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Toshiba and Gateway are both expected to announce new Pine Trail netbook selections at CES 2010 in a few days. Canadian reseller Future Shop shows the netbooks to have similar spec lists – 1.66 GHz Atom CPUs, a 160 GB HDD for the Gateway and 250 GB for the Toshiba netbook, 10.1-inch screens, a Gig of RAM and Intel GMA 3150 Express graphics.

Both machines will come with Windows 7, but they differ on one critical metric: the Gateway netbook is priced at around $285, while the Toshiba machine will sell for around $438 USD. There may be significant differences in the build quality or extra specs in the machines, so we’ll hopefully be able to explain this price difference by the time the Consumer Electronics Show rolls around.

Via CNet, image via Future Shop.

The Google Chrome operating system isn’t pre-installed on netbooks just yet, but if you’re interested, below are some netbooks that have been “officially” tested and that claim to be compatible with the software. On these netbooks, you can assume that everything works, including 802.11 Wi-Fi, Ethernet, the touchpad, and the suspend/resume functions.

• Acer Aspire One AOD250* – $299.99 at Amazon.com
• Acer Aspire One AOP531h – $269.99 at TigerDirect.com
• ASUS Eee PC 1008HA – $339.95 at Amazon.com
• ASUS Eee PC 900 – $282.25 at Amazon.com
• Gateway LT20* – $259.99 at TigerDirect.com
• Toshiba Satellite A205-S5000 (This is a 15.4″ laptop, but you can get one at netbook pricing for about $350 on eBay.)

*These netbooks ship with both Atheros and Broadcom 802.11 wireless adapters. The Atheros adapter works out-of-the-box with the Chrome operating system, but the Broadcom adapter does not.

Via Google.

If you weren’t able to get in on all the Black Friday netbook action, here are some Cyber Monday Windows 7 netbook deals to check out.

Dell Insprion Mini 10v – Touting the standard 10.1″ screen display, 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, and 1 GB of RAM, the Dell Inspiron Mini 10V netbook is available on Dell.com for $299, a $98 discount from the original price of $398.

Dell Inspiron Mini 10 - Also equipped with a 10.1″ screen display, 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, and 1 GB of RAM, in addition to a 1.3 megapixel webcam and HD TV tuner, the Dell Inspiron Mini 10 netbook will be available at Walmart.com for $398 with free shipping. In comparison, it sells for $499 on Dell’s website.

Toshiba Mini NB205 – This 10.1″ netbook boasts 1 GB of RAM, a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 processor, and a battery that can last up to 9 hours. You can grab your very own Toshiba Mini at Amazon.com for $329, which includes a $50 discount from the original price of $379.

Acer Aspire One AOD250 – Available at Walmart.com for $328 (with free shipping), this netbook’s tech specs are no deviation from the standard. It has a 10.1″ screen display, a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, and 1 GB of RAM. At least it has a 6 hour battery.

HP Mini 110 – Equipped with a 10.1″ screen display, a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, and 1 GB of RAM, this Mini is available at Kmart.com for $309.99. That’s only $20 off the original price, but a discount nonetheless.

This year, netbooks are on fire and Windows 7 is hot hot hot, so if you’re interested you’d better get to these sizzling deals before they’re gone. Otherwise, if none of these netbooks tickle your fancy, check out some of our previous Cyber Monday articles for more great deals. Happy (online) shopping!

Via RedmondPie.

SquareTrade, an independent warranty provider, has done research on the failure rates for 30,000+ netbooks and laptops covered by warranty plans. They’ve found out that roughly a third of laptops will fail within three years and that the failure rate for netbooks is 20% higher than that for laptops.

Further breakdown of the results indicate that 20.4% of laptop failures were due to hardware malfunctions and 10.4% were due to accidential damage. Here’s a graph showing some empirical evidence:

5.8% of netbooks malfunction within the first 12 months of ownership, which is 20% higher than the malfunction rate for entry-level laptops and 40% higher than the malfunction rate for premium laptops. The projected malfunction rate for netbooks over a three year period is 25.1%. Compare this to 20.6% for regular laptops and 18.1% for premium laptops.

ASUS Eee PC and Toshiba netbooks and laptops tend to be more reliable. Fewer than 16% of Eee PC and Toshiba owners reported a hardware malfunction over a period of three years. Acer, Gateway, and HP machines had relatively higher malfunction rates.

Here’s another graph to show the 3-year laptop malfunction rates for different laptop manufacturers:

Via Gizmodo.

Computing technology is generally on people’s holiday shopping list in some form or other, and even though the economy may not be so great this year, the situation is no different. That’s why we’re giving you a sneak peak of some of the the offers that Office Depot are promoting for Black Friday. Office Depot will open at 6:00 a.m. on Friday, November 27th, and deals on netbooks, laptops and desktops start as low as $229. Take a look.

Netbooks:

• Acer:  10.1″ screen display with 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor – $199.99

Notebooks:

• HP: G60-508US with Intel Celeron 900 processor – $299.99
• Acer: Aspire, 15.6″ widescreen display with AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core L310processor, 4GB RAM, 320GB hard drive – $379.99
• HP:  G71-343US with Intel Core 2 Duo processor T6600 – $449.99
• Toshiba: 15.6″ widescreen display with AMD Turion II Dual-Core processor M500, 3GB RAM, 320GB hard drive – $469.99
• Toshiba: 17″ screen display with AMD Turion II M500, 3GB RAM, 250GB Hard Drive – $499.99

Desktops:

• Compaq: CQ4010F with AMD Sempron LE-1300 Processor, 2GB RAM, 250GB hard drive- $229.99
• Compaq: Presario AMD LE-1300 with 18.5″ Monitor – $329.99
• HP: Pavillion Slimline s5220f with Intel Pentium processor E5300, 4GB RAM, 640GB hard drive – $369.99

There’s also a rumor that there will be a two page bonus ad in the Office Depot’s Black Friday ad, so be sure to be on the lookout for that!

Via Huliq.

Image via Blogspot.

The ASUS Eee PC 1005HA netbook is listed as the top-selling netbook on Amazon. Furthermore, the top four best-sellers in this category on Amazon consist of some form or other of the ASUS 1005HA netbook.

In first place is the ASUS Eee PC 1005HA-PU1X-BK (with Windows XP) that sells for $358.99. In second place is the ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005HA-PU17-BU (with Windows 7 Starter) that sells for $382.99. In third and fourth place respectively are the blue ASUS Eee PC 1005HA (with Windows XP) and the black ASUS 1005HA (with Windows 7) netbooks. It’s interesting that netbooks with Windows XP still outsell those with Windows 7, but then again Windows 7 was just recently launched.

The first non-ASUS netbook on the list of top-sellers is the Toshiba Mini, at #5 on the list.

Via I4U.

Ok, what is up with the multitouch laptop? I mean, first off, is it really necessary to have a touchscreen on a laptop if it’s not a tablet? By design, laptop screens tend to flop around (because of the hinge connecting the base and the screen), which doesn’t actually make for the stablest screen for finger-scribing. It’s like geeky laptop bling.

Regardless of the logic of it all, Toshiba is giving us two more additions to the multitouch laptop family, the Satellite U505 Touch and the M505 Touch. Both of them have Toshiba’s touch-ready software, called LifeSpace, which consists of two main applications called the Bulletin boards and ReelTime.

Bulletin Board is a place where you can drag and drop all your photos, videos, links, documents, and applications in a centralized location, which you can manipulate with your fingers. ReelTime gives you a visual history of your previously accessed files, much like Apple’s Time Machine.

The M505 Touch is a thin, lightweight, 14-inch laptop  covered in a Fusion black finish with features like a 500-GB hard drive and a slot-loading DVD burner, HDMI-out and a multimedia card reader. It has an Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 processor with 4 GB of memory and Intel’s integrated graphics, and starts at $1050.

The U505 Touch is slightly smaller, at a 13.3 inch widescreen with a textured based finish on it’s lid, using the same feature set and core components as the M505 Touch and starts at $950.

Via ZDNet.

The Toshiba Satellite T100 laptops aren’t quite netbooks, though they’re doing their best to pretend they are. At 11.6″ and 13.3″, the Toshiba Satellite T115 and T135 come in at netbook-like price points as well – $450 and $600.

The notebooks weigh under 4 pounds and have a cornucopia of ports including HDMI out (both support 1080p video). Toshiba’s Satellite notebooks will run Windows 7 Home Premium and run, as you may have guessed, the Intel Consumer Ultra-Low-Voltage (CULV) processors we’ve heard so much about. These machines will beat out just about any Atom-based netbook for speed.

The T115 runs for a full 9 hours and the T135 for 7.5. Some of these boosts to efficiency can be credited to the CULV chips.

You can expect the T115 and T135 notebooks on October 22nd, the eve of Windows 7’s highly anticipated launch.

Via Gizmodo.

Toshiba just launched a new set of 2.5″, 7200 rpm hard disk drives, and it looks like they’ll be seen in everything from netbooks to desktops. The largest capacity drive is half a terabyte.

A high-volume drive may appeal to some netbook users attempting to use their machines for more than casual use. OEMs have already shown interest in the drives, according to industry sources.

Toshiba’s netbook sales now account for 10% of Toshiba’s PC sales in the US, just three months after bringing its netbooks to the US market.

Via eWeek.

With more news about e-reader devices than ever, you’d think it has become the new netbook.

Yet another netbook and notebook manufacturer – Toshiba – has decided to enter the e-reader market. The company currently has plans to produce and sell its own e-reader device in mid 2010.

Two models are currently being evaluated, a 7-inch model that has already been approved for production and a 9-inch model that is still being considered. Toshiba considers touchscreen capabilities to be unnecessary so the new e-readers would not be touchscreens. No other details have been released about these e-readers.

With the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, and ASUS Eee Reader, to name a few, the competition for the e-reader market segment is getting tougher and tougher. We’ll keep you posted on any developments.

Via JKOnTheRun.

Image via OECanada.

The Toshiba Mini NB205 has been touted by many as a fantastic netbook, and in many respects its supporters are right. The netbooks sell for under $500, have lucid 10-inch screens, and include features like a sleep-and-charge port that charges the battery whenever your computer goes into sleep mode.

Ports include three USBs, ethernet, and a headphone jack – and thank the Lord for that headphone jack. According to tech writer Al Gibes from ReviewJournal, the speakers on this little guy aren’t worth your time:

The Mini’s weakest feature is its speaker, which is tiny and sits on the bottom of the device, about an inch from the bottom edge. Even with the volume at full blast, I had to strain to hear music or audio from every Web site I visited. Using headphones or earbuds solved the problem, but that’s not always an option, especially when sharing a video with people gathered around the screen.

So before you plunk down $399.99 for your new Toshiba Mini NB205 netbook, be sure you’ve got room in your budget for some headphones if audio on your netbook is important at all.

Image via Amazon.

Netbooks’ main selling points are portability and low price in an economically troubled time. As a tradeoff ,most are too low-powered to manage anything more resource-draining than word processing and web tasks. Wal-Mart is now offering a computer that seems to be the complete antithesis of a netbook, for a comparable price – $348.

The 17-inch Toshiba Satellite L355 notebook is clunkier and uglier than a netbook but has fearsome specs in comparison – a 1440 x 900 pixel LCD display, a 2.2 GHz Intel Celeron CPU, and the 4500M Intel Mobile Graphics Accelerator. It has a massive 250 GB SATA HDD and a full 3 GB of DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 4 GBs.

It even has an optical drive, Wi-Fi, Etheret, 3 USB 2.0 ports, VGA out, an ExpressCard slot and a 6-cell battery.

The notebook may be the first in a line of laptops cheap enough to harass netbook sales figures. Could machines like the Toshiba Satellite L355 spell the end of netbooks?

Via TheTechHerald.

Many netbooks have VGA ports that can be used to hook the device up to an external monitor, but some folks are worried that the quality of display on the external monitor may not be much better than that on the actual netbook.

If you’re one of those folks, the following may surprise you. The majority of netbooks run on an Intel GMA 950 (graphics) chipset, so a resolution of 2048×1536 at 32-bit color is actually possible.

In the picture below, a Toshiba NB205 netbook is hooked up to an external monitor that has a native resolution of 1920×1200. This is clearly a high enough resolution to have several windows and/or tabs open at the same time.

While it might not be ideal to run performance-intensive video games or high-definition movies on the combination of a netbook and external screen, for relatively basic tasks, you shouldn’t run into any problems.

Also, if you don’t want to use your netbook’s relatively small and cramped keyboard and touchpad, you could always connect a wireless mouse and keyboard through one of the netbook’s USB ports

Although your netbook may be quite convenient on-the-go, why not make it easier on your eyes and hands by hooking it up to an external monitor or two and some wireless accessories when you’re planning on being stationary for a while?

Via JKOnTheRun.

Toshiba, it seems, is not content to be undercut by competitors like Acer and ASUS in the netbook market. Most of its machines are priced on the higher end, but it is now developing some netbooks designed to be under $600.

Norio Sasaki explained in simple words the motivation behind the change in tactics:

“The shift to lower prices is evident so our products must match.”

Details about the upcoming netbooks are scant, but we do know that Toshiba plans to make two of them. Sasaki commented that Toshiba would “like to increase [its] products [in the sub-$599 range] from four to six.”

These cheaper netbooks are expected first in Europe and the US, where price competition is highest.

Via PCWorld.

Toshiba’s newest netbook is finally ready for order!

This decently-priced Toshiba NB205 netbook comes in two offerings – a lower-end and higher-end version. The lower-end model has a price tag of $349 and comes in black. This netbook has a standard keyboard, is made from relatively cheaper materials, and can be purchased here.

To contrast, the higher end model with a price tag of $399 is available in four different colors. This netbook model has a high quality chassis and a chiclet-style keyboard. You can get the netbook here.

Both netbook models have 10.1″ screens, are powered by Intel Atom N280 processors, and have 1 GB of RAM and a 160 GB hard drive. The six cell netbook batteries are rumored to last for roughly eight to nine hours.

Via SlipperyBrick.

The 10.1-inch Toshiba NB205 netbook seems to be just another clone with a 1.66 GHz Atom N280 CPU, 1 GB of RAM, Windows XP and a 160 GB hard drive. While you might be forgiven if you dismiss it for that reason, you’d still be making a mistake. Why? The NB205 has 8 hours of battery life.

That number is fantastic, considering the fact that netbooks still come out with under 3 hours of juice. Another fantastic feature includes a USB port that can charge auxiliary devices like cell phones and iPods, even if the system is powered off.

Toshiba’s new netbook comes in at $399.99, but you get what you pay for.

Via SoftSailor.

Toshiba has recently released a new netbook – the Mini NB205. There are two models of this netbook that are being released.

One model is the NB205-N210, which has a 10.1″ screen. This netbook comes with Windows XP and is powered by an Intel Atom N280 processor. It has 1 GB of RAM and a 160 GB hard drive. The N210 is available in black and weighs roughly 2.9 pounds.

The second Toshiba model is the NB204-N310. The technical specs of this netbook are similar to that of the NB205-N210, but it also has Bluetooth. The N310 has a metallic finish and has lids that come in either brown, white, pink, or blue.

Unlike most existing netbooks, the new Toshiba netbooks have full-sized keyboards. They also have batteries that can last for roughly 9.5 hours. These new netbooks also have sleep-and-charge USB ports so that users can charge their mobile devices, such as cell phones, while the netbooks are in sleep mode.

Via Notebooks.

Tuesday is expected to bring an exciting announcement – Fujitsu will be entering the North American netbook market, which it had earlier avoided in favor of European and Australian markets.

The new M2010 is a Ruby Red clone of just about every other netbook, with Windows XP, a 160GB HDD, 1GB of RAM, and a three-cell battery.

The screen size is 10 inches this time around, rather than the 8.9-inch model previously sold in Europe. Senior product director Paul Moore explained why:

“We didn’t bring it to North America because it was an 8.9-inch screen. At that time the feedback we were getting was 8.9 was too small.”

Even Dell is announcing similar feedback, focusing in on bigger netbooks by shutting down its 9-inch Inspiron Mini netbook line.

And Fujitsu isn’t the only one making this announcement. Toshiba is set to join North American markets with its NB205 netbook, an update to the NB200, announced Monday.

Via CNet.

Bearing only the above image, reports are surfacing that Toshiba Korea released its new ‘miniB’ netbook, featuring a “two-tone design of metallic silver and brilliant brown.” I’m not quite sure how you get brown to be brilliant, but it sounds classy anyway.

The features are cited to be standard, with a 1.66 GHz Atom N280 CPU, 1 GB DDR2 SDRAM and a 160 GB hard drive. The machine supports “TruBrite CSV technology, Bluetooth connectivity, Sleep & Charge function and more.” It looks to be a capable netbook, but it waits to be seen whether it’s competitive.

For more related news, be sure to check out our section on Toshiba netbooks.

Via AvingUSA.