About two years ago, in 2007, before the whole netbook hype really started, Lenovo developed an interesting concept of a pocket-sized PC.

This certainly intriguing concept, which Lenovo calls “Pocket Yoga”, received some additional attention last week, when some photographs “accidently” left Lenovo’s Beijing design studio. Today, Lenovo published further images, which can be found here.

Some of the unique features of this netbook are that its exterior is completely covered in leather, its detachable keyboard, its touchscreen, and its belt that wraps around it, which can be used as a mouse when detached. Besides that, the “Pocket Yoga” can be used both as a laptop or tablet, by opening it 360 degrees. So far, there is no official word from Lenovo, whether this concept is ever going to see the light of day in form of a finished product, though.

There are renewed rumors about Apple working on a small ultra portable notebook. Despite Steve Jobs’ comment that he did not know a way of making a computer for $800 that was not a hunk of junk these rumors have persisted.

The latest rumors seem to have some traction though. According to China Times three players in system manufacture have received direct orders from Apple. Dynapack, Wintek, and Foxconn.

The new book should be about 9.7-inches (just to be different) will be a touch screen (ok Multi-Touch) and should be in the $800 range. It is interesting that Foxconn will be making the new book as Quanta has taken over much of the manufacturing for MacBooks.

Of course this is all rumor and might not be a netbook, ultrathin or anything at all resembling one. Apple has a history of doing their own thing and I cannot see them trying to enter and really compete in the netbook market. This is especially considering the “cheap” label that netbooks have in the market.

There is good news for netbooks; well it is good news for people that would like HD on their netbooks. It looks like Intel may have decided to increase the allowable screen resolution to 1366×768 this will include the coveted (by some) 720p range.

This move allows for netbook makers to use the N series Atom instead of having to go with the Z series. The size of the display is still limited to 10.2-inches. So if you do get 720p HD resolution you are still getting a very small display to watch it on.

Intel has been trying to establish a clear distinction between the low powered netbook and more mainstream notebooks. However many manufacturers would prefer to keep this line blurry as it enables them to market the netbook as a low cost notebook alternative.

After denying the rumors for the better part of a year Google has finally come clean on its attempt to enter the operating system world.

The new Google OS (???) will be based on their fast and (in many security experts opinions) insecure Chrome Browser.

The core design is Google Chrome running with a windowing system on a Linux Kernel. The developer’s blog for the new OS sounds very much like a Mac add. Including making the comment “we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work”.

The new Chrome OS is also not meant to interfere with Android as the two are separate projects. Android was meant to be multi platform (netbooks to smart boxes) while Chrome OS is for Web Centric use and will be on netbooks to desktops. The Developer’s Blog made an interesting statement that choice drives innovation. (a very true statement) I guess this even goes for competing with yourself.

Read more here

Sony has entered the netbook market in the US. This is really not shocking news as just about everyone has a netbook these days. It is just the thing to do.

The new offering will still fall under the Vaio name (Vaio W). This confusingly named product will run similar to most other netbooks. The Vaio W will have an Atom N270, 160GB HDD, 1GB RAM, Windows XP and the rest of the usual trimmings.

What is different is the price, Sony is asking for $500 for this 10.1-inch book. I am not really sure if this is going to be worth it for most as you can get a similarly speced netbook from a couple of different vendors for much less.

Read more here

Hmmm this is interesting; despite hearing about how little AMD is interested in the netbook market we find news that there will be a new AMD based netbook available soon.

The company responsible for this is called Medion the name of the book will be the Akoya Mini E1312.

What makes it even more interesting is that although the product is classified as a netbook it is using a low powered Sempron 2100U and an ATi Radeon TM Xpress 1250 Graphics Chip. The rest of the E1312 is pretty common with an 11.6 Inch display, 160GB HDD, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 1.3 MP web camera, WiFi (b/g/n) you know the drill by now.

The Sempron 2100U should offer better performance than the Atom single core CPUs while the Radeon 1250 is going to be much more snappy than the Intel graphics found in most flavors of netbooks today. What is not know is how this new book will stand up if placed head to head against an Atom on an ION based device.

AMD’s Congo is coming and it looks like it will not be the “Atom-Smasher” that many are calling it. Rather it will enter Intel competition with Intel’s thin and light segment.

AMD has maintained that netbooks will eventually fade and be assimilated by the notebook market. There are some indications of this happening as netbook makers play a game of technological leapfrog with netbooks each one offering a more powerful (and of course more expensive) version.

I have to wonder if the netbook will eventually fall to the level of the MID. And the Thin-And_Light will be the next big rush.

Read more here.

AMD thinks netbooks are a bit of a fad, and is laying down a roadmap for thin-and-lights while keeping its distance from any sort of “Atom killer.” The existing Yukon platform — featured in HP’s dv2 — just got an upgrade in the form of a dual-core AMD Neo chip, but things will really start to get exciting later this year with the introduction of Congo, which will pair a dual-core Neo with much better graphics and a more modern chipset. Perks in Congo, which is based on the M780G chipset and sports ATI Radeon HD 3200 IGP graphics, include hardware decoding for HD formats, DirectX 10 gaming

Just this morning I posed a question about the use of the Tegra SoC chip in netbooks. Well the question still stands but the gang over at Engadget has an interesting piece that comes to them from TechVideoBlog. It seems they have a video showing Tegra pumping out some 720p HD content without breaking a sweat.

My issue with Tegra follows in the OS choices and other performance. Right now the only operating systems that Tegra is being used with are Windows CE (which is awful) and Android. The other factor is system performance, it is being reported that you can only have about four tabs of Firefox open before the system slows down. To me in a machine designed for internet usage that is just not enough.

Maybe if nVidia pushes this into portable HD media players it will fit. But in reality HD video on my netbook is not something I can get worked up about.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you didn’t believe the Tegra hype — 25 days audio, 10 hours of 1080p video on single charge — already then pull up a stool, son, NVIDIA wants to tell your a story. TechVideoBlog sat down with Gordon Grigor, NVIDIA’s Director of Mobile Software to see Tegra’s little Atom smasher in action. So sit back while Gordon smoothly streams a 720p MSN HD trailer off the web (over WiFi) then switches over to Firefox to take Flash for a spin at full-screen. Gordon also clarifies earlier confusion over Tegra’s ability to handle HD video; see, the Tegra 600 can do H.264 video at 720p while the Tegra 650 can decode 1080p. Gordon also gives some more insight into memory configurations.

nVidia is jumping on the AMD bandwagon, well sort of. As of right now nVidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang is saying that Intel is using anti-competitive pricing to prevent ION from entering the market.

Speaking at the Reuters Technology Summit Huang said that nVidia was not planning any legal action yet but that they “have to do whatever we have to do when the time comes”. It seems pretty clear that this is a direct threat and not a simple statement.

Make no mistake the timing of this is not a coincidence either, this coming on the heels of the $1.45 Billion fine that Intel just receive shows that Huang feels this threat will motivate Intel to act differently towards ION.

But once again all this skates over the fact that rebates and incentives are part of doing business. How many of you have been offered a couple months free HBO if you stay with your current cable company after all…

According to NVIDIA, Intel sells an Atom processor typically for US $45 a piece, while in a bundle with Intel’s own chipset consisting of an i945-class northbridge and ICH7-class southbridge for just $25, that’s $25 for the processor and Intel chipset. This is driving away motherboard manufacturers from opting for Intel Atom paired with NVIDIA’s single-package Ion chipset, which NVIDIA claims, (and reviews have shown,) to offer superior performance and features at almost half the board footprint. “That seems pretty unfair,” Huang said. “We ought to be able to compete and serve that market.”

Good news for Acer Netbook fans in the US, the new Acer Aspire One D250 and 751h are available for purchase in North Amercia.

Available Configurations Pricing and Availability

The new Acer Aspire One AO751h and AOD250 are available in several configurations. Sample configurations follow:

Acer Aspire One AO751h-1192 Specifications

* Intel® Atom™ Processor Z520 (1.22GHz, 490MHz FSB, 512KB L2 Cache)
* Genuine Microsoft Windows XP® Home (Service Pack 3)
* 11.6-inch WXGA 16:9 ratio Acer CrystalBrite™ High Definition LED back-lit TFT LCD (1364 x 768 resolution)
* Mobile Intel® US15W Express Chipset
* 1024MB DDR2 533 MHz SDRAM Single Channel Memory
* Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950
* 160GB SATA 5400RPM Hard Drive
* Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader and Dedicated SD Card
* Acer InviLink™ 802.11b/g Wi-Fi CERTIFIED®
* Acer Crystal Eye Web Camera
* Two Built-in Stereo Speakers
* Three USB 2.0 Ports
* 6-cell Li-ion Battery (5200mAh)
* 11.18″ (W) x 7.79″ (D) x 1″ (H)
* Sapphire Blue
* One-Year Standard Warranty
* Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price: $379.99

Acer Aspire One AOD250-1042 Specifications

* Intel® Atom™ Processor N270 (1.60GHz, 533MHz FSB, 512KB L2 Cache)
* Genuine Microsoft Windows XP® Home (Service Pack 3)
* 10.1-inch WSVGA 16:9 ratio Acer CrystalBrite™ LED back-lit TFT LCD (1024×600 resolution)
* Mobile Intel® 945GSE Express Chipset
* 1024MB DDR2 533 MHz SDRAM Single Channel Memory
* Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950
* 160GB SATA 5400RPM Hard Drive
* Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader
* Acer InviLink™ 802.11b/g Wi-Fi CERTIFIED®
* Acer Crystal Eye Web Camera
* Two Built-in Stereo Speakers
* Three USB 2.0 Ports
* 3-cell Li-ion Battery (2600 mAh)
* 10.17″ (W) x 7.24″ (D) x 1″ (H)
* Ruby Red
* One-Year Standard Warranty
* Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price: $298.00

The Acer Aspire One AO751h 11.6-inch netbook line has a starting manufacturers suggested retail price (MSRP) of $349.99. Several models are avaialble with an extended 6-cell battery at an MSRP starting at $379.99. The Acer Aspire One D250 10.1-inch netbook line has a starting MSRP of $298. Models in these lines are available now.

The Acer Aspire One comes with additional preinstalled software includes Microsoft Works with Office Home and Student 2007 Trial, Microsoft Office Personal 2007, Acer eRecovery Management, Acer Launch Manager, Adobe® Reader®, McAfee® Internet Security Suite, Microsoft® Office Trial 2007.

The new Acer Aspire One models come with a standard one-year parts and labor warranty, which can be extended to three years with the Acer Advantage service. Additionally, some models have longer warranties offered through specific channel partners. All Acer netbooks are backed by toll-free service and support.