Technologizer

Is the Cloud All You Need?

Thursday, November 19, 2009

When you think about it, every netbook to date has been misnamed: They’ve run traditional operating systems, and worked just fine even when you didn’t have an Internet connection. But netbooks based on Google’s Chrome OS will be different: At best, they’re going to have very limited functionality when you’re not online. Whether they turn [...]

Chrome OS: The Great Unveiling

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

12 Comments

On Thursday morning, Google is holding a press event that sounds like it’ll be the closest thing to an official introduction that the company’s Chrome OS for netbooks has gotten to date: While this will be more of a technical announcement, we will be showing a few demos that will definitely be of interest to you [...]

Chrome OS: Imminent?

Friday, November 13, 2009

10 Comments

TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington is reporting that Google plans to release an early version of its Chrome OS netbook operating system next week. It’s presumably a very early version, since Google says that machines running Chrome OS won’t arrive until the second half of next year. Google says that Chrome OS will be Linux-based, Web-centric, and designed [...]

Hackintosh Trouble?

Monday, November 2, 2009

1 Comment

Apple may be suing Mac clone merchant Psystar, but its policy towards individuals who install OS X on non-Apple hardware to create “Hackintoshes” seems to have been to ignore them rather than to frustrate them. That may be about to change. According to OS X Daily, Apple’s upcoming OS X 10.6.2 update prevents Snow Leopard from [...]

Please Sir, May I Have More Memory?

Monday, October 26, 2009

5 Comments

Good news, maybe, sort of: Fudzilla is reporting that Intel will allow netbook manufacturers who use an upcoming version of its low-end Atom CPU to sell machines with 2GB of RAM rather than today’s artificial maximum of 1GB. That would allow for nicer, better-performing netbooks that don’t cost a whole lot more. Of course, it also [...]

Nokia’s Netbook Gamble

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

1 Comment

I don’t quite understand Nokia’s thinking, but the company has made it official that its Booklet 3G, its first true netbook PC (or any type of full PC for that matter) will come to the states through AT&T and Best Buy on October 22. Entering into the increasingly crowded netbook space could be risky for Nokia. First [...]

Is This Twice the Netbook?

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

3 Comments

Engadget’s Ross Miller is attending CEATAC in Tokyo–it’s the Consumer Electronics Show of Japan, only far weirder–and among the gizmos he’s encountered is a prototype of a netbook with two screens (photo borrowed from Engadget): My instinctive response to dual-screen laptops of all sorts (which I wrote about here) is that they take the best thing [...]

The Last 12-Inch Netbook in America

Friday, October 2, 2009

9 Comments

Have I mentioned lately that I’m a big fan of netbooks–but that I think treating them as a fundamentally different sort of device than a notebook is kind of silly, and that it’s a shame the computer industry doesn’t seem to like them much? A netbook is just a notebook that happens to be (1) [...]

HP Mini 311-1000NR Netbook Image Gallery

Monday, September 14, 2009

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HP’s 11.6-inch Mini 311 netbook. Front view.

Would You Buy a Non-Windows, Non-OS X PC?

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

3 Comments

The IDG News Service’s Dan Nystedt has a report today that Taiwanese electronics behemoth Foxconn is planning to build “smartbooks”–even cheaper netbooks, basically–built around ARM processors. Their lack of x86 CPUs means they’ll run some flavor of Linux–perhaps Moblin (backed by Intel) or, eventually, Google’s Chrome oS. We know they won’t run Windows–not unless Microsoft [...]

New Tech Still on Tap for 2009

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

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[A NOTE FROM HARRY: Here's a post by Mari Silbey, one of Dave Zatz's Zatz Not Funny colleagues. We'll be borrowing some of her ZNF items along with Dave's--welcome Mari!] We have yet to hit the holiday shopping season, so you know there will still be plenty of gadget goodness before the year ends. However, there’s [...]

Nokia Does a Netbook

Monday, August 24, 2009

4 Comments

Nokia, which has made some PC-like devices in its day, is finally making…a PC. The company has announced the Booklet 3G, a device that it’s calling a mini-laptop. I’m calling it a netbook, but a pretty fancy one: It’s got an aluminum case, built-in 3G (with swappable SIM card) and GPS, and HDMI output. Nokia [...]

Dell Ditches Its Big Netbook

Saturday, August 8, 2009

8 Comments

I swear I’m not a conspiracy theorist. But if I were, I’d be suspicious about the circumstances surrounding the death of Dell’s Mini 12 netbook, which the company is discontinuing. Along with Lenovo’s IdeaPad S12, it was one of the few netbooks on the market with a 12-inch screen, so its absence will be felt. The [...]

Toshiba’s Mini NB205 Netbook: The Technologizer Review

Friday, July 31, 2009

10 Comments

When Toshiba announced its first netbooks last month, it said that it had waited to start selling inexpensive little notebooks in the U.S. until it felt like it could do them justice. I’ve just spent time using the Mini NB205–which Toshiba likes to call a mini-notebook rather than a netbook–and found that it’s indeed one [...]

Microsoft’s Netbook Problem

Friday, July 24, 2009

22 Comments

The persisting popularity of netbooks has been a major drain on Microsoft’s Windows client licensing revenue. The worldwide economic downturn has driven many people to purchase cheaper machines, but I believe that the netbook’s ascension also reflects changing consumer tastes. Windows client licensing revenue fell $1 billion from last year, and Microsoft’s unearned revenue from multi-year [...]

The Windows Cash Cow Takes a Beating

Thursday, July 23, 2009

7 Comments

Microsoft has announced its fourth quarter financial results, and for those of us who are Microsoft customers rather than shareholders, the most striking factoid may be this: The company’s revenue from Windows took a hit of more than a billion dollars compared to what it reaped a year ago. How come? Well, the crummy state [...]