Netbooks Alive and Well in MSI Country, New Wind U180 Follows Cedar Trail into Town

Who knew netbooks would verify so resilient? By all earnings, the on the rise popularity and diminishing prices of dosage PCs along with the rollout of Intel’s Ultrabook bandwagon could have spelled doom for the netbook form thing. But along comes Cedar Trail and suddenly there’s renewed appeal in these pint-sized notebooks, at least for one more generation anyway. MSI, one of the driving navy in the netbook category, just unveiled its new Wind U180 for 2012.

“The Wind U180, painstakingly crafted by MSI for 2012, marks a new pinnacle in pad equipment, donation both performance and esthetically pleasing looks,” MSI says. “It comes in minimalist black, angel white or lilac, is less than one-inch thin, tips the scales at just 1kg, and is enclosed in MSI’s own striking IMR color film print to preclude scratches and smudges.”

Splendid looks are one thing, but Intel’s Cedar Trail platform is the real star of the show. The Wind U180 comes equipped with either an Intel Atom N2800 (1.86GHz) or N2600 (1.6GHz) processor nestled into Intel’s NM10 chipset with GMA 3650 graphics, up to 2GB of DDR3-800/1066MHz memories, 250GB/320GB 2.5-inch SATA hard guide, 2-in-1 memories card booklover, a pair of USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI port, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0+HS, 0.3MP webcam, HD audio, 3-cell or 6-cell battery, and Windows 7 Starter.

No word on price or availability.

Assumed role Confidence: MSI

Hardware

Windows 8, Ivy Bridge to Significantly Boost Notebook Shipments in Second Half of 2012

There’s a sort of perfect storm brewing in the PC promote that will greatly financial support notebook manufacturers and vendors. If the prevailing theory pans out, notebook shipments in the second half of 2012 could see a huge rise in demand, potentially jumping in proportion from 45 percent in the first half to 55 percent in 2H, or as wide as 40 percent and 60 percent, correspondingly.

Those facts come from DigiTimes older analyst Joanne Chien, who points out that hard guide shortages and weak U.S. and Europe economies are major factors now effective against notebooks. As those situations improve, so will the demand for notebooks, but there are other factors at play as well.

Windows 8 is probable to ship later this year, Intel’s imminent 22nm Ivy Bridge platform will make notebooks more striking with improved performance and lower power utilization, and Ultrabooks will mature and come down in price. If you place all these factors together, notebook vendors have bounty of wits to be optimistic.

Assumed role Confidence: best-mainframe.in

Hardware