will still find their wrists dangling off the end of the board—a familiar story in this category.

Like the other netbooks we’ve tested, the Mini 1001xx is built on Intel’s 1.6GHz Atom processor, runs Windows XP, and has 1GB of DDR2 RAM. It has the smallest hard drive of any non-SSD netbook we’ve tested, but we suppose 60GB isn’t terrible. Like the Lenovo S10, the Mini 1001 ships with only two USB ports, and the Ethernet port is so well hidden as to be virtually invisible, but it is there, behind a thick rubber cover.

On the performance front, the Mini shuffled through our Adobe Photoshop CS3 script in 802 seconds, nearly two minutes slower than the Lenovo IdeaPad S10, but it had no problem playing H.264-encoded MP4 files without stuttering. It lasted two hours and six minutes in our battery-rundown test, a few minutes longer than any non-SSD-based netbook we’ve reviewed, but certainly nothing to brag about.

Interestingly, the Mini 1001xx actually (eventually) managed to play Quake Live, something no other netbook we’ve tested has done. We think this is more likely the result of updates to Quake Live’s still-in-beta code than anything HP’s done, since the Mini has the same architecture as all those other netbooks. Unfortunately, the 1024x600 monitor just isn’t tall enough to fit the entire Quake Live game screen, so this ability is of questionable value.

Perhaps in an attempt to make the Mini 1001xx thinner, HP removed the industry-standard VGA port in favor of a proprietary port, which allegedly fits a VGA-out dongle; however, one wasn’t included with our review unit, so we were unable to test this setup.

The Mini is neither the fastest nor, at $490, the cheapest netbook we’ve tested. But it’s the first netbook that didn’t look like a honey-I-shrunk-the-laptop version of a bigger device—it’s comfortable being a netbook. And we’re in favor of that. The Acer Aspire One still hits our price/performance sweet spot, but if you want a netbook that makes a style statement and don’t mind paying a bit of a premium for it, the Mini is your model.