When Asus entered, nay, started the netbook market, the device didn’t have a named category to fall under. Mini laptop, UMPC, ultra portable were some of the names given to it. Hell even on this blog I’d tag posts posts as ultraportable until recently. It’s been about a year and the market is now saturated; much credit blame directed towards Asus. However there still lies a sense of disconnect between consumers and manufacturers. Why is it that most of them find it so difficult to produce a decent product which covers all bases. Read the rest of this entry »

Dell is hosting an event titled ‘Freedom from Business as Usual’ and is was expected to announce their netbooks and possibly even a phone. That didn’t happen though. Dell is really pushing the concept of a ‘Digital Nomad‘ (their term, not mine). They claim to have achieved a 19 hour battery life for notebooks and this will be included in their newest (4th generation) Latitudes some of which will be available starting today on dell.com

Among other things the machines are expected to include Backlit keyboards, all day batteries, SSDs, Centrino2 processors, integrated webcam and microphone and even smart card security. Track lost notebook as well as remotely wipe data.

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Gizmodo managed to get a sneak peek at Dell’s forthcoming into the UMPC market. Dell had earlier announced that they will be releasing a product sometime in the Summer to compete with the likes of HP and Asus. There is no word on the specifications, screen size or price, but one can certainly expect some information soon. Atleast with the red colour it’d be safe to say the ultraportable will be coming in a variety of colours too.

However what stood out the most is the unconventional key layout. The function keys have been totally let go and the Shift, Caps Lock and other keys have been dramatically reduced in size too in order to give enough width to the letter key which tend to be more frequently used. Another thing visible in the pictures is the lack of a bezel. While no information is given on the screen size either, my guess is it might hold a 10″ screen in a 8.9″ casing similar in size to the HP 2133. More pictures on Gizmodo while a HP vs Dell comparison has been posted below.

Link: Gizmodo Gallery