News Bits: Dell Enters Retail in Europe, CNET Debunks Apple Ultraportable

Dell announces European retail deal with DSGi

Starting in January 2008, European customers will be able to buy Dell notebooks in a variety of DSGi stores, including PC World and Currys stores in the UK and online at Dixons.co.uk. Other DSGi stores including Electro World, PC City, and Elkjop will also carry Dell notebooks. The deal places Dell notebooks in stores in Norway, Greece, Spain, Finland, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland. Dell has been steadily expanding into the retail arena over the past few months, moving away from its direct business model it used for over 20 years.

Read More (Pocket-link.co.uk)


Cnet editor speaks out against Apple subnotebook

Cnet editor Don Reisinger claims that the rumored Apple subnotebook that is supposed to be announced at Macworld is "dead in the water". He points out that subnotebooks are typically not beautiful devices and questions whether Apple would be able to design a better-looking one and sell it. He also points out that subnotebooks are usually very underpowered and good for only simple tasks; people buy Macs for an all-around solution to do everything on. Reisinger claims that if Apple releases the subnotebook, it will be the biggest mistake they could ever make.

Read More (Blogs.Cnet.com)

Quanta to ship 15,000 OLPC XOs in December

Quanta Computer is expected to ship about 15,000 OLPC XO computers this December. Future monthly shipments of the notebooks are expected to be around 8,000 - 10,000. Component makers for the XO are expected to do well next year.

Read More (DigiTimes.com)


AMD admits it did poorly in 2007

There is no doubt AMD was in trouble this year. The company's problems started with the ATI acquisition and late arrival of the HD 2000 series graphics cards. The company saw its graphics card market share drop from 23% at the end of 2006 to 19% in 3Q 2007. AMD's new Barcelona and Phenom processors are already off to a bad start, plagued with bugs and delays. And finally, AMD's chipset business was hurt by the company's decision not to release any samples of its 7-series chipsets and its Spider platform for review before launch time, which gave some the impression that the company would fail to deliver again. CEO Hector Ruiz and members of the company's management team finally admitted to the company's failings in 2007 at the annual AMD analyst day on December 13 and apologized. AMD showed off their 2008 roadmap which seems to have a lot of potential.

Read More (DigiTimes.com)

HTC Shift sub-notebookto hit the market in early 2008

(view large image)

HTC first took the wraps off its first UMPC -- the HTC Shift-- back last spring, but this device still has not yet gone on sale. According to an announcement from the company though, this will soon change.

This model has been expected "soon" for months now, and the last that was heard from HTC was that the Shift would launch in November. This didn't happen, and now the company says this eagerly anticipated UMPC will debut in "Early 2008".

HTC didn't get any more specific than that, but it's likely hoping to be able to introduce the Shift at the Consumer Electronics Show in early January.

Read More (Brighthand.com)

 

I'm sorry, but that guy from CNet is an idiot. Subnotebooks are probably the most beautiful computers around, while really only Apple makes the other segments fashionable. If you look at the Japanese market especially, with the likes of Flybook, and much more penetration with things like the Sony TZ, Fujitsu P series, and Toshiba and Panasonic ultraportables, you'll see absolutely gorgeous designs where engineering is extremely important.

 

Not only did AMD screw themselves but screwed the shareholders at ATI and their fans. Hector has to go.

 

CNet has lost all their credibility as far as I'm concerned. Their reviews are completely random musings by hardware n00bs and their "experts" are simply idiotic in making claims like that. Apple would be making a mistake if it doesn't introduce an ultraportable that perfectly replaces the 12" PowerBook.

 

Cnet is way off the mark on that one. Theres just so many things wrong with that article, I don't even know where to begin.....

 

A bigger mistake than firing Jeff Gerstmann?

 

I'm sorry, but CNet is the biggest joke on the internet. I always have a hard time keeping a straight face when I'm reading their "reviews" (paid by the company) or industry analyses.

 

yeah, that cnet guy is completely off the mark. his argument is completely flawed.
i could definitely see a sub $800 notebook with a 12" screen, no optical drive, 16gb flash hd, 1gb ram and full featured OS. basically taking the asus eee to the next level. either apple will do it, or someone else will.

 

I think the remarks made are indeed flawed, but you must consider the following....

Apple advertises Macs as "full featured, do-it-all" notebooks/OS. And that's why many people buy Macs; because of the many media features of the Mac. We all know ultraportables aren't exactly the BEST machines for these types of features.

 

Agreed. Don't even try to make a list, you'll break your keyboard.

 

Agreed.

However, Cnet is still pretty interesting.

 

I agree. He may not be an idiot, but I do find him to be quite ignorant in many aspects.

 

And you're being just as stupid, because with a $1500 - 2 grand budget, its not difficult to get a sub-4lb notebook thats more powerful than a MacBook, which we can agree is a true Apple portable (one would hope.... ). Cases in point: Asus U6S, Sony SZ, and Asus U3S. So, how difficult do you think it would be for Apple to make one?

 

Believe someone who gives scores on how much u invest ads in them.. no way....

 

The new distribution channels for Dell will give them a boost in sales. I'm sure selling Dell PCs in places like Currys would totally wipe out competition from small, crap laptop brands like eMachines, and Advent.

Wise move.

 

Wow how that guy Don really missed in terms of what kind of technology we're seeing entering the market this year. Apple has perfected their capacitative touchscreen technology in the iPhone, Intel released their ULV core 2 duo and solo processors, flash SSDs are becoming affordable. What better timing for Apple to release a smaller variant in their lineup?

 

hmm...agreed. it kills me going into pcworld for a little look to see how thigns are going and you get a a clerk going "THIS ADVENT CPPPP454984 IS OUT TOP OF THE RANGE MACHINE. BEAUTIFUL BUILD AND HIGH PERFORMANCE, YOU CAN GET TRUE GAMING WITH THIS LAPTOP" "um...so what gpu has it got" "UMMMM....." looks at sticker....."I DONT KNOW" i hate pcworld...and the likes...

and what would the pricing be like?

 

dells getting geared up to take on HP again by widening their sales channels
over the last year dell has moved on from built to order to widespread distribution

about the editor....
well it was an unwise thing to say
it further undermines the reputation of the magazine now
im sure he would most probablt be forced to eat his words once apple does
put the ultra portable out.

 

CNet guy's a joke... cannot but agree.

The guy who said that AMD screwed ATi's shareholders... are you nuts? For the same price they got for their shares they can now buy AMD + ATi, with no extra investment, and good growth prospects in case of a successful turnaround, and where ATi has at least remained as good as it was 2 years ago. Two for the price of one!

Personally I like AMD's conceptual approach (call it "talent") towards creating streamlined designs for their chips. However, they have two big problems:
1. They simply do not have the capacity to create enough contribution towards these R&D costs given the low margins in the market.
2. Management (which impacts on debugging, timely delivery, pricing decisions, marketing, quality control)

 

For real, CNet is a joke. But he does have a point. The Macbooks are already 13 " and small as it. The market for a subnotebook is really a niche market.

 

No, the MacBook is not that small. Its approximately the same size and weight as the HP dv2500 and Sony CR, which are at the very borderline edge of thin and light, and pretty much mainstream. Mainstream is not small. Sure, the MB is thin, but that doesn't make it small. In fact, compared to its closest competitors (according to most people; I have a different take on it, more on that in a sec), the MB is quite large. For example, its .9lbs heavier than the Asus W7S and F9S, a full 1.1lbs heavier than the XPS M1330 and Sony SZ6, and 1.4lbs heavier than the SZ Premium. 1.4lbs !!! So the Sony SZ premium is not only 33% lighter (or the MB is 50% heavier than it, either way you want to look at the numbers), but its more powerful as well. Hurray! Except, I don't consider those to be competitors to the MB, which I think are the aforementioned HP dv2500 and Sony CR, plus other notebooks in that category, like the Dell 1400/1420, Asus A8Sc, etc. None of those are really all that small, unless you are coming from a 17" notebook, or a Pentium 4 based notebook from 2003. Neither is the MacBook.

And you do realize that Macs as a whole are a niche market, right? Quickly becoming more common and closer to the mainstream, but the same could very easily be said of sub-notebooks.

 

Can't add anything that hasn't already been said, but yeah, that whole argument of "subnotebooks are typically not beautiful devices so Apple wouldn't make one" is laughable for so many reasons:

1) As has been noted, many subnotebooks and ultraportables are often some of the best looking devices in the whole portable computing realm.

2) The idea that Apple wouldn't make something because the existing products on the market aren't "beautiful" is ridiculous. When has that ever stopped Apple from getting into a market before? Before the iPod, most hard-drive based MP3 players were pretty far from "beautiful" for example (I mean, something like the Nomad Jukebox was impressive for its time, but it was not really interesting because of its design).

Either way, Apple would make one regardless of whether there were or weren't beautiful devices. In and of itself, that is hardly one of Apple's top motivating factors when it comes to introducing a new product. For the most part their concern is more about how they can make a good and interesting product.

And regarding subnotebooks being "underpowered"; most of the tasks that a subnotebook can reasonably be used for (web browsing, e-mail, word processing, maybe watching some movies, etc.) are more than feasible on subnotebook-class hardware. No-one is going to buy an ultraportable MacBook Pro to do advanced 3D rendering with or something.

 

Agreed.

CNet is just... awful.

 

Actually, in this case, existing products in the market are beautiful....Just a glance in the direction of a Sony TZ or Asus U1 would tell you that much.

 

I would agree with CNet if it was a 7 or 10 inch subnotebook...But it s a 12! I mean you can barely call that a subnotebook, and it s not underpowered at all, and it s pretty cool to carry around. Is this guy stuck in the past? Yeah, 5 years ago subnotebooks were REALLY underpowered, but now they are not. I dont even call my toshiba r100, which was released in 2003 btw, underpowered, as it can do all basic tasks very well, and I can even play pre 2004 games! Is this guy nut?

 

Umm, I think that is essentially what I already said in part 1 of my post, which you edited out of your quote for some reason.

The point you're replying to is one I was making as a more general point about how ridiculous the CNet argument was; even if it was true (which it wasn't, as I acknowledged in the first part of my post), it still wouldn't be a reason to not enter the market. That's all I was getting at.

-Zadillo

 

Mr Reisinger is obiously right ,

I mean who would want a stylish 10-12" 2 pounds machine with probably x2 battery life ?

Since its Apple it won't have the glorious Vista but a ligther compact OS , what will the users do without the Aero interface ?

And how will the low voltage CPU be able to handle those everyday surfing/office/multimedia tasks without the Vista performence boost ?

I say give me Vista , Pentium 4 prescott notebook -- so I can whack Mr Reisinger on the head .

 

Oh, dang, I didn't actually see that part of your post...Should have read it more carefully as opposed to skimming... Sorry about that.

 

I don't think Dell has the retail market thing real well planned out in the U.S. Maybe they will do better in Europe. So far, I've seen mostly old stuff in retail stores. The Inspiron 1501 deffinately does not look tempting beside a Dv6000z.

 

No problemo - just wanted to make sure I wasn't coming across as someone who didn't already acknowledge things like the TZ and U6 (which I agree, are beautiful machines).

 

I've seen Inspiron 1521's at Staples, which seem to come across well. I kind of wish they'd sell a C2D-based model in retail as well though.

 

Hahahaha

 

Reisinger is predictable.

Bullish on MS, bearish on everything else: Apple, Sony, Nintendo.

He trolls the Net for flamebait once per week.

 

Man, I miss my old R100. That was a great little notebook.

 

I actually don't see what its going to achieve for them - the HP's are so much better looking and much less bulky that people who aren't going into Dell for the 8600GT will pretty much always pick the HP over the Dell.