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Samsung's N102 is an N100 clone, ditches MeeGo for Windows 7 Starter
Were you mostly on board with the N100, but wished Sammy would have held the MeeGo? Those of you in India or Russia are apparently in luck, as Notebook Italia has spotted its Windows-toting twin: the N102. Identical to the N100 in every other way, 10-inch netbook kicks the open source OS to the curb, opting instead for the pared down Windows 7 Starter Edition. Naturally, you'll pay a little extra for the privilege, as the 8,930 Roubles (around $320) gizmo is about 50 bones more than its MeeGo-wielding doppelgänger. Or, you know, you could just buy the N100, bask in open-source goodness and then put that half-Benjamin toward the purchase of a real copy of Windows.
LG E-Note H1000B 10.1-inch Windows 7 tablet arrives one year late
After seeing an unceremonious outing by the FCC and Twitter, LG's newest take on the Windows 7 tablet form-factor is finally official. The 10.1-inch 1366 x 768 pixel capacitive screen E-Note H1000B runs Windows 7 Starter on a 1.6GHz Atom Z530 processor with 16GB of SSD storage and 1GB of memory all powered by a 4-cell battery. The 14.5-mm thick / 850-gram slab packs 2x USB 2.0 jacks an SD card reader and 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0 radios when sold for 961,000 Korean won (about $850) with a portable WiMAX router bundle on LG's home turf. The perfect tablet to accompany you at the world premier of Avatar. What? With specs like this it must be late 2009, right?%Gallery-107974%
Archos 9 tablet and its Windows 7 Starter Edition unboxed (video)
It's been a long time coming, but the Archos 9 is finally being unleashed wholesale upon the world. The 9-inch tablet has been delayed and had its price hiked, but if you haven't leapt off the hype train yet you'll be interested in watching the unboxing and initial impressions video after the break courtesy of UMPCPortal. The 60GB device contains a mere 1.1GHz Atom processor and has been unfortunately crippled with Windows 7 Starter Edition, lacking the cool tablet features that you might have wanted to use on a tablet device. A few times during this video the Archos is likened to the Joojoo, which will almost surely face some delays of its own before receiving a similar berth months from now. Overall it's looking like a nice machine if you have the bank -- and don't want to do anything particularly processor intensive.
Windows 7 Starter leads the way on netbooks, demands premium
We've already seen plenty of Windows 7 laptops and desktops up for order, but it looks like we're now finally starting to see how things will shake out on netbooks as well. After much confusion in the early days of Windows 7, it appears that Windows 7 Starter edition will indeed be the standard issue offering on the majority of netbooks, and it looks like it'll also demand a slight premium over otherwise comparable XP-based systems. In most cases, Windows 7 Starter seems to add $30 to the cost of a netbook (as with the Dell Mini 10v pictured above), or $50 in Canada if the first few listings on Future Shop are any indication -- which, as Digital Home Thoughts points out, would appear to be quite a bit more than the license fee manufacturers are paying. Of course, there are also a few netbooks that break the mold with Windows 7 Home Premium, and it unsurprisingly appears to be the standard offering on low-cost thin and lights that eschew the netbook moniker altogether. Hit up the link below for a rundown of some of the options already available to order, which is sure to grow considerably in the next few days.[Via Digital Home Thoughts]
Microsoft confirms: no three app limit in Windows 7 Starter
We'd heard it through the grapevine that Microsoft was gearing up to right the wrong and nix that ludicrous three application limit for Windows 7 Starter Edition, and sure enough, it did just that via The Windows Blog. The company admitted that it was removing the three application at-a-time limit previously slated for inclusion in Win7 Starter "based on the feedback it has received from partners and customers." (Psst... thanks for yelling, people!) That said, the OS is still severely gimped, with no multi-monitor support, DVD playback, Windows Media Center, remote media streaming, XP Mode or network connectivity. Just kidding on that last one... we think.
Microsoft publishes maximum Windows 7 netbooks specs
One step forward, one step back: just as we were getting ready to celebrate Microsoft's decision to remove the three-app limit from Windows 7 Starter Edition, we're hearing that Redmond is still planning to impose strict limits on what types of machines get to run the stripped-down build. Just like today's max XP specs, things are pretty weak all around: Window 7 Starter machines will max out at 10.2-inch screens, 1GB of RAM, 250GB hard drives or 64GB SSDs, and single-core processors under 2GHz. Of course, Microsoft's told us all along that it thinks lots of OEMs will ignore the max specs and just ship Windows 7 Home Premium since it runs way better on netbooks than Vista, but we'll see how this plays out at Computex -- we're expecting a wave of 10.2-inch netbooks with 2GHz procs and 1GB of RAM in the near future.[Via ZDNet]
Microsoft dropping three app limit from Windows 7 Starter Edition
In some really encouraging news, Paul Thurrott at SuperSite for Windows is reporting that Microsoft isn't gonna put the arbitrary limit on its netbook-bound Windows 7 Starter Edition where users could only run three applications at a time. Now the only thing holding you back from simultaneous Skype, AIM, browsing, DVD playback, and Plants vs. Zombies will be the space on your screen and the specs in your portable. So how will they tempt users to upgrade to Home or Premium now? We'll just have to wait and see on that one.[Thanks, Stephen]
Switched On: Windows 7, Non-Starter Edition
Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Microsoft is making many well-received improvements in Windows 7, but may be in for a black eye on its Starter Edition because of growing misconceptions that it has optimized and recommended the limited Starter Edition for netbooks. For instance, the ad copy for the Apple commercial jabbing Starter Edition almost writes itself. "Hello, I'm a Mac." "And I'm a PC." PC is trying to juggle. "Hey, PC. What's with the juggling act?" "It's my new operating system. See, it only lets me run three programs at a time so I need to stop doing one thing when I want to do another. Really keeps me on my toes thinking about which three programs I should use. Of course, I could upgrade to a more expensive version that gives me the capabilities I should have had from the beginning." PC drops the balls. "Hmm, really? Every Mac lets you run as many programs as you want out of the box." "Well, that would be nice. I'd sure like to send someone an e-mail about that." "That's a good idea, PC. Why don't you?" "Because I had to quit my e-mail program to say that." PC starts trying to juggle again. Cut to iMac with "Mac" desktop
