Acer has expanded its netbook lineup in India with the new Aspire One D270. Unique thing about this new netbook is that it is powered by Intel’s Cedar Trail Atom chip, which is a dual-core processor clocked at 1.6GHz.

Coming in a variety of colors along and the signature water droplet ripple effect on the netbook lid, the D270 runs Windows 7 Starter OS and features a 10.1-inch LED backlit display along with 2GB of RAM and 320GB HDD.

Additionally, the D270 sports three USB 2.0 ports, VGA and HDMI ports, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi, multi-touch trackpad and promises an 8 hours battery life.

Acer will sell the Aspire One D270 for Rs. 17,251.

Lenovo has published a new video of the upcoming IdeaPad S110 on its official video channel. Although the specs of the upcoming Lenovo computer would want you to call it a netbook, marketing whizzes at Lenovo prefer to call it a “mini notebook.”

Whatever you call it, the specs are pretty decent which includes an Intel Atom 2600 processor, a 10.1-inch HD display, optional HD webcam, USB 3.0 support, Wi-Fi or optional 3G, Lenovo’s Quick Start Instant On, 98-percent full-size chiclet keyboard and different color choices.

Lenovo is expected to make the new mini notebook official at CES in the next couple of weeks.

[Via Engadget]

Samsung apparently reckons netbooks aren’t as profitable as they were before. According to a report on Blogeee, Samsung sent an email to its trading partners claiming that they’ll stop making 10.1-inch devices aka netbooks in first quarter of 2012. The exact reason is not known but the email did say that in lieu of the smaller underpowered notebooks, they’ll make 11.6-inch and 12-inch ultraportable and ultrabook devices.

Samsung today announced its maiden MeeGo OS running netbook for the Indian market. The N100 is a 10.1-inch netbook said to be inspired from Samsung’s previous bestseller N150P. The 1.03kg netbook is covered in a Duracase for enhanced durability against scratches and fingerprint smudges and features a LED backlit display with matte coating.

The N100 is powered by Intel’s 1.33GHz N435 CPU, 1GB RAM, 250GB HDD and features Intel GMA 3150 GPU, card reader, webcam, Wi-Fi and more.

N100 pricing starts from Rs.12,290 and if MeeGo is something you want to stay away from, Samsung will also sell the netbook with FreeDOS or Windows 7 OS.

Samsung has expanded its netbook lineup for the Indian market with the NC110 netbook. It is Samsung’s first 3G-enabled netbook in India and will be sold exclusively at Croma retail stores.

For a modest asking price of Rs.21,500, a user will get a 1.18kg netbook powered by an Intel processor and Windows 7 Starter OS. Additionally, the netbook has a 10.1-inch anti-reflective screen, chiclet keyboard, Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Fast Start that wakes the netbook quickly from the sleep mode, Sleep-and-charge USB port and a 6600mAh battery to give up to 10 hours of continuous usage.

Acer has launched an updated version of its Android and Windows dual booting netbook in India. The Aspire One Happy 2 netbook now comes in four new colours – Banana Cream, Strawberry Yoghurt, Blueberry Shake and Papaya Milk and sports textured liquid droplet graphic design to gel with the tropical fruit colour theme.

The Happy 2 netbook has got an upgrade on the inside as well. The 10.1-inch LED backlit netbook has been upgraded with Intel Atom N570 dual-core processor, 1GB RAM, 320GB HDD, webcam and usual connectivity options like Bluetooth 3.0, Ethernet and Wi-Fi.

Its priced at Rs.15749 plus taxes.

Netbooks were a rage couple of years back. Compact, portable, similar to a full-fledged notebook and most of all cheap. Now fast forward to this year, although the growth of netbooks has slowed down, there is still a market for the form factor for those who wants a decent computer experience on-the-go without spending too much. Acer’s eMachines eM350 netbook is a perfect example.

Design:
Before we talk about the netbook’s design, let me give you a brief about eMachines as a brand. Acer bought Gateway about 4 years back, which also included eMachines. Now a logical decision would’ve been to integrate the acquired brands with the parent one but Acer made a conscious decision to keep these brands as separate that targets different set of crowds.

This is the reason why there’s not even a small mention of Acer on the netbook. It’s good that Acer wants its brands to stand on its own but for the uninitiated, they can easily pass it thinking eMachines as an average brand and not produced by one of the biggest computer manufacturers in the world.

On the design front, the 10.1-inch eM350 comes in a non-glassy finish with plastic chassis, which may not be pleasing to the eye but has a sturdy build quality. The number of ports are limited but you’ll find a 2-in-1 memory card reader, couple of USB 2.0 ports, one VGA port, headphone and mic jacks, an Ethernet port and the charging slot.

As far as weight goes, the netbook weighs just 1.1kg making it very light and portable to carry around.

Performance:
Our eM350 came in with Intel’s Atom N450 processor clocked at 1.66GHz, 1GB of DDR2 RAM and a 250GB HDD. Now we know that we shouldn’t expect much from an entry-level netbook but the choice of operating system is where all the issues started. The netbook comes with Windows 7 Starter OS that literally took a toll on the limited power of the netbook.

Multitasking more than 2 apps looked like a herculean task for the netbook. Open a browser window and play video at the same time and you can feel a noticeable lag. The reason Acer went with Windows 7 could be a licensing issue between them and Microsoft but would have loved to see this netbook come with Windows XP option or even Linux.

On the upside, the chiclet keyboard is good to type on with a decent touchpad. However, the left and right clicks could’ve been made less stiff. The VGA webcam and the integrated mic works like a charm, making it a perfect device for a quick Skype video call.

Battery Life:
Another criteria a user looks in a netbook is its battery life. Although a 6-cell battery sold separately can give up to 8 hours of continuous usage, the eM350 is packed with a 3-cell one, which unfortunately has a mediocre battery life. A full charge will run to max. 3.5-4 hours that is variable depending on the tasks you do.

To wrap this up, I would say eM350 has its share of flaws but if you’re one who just needs a netbook to check emails or do some light office work, eM350 won’t disappoint. Another plus is its sub-Rs. 14,000 price tag which makes it more lucrative.

Rating:
Pros: Price, Portability
Cons: Feels underpowered, No other OS option

Product Page

Acer’s dual-booting colourful Aspire One Happy netbook is now available in India. The Aspire One Happy netbook is targeted at youngsters that comes in colour choices of Candy Pink, Lavender Purple, Lime Green and Hawaii Blue and allows users to boot either in Google’s Android OS or Windows 7.

The 1.25kg Aspire One Happy is a decently spec’d netbook that comes with Intel’s Atom N455 CPU, 10.1-inch WSVGA resolution display, a gigabyte of RAM, Intel GMA3150 graphics, 320GB HDD, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, webcam, multi-touch trackpad, memory card reader, optional Bluetooth 3.0+HS and 8 hour battery life.

The Aspire One Happy netbook is now available in the market for Rs.17,999.

Acer has developed a new Aspire One powered by an AMD CPU. Designed on the lines of Aspire One D255, the new 10.1-inch netbook boasts an AMD C-50 Ontario dual core processor clocked at 1GHz each and ATI Radeon 6250 graphics supporting DX11. Macles who published the pictures claims Acer will target users watching HD content due to the integration of a decent GPU, a screen supporting 1280×720 resolution and HDMI port.

Rest of the connectivity ports are expected to the same as D255 and battery life rated at about 6 hours.

No word on the availability or pricing.

Dell has unwrapped its latest offering that will start shipping in the first week of next month. The Inspiron Duo hits two stones with one bird that when opened looks like a regular 10.1-inch notebook but flip it and you’ve got a big tablet.

The netbook/tablet hybrid starts from $549 and includes specs like capacitive display with up to 1,366×768 pixel resolution, Atom N550 CPU, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerator, Windows 7 OS, Wi-Fi, USB 2.0 ports, 1.3MP camera and a 4 hours of battery life.

Inspiron Duo also features Dell’s Duo Stage UI that is activated when the device is used in tablet mode.

[Via Slashgear]