The device, which is rumoured to be called the Padfone, looks to be the second iteration we’ve seen of the PC in your pocket concept that Motorola recently pioneered with their Atrix mobile phone.

We can expect the device to be based on Android, though which version of the company’s OS is unclear.  Android is currently available in very different versions for phones and tablets, though its open-source nature makes it much easier for companies such as ASUS to modify it to suit their particular needs.

The next question is whether the tablet will be dumb without the phone docked.  This will be fairly likely but will keep the cost of the tablet down considerably as it will just require a screen and a dock, not a computer itself.  This could be a way for people to get a tablet for very little money.  That said the Motorola Atrix with its netbook dock as received unfavourable reviews so far.  The Atrix, in Motorola’s defence though, is a version 1 product and the first iteration of this type of device that we’ve yet seen.

The motherboard manufacturers Gigabyte, Asus and MSI have developed a software update for Windows that will enable quick charging the Apple devices. The software update improves the charging speed by up to 50% and can even charge the device in multiple power stages.

Apple devices users who use Windows computer systems might want to head over to Gigabyte, Asus or MSI to download the new drivers that improves the charging time of their devices.

Gigabyte is the only company that is restricting the software to specific motherboards. Reports at Engadget suggest that it is possible to install the drivers on unsupported hardware as well as they are showing a video of a user who is using the Asus software on Sony laptops.

I do have an Android-based phone, but that wasn’t enough for me to know if this new OS is a viable alternative for the network laptop. In order to get a good enough experience, I thought I should get Android up and running in a VirtualBox virtual machine. I was surprised how easy this was. Equally I was surprised to see how well it ran. Although lacking a lot of functionality (and obviously still tightly knit into the fabric of the mobile phone technology, it was a quick and easy way to see how this operating system would function. So let’s get Android OS up and running in a virtual machine and take it for a spin.

Getting the ISO and putting it together

The first thing you have to do is download two pieces of the Android Live ISO image. Get the first part here and the second part here. Once you have these two pieces you need to splice them together. In the Linux operating system this is simple. Follow these steps:

1. Open up a terminal window.
2. Change to the directory now holding the two pieces of the ISO image.
3. Issue the command: cat liveandroidv0.3.iso.001 liveandroidv0.3.iso.002 > liveandroid.iso

The command in step three will piece together the two ISO parts into one, complete ISO image that can be used with VirtualBox.

Create the Virtual Machine

I will assume you have read the VirtualBox articles here on Ghacks. You might want to go over my article “Installing Windows XP as a virtual machine on VirtualBox“. The steps for creating the Android virtual machine are similar to this with only these differences:

• You will select Linux/Other Linux as the OS type.
• When you first fire up the virtual machine you will use an Image file instead of a Host Drive. All you have to do is add the new liveandroid.iso image file in the wizard.

That’s it. When you select your image file your virtual machine will start up and, eventually, you will have a running instance of Android OS.

The Android desktop

Figure 1

As you can see, in Figure 1, the Android desktop is fairly similar to that of the mobile phone version. What you see is the Google search bar at the top, a few application icons on the bottom, and the sliding tray to the right.

If you click the left-pointing arrow on the sliding tray you will see what is currently included in this early release of the Android Desktop OS. Figure 2 shows this tray in the exposed position, revealing a number of clickable icons – all of which do function.

Figure 2

I have tried to install apps onto the Android Desktop OS, but to no avail. The web browser does work as does a few of the other applications. You should not be surprised to hear the phone-based apps will not work on the desktop. I am surprised these have been included in this release of the OS.

The browser works well enough to demonstrate what Ghacks looks like. Take a look at Figure 3 too see everyone’s favorite how-to site as rendered in the Android Desktop OS’s browser. Not too shabby.

Figure 3

Final thoughts

The Android Desktop OS is not nearly close enough for public consumption. But its alpha-stage of development doesn’t prevent curious geeks, nerds, and the like from wanting to know what it looks like. And from what I have seen, if Android continues with development, they could have something really special for the netbook landscape. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Aspire Revo Gets Dual Core And Windows 7

Aspire Revo has gotten a new boost in power and is powered by the Atom N330 along with the ION chipset. So now it can do HD video and some basic 3D games. The price is up too though, to $350.

KND Pine Trail Devices Spotted, The K1850 Nettop Looks Good

Although Intel’s Pine trail – the next generation of Atom CPUs – is not officially out yet, there are signs of its coming soon. Several new models featuring the Pine Trail D510 processor have been spotted, including the K1850 nettop. That actually makes the K1850 the first Pine Trail nettop. It comes with an 18.6inch display, 2GB of RAM, 250GB storage and a DVD drive.

Asus 1501 ION Packing Eee Box Spotted Again

The elusive Asus 1501 Eee Box has been spotted again, and everyone agrees – it looks pretty good. The build quality looks good, the slot loading drive looks great and the angled mount is a nice touch. Too bad it will start resembling spaghetti as soon as you start connecting all the wire to it.

The Best Ones To Get Right Now

These are all Dual Core Atom 330 models (Except the Mac MINI and FitPC2) with NVIDIA ION providing graphics muscle for crunching HD video.

MSI Wind Nettop CS120

The MSI Wind CS120 is selling for around $330 and it has everything you need for basic computing tasks and watching HD videos. In fact, the slim, vertical box is perfect for setting down beside your HDTV, especially with the 7.1 channel audio out. Plus I like the fact that it has a slot loading DVD drive.

ASROCK ION 330

This one has 5.1 channel HD Audio output, DDR2 800MHz RAM (up to 4GB) and a very compact form factor. It uses a 2.5” laptop HDD but gives you 320GB of storage. But here’s the best part – it has built in software overclocking with absolutely no stability issues. So you can crank the Atom 330 all the way up to 2.0GHz. Also, there is something called the ASRock Instant Boot, which is like a super-low power sleep mode that lets you boot to an Internet surfing state in about 3-4 seconds. Pretty cool huh? This one sells for about $350 before rebates. There is also a Blu-ray version if you want to make it your HTPC.

Shuttle X27D

Selling for about $390, this nettop has won a lot of accolades from all quarters including an editor’s choice award from CNET in April this year. You can easily get the barebone model for about $190 and build it up with components of your choice. It accepts DDR2 533 RAM, 2.5” HDD and has a volume of only 3liters.

Mac Mini (Older models)

If you want the goodness of Apple’s OS X and want something more powerful than your average Atom-based nettop, this is a really great thing to have. You can get Core 2 Duo machines with 1 to 2GB of RAM for under $300 if you look around. The only problem is that these older models ship with smaller HDDs. But with HDDs prices going so low these days, you can buy a large HDD for the Mac Mini and still stay around $350.

Pssst – just saw one going for $273 at compclasse.

FitPC2

This one’s all about the size. If you want something that is smaller than a CD and runs in absolute silence, the FitPC2 models are varied but they use the Z series Atom processors and the Poulsbo chipset to decode HD video at, what they claim, has only 20% CPU usage. You can get one for between $250 and just over $400, depending on the configuration. It comes in Linux and Windows versions and there’s one where you can put in your own HDD. If you are planning on a hideaway HTPC or a carpc, this is the perfect way to go. In fact, these nettops are in great favor with car modders.

As the name suggest the Disney Netpal is a netbook designed specifically for children. According to Disney, the age range is between 6-12 years-old. The Netpal features an 8.9-inch LCD display, WiFi capabilities and Window’s XP Home “with over 40 parental control options.”

Since this is a netbook marketed to kids Disney took special note of durability. The device not only features a spill proof keyboard, but also ASUS ShockShield data protection which prevents loss of data should the device experience sudden shock such as a fall.

On the design front, the netbook boasts two color choices, “Princess Pink” for the ladies err girls and Magic Blue for the boys which also features “miniature Mickey Mouse icons (the former carries “beautiful pink florals”).

But what makes this little netbook shine is the work Disney has placed under the hood, geared to kids and parents alike. The Netpal features 10 customizable themes derived from popular Disney and Disney/Pixar franchises. These include, Cars, Club Penguin, Disney Classic Characters, Disney Fairies, Disney Princess, Vintage Mickey Mouse, Toy Story, WALL-E, Jonas Brothers and you guessed it Hanna Montana (where’s Lizzie McGuire?) Children will be able to use icons from these themes as email attachments such as signatures.

But Disney has gone even further with the inclusion of software built specifically for the Netpal. An example of this is the Disney Mix which, as the name suggest, is used for music and media management. There is also Disney Pix for photo customization/organization. One of the features of this application is the ability for kids to insert pictures of their faces into Bobblehead software. Another feature (via the Disney Radio Widget) allows children to stream real time music from Disney Radio as well as submit requests for songs. There are also a number of games included (racing, memory, scrapbook etc.)

So far everything that we just covered are things appealing to the kids, for the parents there are (as we mentioned earlier) over 40 control options so parents can protect their children as well as allow limited access to certain things.. For example a parent can pre-select email correspondences, determine which websites their children can visit, as well as a scheduling option so certain features can be automated such as the time of day the child is allowed to go online or play a game etc. And more importantly parents will be able to see not only what their children were doing on the computer but how long they spent.
All in all, this sounds like a perfect idea. While I do not have kids of my own, I have quite a few friends who would be interested in something like this for their son/daughter, and with a starting price of $350 this sounds pretty reasonable. As for a release date, that is set sometime in July

They were able to compare the Asus Eee PC models 701 and 900 in white and the 701 in black. Both white models are using the same keyboard while the black keyboard looks and feels different and the assumption can be made that the black 900 model will have the same keyboard as the black 701 model.

The first obvious difference becomes obvious when you place the black and white keyboards next to each other. The black keys seem to be a bit smaller and use a wider spacing than the white ones. They also go deeper which means that the user will receive more feedback from the keyboard in comparison to the white keyboard.

The texture of the black keyboard uses rougher plastic which makes it easier to grip. I have not tested it myself but it looks like the difference between a notebook keyboard and a usual desktop pc keyboard at first glance. Maybe the difference are not that big but the comparison seems valid.

It’s still strange that Asus would create different keyboards for different colored models and the reviewer at Laptop Mag came to the conclusion that this may be caused by the manufacturing process and not by design itself.

I already see signs of a public outcry in the Internet landscape. How can it be that a version for a free operating system, Linux, is more expensive than the version for Windows XP ? If you know only these facts you might think that Microsoft is using their power to promote Windows on the EeePC 900 by either giving the version away for free or even subsidizing it.

This may very well be a valid point but you have to know the following fact to come to a conclusion. The Windows version of the EeePC 900 will ship with a 12 Gigabyte Solid State Disk while the Linux version will have a 20 Gigabyte one. The price difference between the two versions is $50 Australian Dollars according to website apcmag.

So the reality is that Asus did cover the license cost of Windows and Works on the EeePC 900 by reducing the hard drive of that version. Which version will sell better when the EeePC 900 comes out ? I think it could be the Windows version. It’s cheaper which is always a good selling point and it is Windows, something the users are used to work with. Casual users will have trouble finding out if 8 Gigabytes of additional hard drive space are worth the extra 50 bucks and the time it takes to feel comfortable working with a Linux system.

A first short review was also included in the article:

The XP version of the Eee boots quite speedily for a Windows box, but is still notably slower than its Linux counterpart. Even Asus’ press release promoting the product acknowledges that the Linux machine is faster to get started. “It provides a fast boot-up time, ideal for quick internet access while waiting for public transport or taking notes on-the-go,” it breathlessly proclaims.

Apparently, “the Linux version is suited to users who desire an icon-driven and easy point-and-click interface – well suited for children or users with limited computer experience”. We’ll leave the reader to deduce what that implies about the XP interface.

Does this imply that the Windows XP version will be suitable to computer experts only ? Every technology inclined user will obviously buy the Linux version and not the Windows one. Additional eight Gigabytes of space for $50 is well worth the extra cash.