new camera battery

More potential details regarding Nokia’s recently announced netbook have surfaced online, possibly hinting at what the device could cost.

A report from NetbookNews claims that the well equipped 3G enabled Booklet could cost a hefty $799 when it launches–a premium price point for any netbook. Of course this unofficial claim has been made by an “unnamed source”, so be sure to label this one under rumor until we know the official details on September 2nd, when the company will host its Nokia World conference.

Until then, speculation as to what version of Windows 7 the sleek new netbook will run will no doubt continue, but it’s pretty safe to say that we can disregard the Starter Edition.

[Via Engadget]

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Windows 7 cuts almost a third off the battery life of some netbooks shipping today with Windows XP, several recent reviews and user reports say.

Laptop magazine reported in its blog on Monday that during a recent test, a Toshiba netbook lost 2.5 hours of battery life when running Windows 7 instead of XP, or about 30% (6:53 for Windows 7, versus 9:24 for XP).

Web site Tom’s Hardware found last month that an Acer Aspire One netbook running Windows 7’s release candidate lasted 2.5 hours less than when it ran Windows XP Service Pack 3 (5:54 versus 8:28, when both were at a low-power idle state).

Complaints have also surfaced on netbook user forums such as eeeuser.com, for Asus Eee users, AspireOneUser.com, for Acer netbook users, and MSIWind.net, for MSI fans.

The complaints follow gripes that Windows 7 hastens the vampire-like battery drain of running Windows on MacBooks, either in virtualization or via Apple’s Boot Camp software.

Jury’s still out

The reviews are not unanimous. In a late July review comparing the Windows 7 RC versus XP on Asus’ long-running Eee PC 1005HA netbook, Legit Reviews found XP to have between a 2% and 8% advantage over Windows 7. And Laptop noted that XP only had a 6% advantage over Windows 7 on an MSI U123 netbook.

But the negative reports are numerous enough that they darken Windows 7’s image as being a sleeker and more-efficient reboot of Microsoft’s long-running operating system, and cast some doubt on its suitability for netbooks, at least today’s models.

Long battery life is one of the key selling points of netbooks, due to their high portability.

Many vendors heavily tweak their netbooks to ensure that they can run a full business day on a single charge, or more.

Microsoft previously promised that Windows 7 would improve laptop battery life by about 11% over Vista.

That would be due to better use of the graphics chip during tasks such as DVD playback, and improvements in the kernel so that CPU can more quickly switch to an idle state when not in use, and generally run more efficiently, says Microsoft (see video from Microsoft’s WinHEC keynote last November).

A Microsoft spokeswoman declined to comment about the recent reviews and reports, but did point to a white paper, last updated June 23, 2009, describing to driver developers and hardware engineers how to optimize hardware and components for better battery life under Windows 7.

Of course, battery life for Windows Vista was widely perceived to be worse than under XP, due to its bloated codebase, which prevented Vista from running well on netbooks, as well as the poor availability of Vista drivers for many months after its launch.

Hardware drivers and how they interact with an operating system are key for battery drain. For instance, a driver that fails to let Windows turn off a Wi-Fi chip when users aren’t surfing the Web could accidentally result in poor battery life. Same with a graphics driver that isn’t able to shift processing work from an overtaxed CPU to a fresh GPU.

Be patient, says analyst

Jack Gold, an independent research analyst, says that it’s still too early to condemn Windows 7. “[With release candidates,] Microsoft often has debug code inserted to find and document problems, and the code is not optimized,” Gold said. “Same is true of the preliminary drivers available.”

Drivers are not written by Microsoft, but by the component makers themselves, he said. Rather than simply recycling their Vista drivers, the hardware vendors need the final release of Windows 7, which only arrived last month, and “a little time to perform their magic.”

While existing Windows XP netbooks may miss out on some of these optimizations, future models that ship with Windows 7 pre-installed may eventually have the same or longer battery life than XP that Microsoft has promised.

“It does not trouble me that current machines have less than optimum battery life, or performance for that matter. With all the resources Windows 7 will use on a device, optimization will take a little while to complete,” Gold said.

Steve Jobs isn’t one to let a little thing like a liver transplant slow him down. Some of us would take it easy: catch up on our reading, maybe even take up a therapeutic hobby like painting or music. Not Jobs, though–he’s the kind of guy who does best when he throws himself into his work.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Jobs is personally overseeing the details of the continually-rumored Apple tablet device. This is, of course, a bit like the Emperor personally overseeing the construction of the Death Star, except apparently the Emperor only rarely shoots bolts of purple lightning through his fearful underlings. The Journal says that Jobs’s concern is focused primarily on the device’s marketing and advertising strategy–little surprise, given his penchant for crafting the perfect message for the company’s products.

This is hardly the first project to which the CEO has given his undivided attention: the iPhone, for example, merited a similar level of scrutiny from Jobs during its development. Despite working only a few days a week, Jobs is apparently present enough to cause unrest among his employees–the Journal describes the attention as “jarring” for Apple employees who had gotten used to having a little more leeway on their projects during Jobs’s absence.

If nothing else, though, Jobs is apparently taking advantage of his lighter work schedule to answer his e-mail, replying to the Journal’s Yukari Iwatani Kane request for comment by saying, “much of your information is incorrect.” In typical Jobs fashion, he went into no further detail.

With terse missives like that one, we’d suggest Steve take advantage of his newfound spare time to start up a Twitter account.

Windows 7 cuts almost a third off the battery life of some netbooks shipping today with Windows XP, several recent reviews and user reports say.

Laptop magazine reported in its blog on Monday that during a recent test, a Toshiba netbook lost 2.5 hours of battery life when running Windows 7 instead of XP, or about 30% (6:53 for Windows 7, versus 9:24 for XP).

Web site Tom’s Hardware found last month that an Acer Aspire One netbook running Windows 7’s release candidate lasted 2.5 hours less than when it ran Windows XP Service Pack 3 (5:54 versus 8:28, when both were at a low-power idle state).

Complaints have also surfaced on netbook user forums such as eeeuser.com, for Asus Eee users, AspireOneUser.com, for Acer netbook users, and MSIWind.net, for MSI fans.

The complaints follow gripes that Windows 7 hastens the vampire-like battery drain of running Windows on MacBooks, either in virtualization or via Apple’s Boot Camp software.

Jury’s still out

The reviews are not unanimous. In a late July review comparing the Windows 7 RC versus XP on Asus’ long-running Eee PC 1005HA netbook, Legit Reviews found XP to have between a 2% and 8% advantage over Windows 7. And Laptop noted that XP only had a 6% advantage over Windows 7 on an MSI U123 netbook.

But the negative reports are numerous enough that they darken Windows 7’s image as being a sleeker and more-efficient reboot of Microsoft’s long-running operating system, and cast some doubt on its suitability for netbooks, at least today’s models.

Long battery life is one of the key selling points of netbooks, due to their high portability.

Many vendors heavily tweak their netbooks to ensure that they can run a full business day on a single charge, or more.

Microsoft previously promised that Windows 7 would improve laptop battery life by about 11% over Vista.

That would be due to better use of the graphics chip during tasks such as DVD playback, and improvements in the kernel so that CPU can more quickly switch to an idle state when not in use, and generally run more efficiently, says Microsoft (see video from Microsoft’s WinHEC keynote last November).

A Microsoft spokeswoman declined to comment about the recent reviews and reports, but did point to a white paper, last updated June 23, 2009, describing to driver developers and hardware engineers how to optimize hardware and components for better battery life under Windows 7.

Of course, battery life for Windows Vista was widely perceived to be worse than under XP, due to its bloated codebase, which prevented Vista from running well on netbooks, as well as the poor availability of Vista drivers for many months after its launch.

Hardware drivers and how they interact with an operating system are key for battery drain. For instance, a driver that fails to let Windows turn off a Wi-Fi chip when users aren’t surfing the Web could accidentally result in poor battery life. Same with a graphics driver that isn’t able to shift processing work from an overtaxed CPU to a fresh GPU.

Be patient, says analyst

Jack Gold, an independent research analyst, says that it’s still too early to condemn Windows 7. “[With release candidates,] Microsoft often has debug code inserted to find and document problems, and the code is not optimized,” Gold said. “Same is true of the preliminary drivers available.”

Drivers are not written by Microsoft, but by the component makers themselves, he said. Rather than simply recycling their Vista drivers, the hardware vendors need the final release of Windows 7, which only arrived last month, and “a little time to perform their magic.”

While existing Windows XP netbooks may miss out on some of these optimizations, future models that ship with Windows 7 pre-installed may eventually have the same or longer battery life than XP that Microsoft has promised.

“It does not trouble me that current machines have less than optimum battery life, or performance for that matter. With all the resources Windows 7 will use on a device, optimization will take a little while to complete,” Gold said.

A majority of college-bound students gearing up for school will not consider buying a Mac laptop, a study reveals. Instead, students are gravitating toward affordable netbooks from a variety of manufacturers, according to Retrevo, a consumer electronics website, that conducted the study.

Retrevo says Macs are at the bottom of student wish lists this year. While 49 percent of students will buy full-sized Windows laptops, 34 percent will purchase netbooks. Bringing up the rear is Mac with only 17 percent of students saying they intend to buy one, the study shows.

The most affordable new Apple laptop I could find sells for $949 (white MacBook). Compare that to the 18 percent of survey participants who say they won’t spend a dime over $1000 for a laptop and Apple doesn’t look to be the big man on campus this year. A majority of penny-pinching students, 58 percent of them, said they plan on spending less than $750 on their back-to-school laptop.

Apple has been targeting the education market this year with a special promotion offering a free iPod Touch with every MacBook sold. Judging from Retrevo’s study the lure is not that effective. Apple’s promotion ends on September 8.

Cheap netbooks, some even under $200, may just be good enough for students tight on cash and already saddled with credit card and tuition debt. With long battery life, a variety of designs, these affordable mini-laptops give students more for their tight budgets.

While netbook sales are strong, Apple has been reluctant to enter the cheap ultraportable computer war. Speculation about such a device has been floating around for over a year now, but Apple execs blasted the idea of an Apple netbook back in March.

But Apple could have something else in mind for the education market. The Cupertino company is rumored to launch a tablet-sized device either this year or in early 2010, which could have broad applications for the education sector as well.

We might want to take the Retrevo study with a grain of salt considering it only polled 300 site visitors. And, personally, I’m not terribly surprised by its findings. Since when has Apple ever been the big man on campus when it comes to computer operating systems? If 17 percent of college-bound students actually do what they told Retrevo and buy a Mac, that’s actually pretty good news for Apple. Market research firm Gartner points out the Mac market share here in the United States is a paltry 8.7 percent. Plus, according to market research from NPD, Apple has its own bragging rights. It owns 90 percent of the over-$1000 PC market.

Hey, maybe Microsoft’s laptop hunter ad campaign is working? Next we’ll find out college students prefer Bing to Google. Can we hide from assimilation?

Whether you are part of the Borg or not, you still might want to check the latest Top 10 Netbooks and get some shopping tips on how to buy a netbook.

Follow Daniel on Twitter @danielionescu

Artwork: Chip TaylorApple’s expected fall event, unveiling a revamped iPod line and other product news, may take place on Wednesday, September 9. The oft-rumored Apple tablet may not make an appearance, but other likely highlights are te debut of new social feature for iTunes 9, and an appearance by Steve Jobs (or not), accordint to All Things D.

iTunes Gets Social
Speculation that iTunes could jump into social networking emerged last week, and was deemed pretty dubious at the time. Seven days and another rumor later, they don’t seem so silly.

Artwork: Chip TaylorEarlier reports suggest that iTunes 9 would tie into a social networking application that could let you pull all your social networking identities into one place. You could also use this mysterious app to let your friends know what you’re listening to (similar to iLike’s iTunes sidebar), share music, and change your status updates. It’s not clear from earlier reports what “share music” means, but if I had to guess I would say this means you would simply be able to share playlists with your friends — a decidedly lame feature.

But iTunes already has a feature that lets you stream the libraries of other iTunes users who are on the same local network. What if Apple expanded this to some sort of Pandora-like feature that let you stream the libraries of your friends within your social network? This is complete speculation on my part, and applications like Mojo already let you share your iTunes library online, but it would be a great feature if Apple added it as a standard part of iTunes.

iPod Touch
The iPod Touch is expected to get more storage and a lower price, with Apple launching three models of the device in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB flavors. The devices would cost $199, $299, and $399 respectively. This is probably the safest bet among the current crop of Apple rumors, and more iPod Touch storage is no surprise considering the iPhone just got a storage update. Apple also has a new competitor in the Zune HD, so a price drop would be important and could stop the Zune from taking even a small chunk out of Apple’s business.

There’s also a rumor that the iPod Touch could be getting a 2MP or 3MP camera; a great feature the Zune HD doesn’t have.

Cocktail, Anyone?
Computerworld’s Seth Weintraub is guessing Apple’s upcoming event includes an announcement of another secret project from 1 Infinite Loop: Cocktail. It’s supposed to be some sort of multimedia experience that will revolutionize the traditional music album. Features include music, videos, photos, album liner notes, and other media all bundled into one package.

This project may be very real, but earlier reports had the project tied to the Apple tablet. If Apple is introducing new features with iTunes 9 already, then it’s possible the company may want to tie Cocktail into the September event as well.

Apple Tablet
What is probably disappointing to most of you out there is the suggestion Apple’s rumored iPod Touch-like tablet device may not make its appearance next month. While the tablet sounds like a great device, let’s remember that we still only have rumor and innuendo suggesting the thing actually exists. What’s more, the only person who claims to have seen the thing is an analyst who was so smitten by the device he thought it was the best movie experience he’d ever seen. Either that analyst doesn’t get out much, or was so deeply affected by the Jobsian “reality distortion field” he simply lost his mind.

Breathe, everybody — let’s hold onto a healthy dose of skepticism about the tablet until we actually see the thing, and more importantly, until we see what it can do. (Or check out our gallery of all the rumored designs.)

22 Days and Counting
We may have little more than three weeks until Apple’s September event announcing a new line of iPods and more features for iTunes. Apple isn’t saying, but All Things D is betting on an event at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — a previous locale for Apple events. Interestingly, September 9 was the exact date of last year’s Apple iPod event when the company introduced revamped iPods and iTunes Genius.

Artwork: Chip TaylorApple’s expected fall event, unveiling a revamped iPod line and other product news, may take place on Wednesday, September 9. The oft-rumored Apple tablet may not make an appearance, but other likely highlights are te debut of new social feature for iTunes 9, and an appearance by Steve Jobs (or not), accordint to All Things D.

iTunes Gets Social
Speculation that iTunes could jump into social networking emerged last week, and was deemed pretty dubious at the time. Seven days and another rumor later, they don’t seem so silly.

Artwork: Chip TaylorEarlier reports suggest that iTunes 9 would tie into a social networking application that could let you pull all your social networking identities into one place. You could also use this mysterious app to let your friends know what you’re listening to (similar to iLike’s iTunes sidebar), share music, and change your status updates. It’s not clear from earlier reports what “share music” means, but if I had to guess I would say this means you would simply be able to share playlists with your friends — a decidedly lame feature.

But iTunes already has a feature that lets you stream the libraries of other iTunes users who are on the same local network. What if Apple expanded this to some sort of Pandora-like feature that let you stream the libraries of your friends within your social network? This is complete speculation on my part, and applications like Mojo already let you share your iTunes library online, but it would be a great feature if Apple added it as a standard part of iTunes.

iPod Touch
The iPod Touch is expected to get more storage and a lower price, with Apple launching three models of the device in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB flavors. The devices would cost $199, $299, and $399 respectively. This is probably the safest bet among the current crop of Apple rumors, and more iPod Touch storage is no surprise considering the iPhone just got a storage update. Apple also has a new competitor in the Zune HD, so a price drop would be important and could stop the Zune from taking even a small chunk out of Apple’s business.

There’s also a rumor that the iPod Touch could be getting a 2MP or 3MP camera; a great feature the Zune HD doesn’t have.

Cocktail, Anyone?
Computerworld’s Seth Weintraub is guessing Apple’s upcoming event includes an announcement of another secret project from 1 Infinite Loop: Cocktail. It’s supposed to be some sort of multimedia experience that will revolutionize the traditional music album. Features include music, videos, photos, album liner notes, and other media all bundled into one package.

This project may be very real, but earlier reports had the project tied to the Apple tablet. If Apple is introducing new features with iTunes 9 already, then it’s possible the company may want to tie Cocktail into the September event as well.

Apple Tablet
What is probably disappointing to most of you out there is the suggestion Apple’s rumored iPod Touch-like tablet device may not make its appearance next month. While the tablet sounds like a great device, let’s remember that we still only have rumor and innuendo suggesting the thing actually exists. What’s more, the only person who claims to have seen the thing is an analyst who was so smitten by the device he thought it was the best movie experience he’d ever seen. Either that analyst doesn’t get out much, or was so deeply affected by the Jobsian “reality distortion field” he simply lost his mind.

Breathe, everybody — let’s hold onto a healthy dose of skepticism about the tablet until we actually see the thing, and more importantly, until we see what it can do. (Or check out our gallery of all the rumored designs.)

22 Days and Counting
We may have little more than three weeks until Apple’s September event announcing a new line of iPods and more features for iTunes. Apple isn’t saying, but All Things D is betting on an event at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts — a previous locale for Apple events. Interestingly, September 9 was the exact date of last year’s Apple iPod event when the company introduced revamped iPods and iTunes Genius.

Verizon Wireless is again offering a second BlackBerry with each one purchased, but this time the deal includes any other device — of equal or lesser value — that Verizon sells.

That means new subscribers, or those signing new two-year contracts, can get a free netbook with a BlackBerry Tour smartphone. The Tour costs US$199.99 after Verizon’s rebate, and the least-expensive netbook Verizon sells is the HP Mini 1151 NR, also priced at $199.99. Those customers could also get any USB, PC Card or ExpressCard modem the carrier offers.

The offer also covers the Intelligent Mobile Hotspot, a $199.99 battery-powered 3G modem that includes a Wi-Fi access point that can be used with any five Wi-Fi devices. To get any of these devices free with the BlackBerry, the customer would have to sign up for a two-year contract for both devices. Monthly data plans start at $39.99 with a 250MB cap and $59.99 with a 5GB cap.

Research In Motion and Verizon both have been working hard to grab attention and sales from the still-popular Apple iPhone, which in the U.S. is offered only on Verizon rival AT&T’s network. A BlackBerry buy-one-get-one offer that Verizon ran earlier this year was widely credited with helping the BlackBerry Curve beat the iPhone in unit sales in the first quarter. The BlackBerry Storm, RIM’s first touch-screen product, also debuted to hot sales in that quarter.

With the latest promotion, Verizon wanted to make sure its customers were able to get the second device they needed, instead of limiting them to getting another BlackBerry. Verizon sells all other BlackBerry models for less than the Tour, ranging from the Storm at $99.99 to the BlackBerry 8703e for $29.99, each with two-year contracts.

The Tour, which debuted last month, can work on both the EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) network technology used by Verizon and the GSM/HSPA (Global System for Mobile Communications/High-Speed Packet Access) system used by most carriers outside the U.S. It is available in models with or without a 3.2-megapixel camera, meeting the security requirements of some businesses and government agencies. Both models cost $199.99 at Verizon.

Verizon Wireless is again offering a second BlackBerry with each one purchased, but this time the deal includes any other device — of equal or lesser value — that Verizon sells.

That means new subscribers, or those signing new two-year contracts, can get a free netbook with a BlackBerry Tour smartphone. The Tour costs US$199.99 after Verizon’s rebate, and the least-expensive netbook Verizon sells is the HP Mini 1151 NR, also priced at $199.99. Those customers could also get any USB, PC Card or ExpressCard modem the carrier offers.

The offer also covers the Intelligent Mobile Hotspot, a $199.99 battery-powered 3G modem that includes a Wi-Fi access point that can be used with any five Wi-Fi devices. To get any of these devices free with the BlackBerry, the customer would have to sign up for a two-year contract for both devices. Monthly data plans start at $39.99 with a 250MB cap and $59.99 with a 5GB cap.

Research In Motion and Verizon both have been working hard to grab attention and sales from the still-popular Apple iPhone, which in the U.S. is offered only on Verizon rival AT&T’s network. A BlackBerry buy-one-get-one offer that Verizon ran earlier this year was widely credited with helping the BlackBerry Curve beat the iPhone in unit sales in the first quarter. The BlackBerry Storm, RIM’s first touch-screen product, also debuted to hot sales in that quarter.

With the latest promotion, Verizon wanted to make sure its customers were able to get the second device they needed, instead of limiting them to getting another BlackBerry. Verizon sells all other BlackBerry models for less than the Tour, ranging from the Storm at $99.99 to the BlackBerry 8703e for $29.99, each with two-year contracts.

The Tour, which debuted last month, can work on both the EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) network technology used by Verizon and the GSM/HSPA (Global System for Mobile Communications/High-Speed Packet Access) system used by most carriers outside the U.S. It is available in models with or without a 3.2-megapixel camera, meeting the security requirements of some businesses and government agencies. Both models cost $199.99 at Verizon.

In an effort to expand its Linux offerings, Dell is researching new netbook-type devices and will soon offer netbook Linux OS upgrades, a company official said on Wednesday.

The company is researching the possibility of offering new Linux-based mobile devices called smartbooks, said Todd Finch, senior product marketing manager for Linux clients, at the OpenSourceWorld conference in San Francisco. The company will also upgrade its Ubuntu Linux OS for netbooks to the latest version in the next few weeks, he said.

Smartbooks are netbook-type devices that are powered by chips designed by Arm. The devices mostly support the Linux OS and are designed for those who rely on the Web for most of their computing. Dell couldn’t say whether it would ultimately offer a smartbook.

Smartbooks have similar characteristics to netbooks, including cramped keyboards and small screens. No major PC vendor has yet announced an interest in smartbooks, though small vendors are pushing them as an alternative to netbooks, which are mostly based on Intel’s Atom chips and come with Microsoft’s Windows OS. Many vendors, including Qualcomm and Freescale, are providing Arm chips for smartbooks that could hit shelves by the end of this year.

Smartbooks with Arm chips have inherent advantages over x86 chips like Atom, such as lower power consumption and longer battery life, Finch said. The chips are also becoming more powerful, as indicated by the growing number of applications on smartphones, he said.

“I think it’s natural and reasonable for us to begin looking at them as they begin scaling their processors up,” Finch said.

Putting an Arm chip — mainly found in smartphones — inside a lightweight PC could provide an early entry point for Dell into the smartphone space, said Jay Chou, research analyst at IDC. Dell has hinted at entering the smartphone area many times, but no product has materialized yet.

While netbooks are the craze, smartbooks are hard to ignore, Chou said. Interest in the device will grow over time because it enables lightweight and low-priced computing devices, which could interest PC makers. Pricing is also a major criteria for buyers, and Linux netbooks are cheaper than their Windows counterparts.

But smartbooks could struggle as Windows remains the dominant OS for netbook-type devices, with a strong software ecosystem around it, Chou said. Smartbooks may have a hard time gaining traction, and much of their future success will depend on the software ecosystem.

The target market for smartbooks will be no different from Linux-based netbooks as they both have the same usage scenario, Dell’s Finch said. Like smartbooks, Linux-based netbooks are targeted at those looking for quick access to Web-based applications. “The more [Web-based] applications there are, the better it is for Linux,” Finch said.

The growing interest in Linux is partly driven by Dell’s success with Linux on its netbooks. Close to a third of all netbooks Dell ships during certain quarters are preloaded with Linux, he said.

Dell is currently the fifth-largest netbook vendor worldwide, according to IDC’s Chou. Linux-based netbooks made up about 5 percent of overall worldwide shipments during the last quarter.

However, a bulk of Dell’s netbooks today ship with Windows XP, which remains the OS of choice for consumers, Finch said. The popularity of Windows won’t change overnight, he said.

“There are still a large percentage of people that prefer Windows, even on a netbook,” Finch said. Many are familiar with the look and feel of Windows, and are unwilling to trade in for the longer battery life offered by Linux. He couldn’t comment about the possible adoption rates of Windows 7, which is due for release on Oct. 22.

Dell currently offers Ubuntu Linux version 8.04 with the Mini 10v netbook, which is being upgraded to the latest 9.04 version — code-named Jaunty Jackalope — in the next few weeks. Dell will be pre-loading the Web-centric Ubuntu Netbook Remix, which is designed for small screen sizes, on future netbooks. Its Web-centric design provides quick access to online applications, and the OS builds in support for a larger number of drivers.

The company is also researching Google’s Chrome for use in netbooks. The OS is a thin version of a Linux-based operating system that also will provide quick access to the Web and online applications.