We’ve been slowly bringing you news on Dell’s mini laptop that’s been all over the ‘net. There just wasn’t that much to talk about - until now. Dell is flipping the netbook market on its head with the Inspiron Mini 9, a $399 laptop with a 1024×600 LED-backlit screen. SSD storage will be standard with 4, 8 and 16GB options. Battery life is around three hours and you even get Windows XP. Want Linux? Shed $50 off the price tag for Ubuntu.
I can’t imagine a world without Windows. It seems like only yesterday I was spending hours trying to figure how to change my desktop wallpaper on Windows 3.1. Word is that Microsoft is getting a head start on their next operating system that’ll replace Windows entirely. Their new project, Midori, centers around the Internet, casting out the dependency your operating system has on a single PC. XP might have been dead, but now Windows altogether is officially dead.
Windows is unlikely to be able to cope with the pace of change in future technology and the way we use it, so Microsoft is forced to ditch the blue screen of death inducing OS in favor of something that isn’t tied tightly to a single computer’s hardware. Who cares if Vista was incomplete? It’s getting ditched regardless. Midori is their new incomplete “work in progess”.
Today marks the end of an era. Microsoft will officially stop selling its hit OS, Windows XP, today. Sure, you can still get it via a shady OEM PC through Dell or HP but for the rest of us who just want a boxed copy, we’re out of luck. The move comes as Microsoft looks to shift its customers over to Vista, which I’m pretty sure no one enjoys using except gamers with mind-blowing systems using it only for DX10.
You can still get full technical support for XP through ‘09 and limited support until - wait for it - 2014. Yup. Six years from now and probably two flavors of Windows later, businesses will still be using XP and getting kernel panics.
Rumor has it that everyone’s favorite OS is making its way to the OLPC XO this year. According to reports, testing is to begin in June to determine if Windows XP is a viable solution for XO laptops. If all goes well, you could be picking up an XO laptop by September.
The existing OS, Sugar Linux, will not be wiped out of the picture anytime soon, much to Microsoft’s dismay. A dual-boot solution will be created and buyers will be able to choose which operating system they’d prefer. I feel that putting XP on these laptops is a great idea. Plus, if you don’t want to use Vista yet, this is about the only computer you’ll get with XP still installed on it.
Chinese phone companies are amazing, after ripping off Porsche they’re going after Microsoft today… but this time it really deserves some attention. First off it houses a 3″ QVGA touch screen in a 17mm thin body, booo Nokia. Secondly it has stereo speakers, booo SonyEricsson; but seriously we’re starting to feel sorry for Microsoft, their Vista sold only 244 copies and their UI was ripped off by Meizu, now we have this “Window” phone…
Sub-$500 laptops aren’t the hardest things to find now, but how about sub-$500 laptops running Vista? That’s a deal that just calls for Walmar to be involved. The Everex Stepnote VA4101M is being sold at Walmart with some specs that don’t really call out for a new demanding OS. The 1.46GHz Celeron M processor, 512MB of RAM, and 60GB hard drive won’t have a problem with XP, but don’t expect to get Aero running perfectly with this setup. So while the target market clearly isn’t the highly tech-savvy, it will probably make a good product for a kid’s first computer or something of that sort. Calling it a Vista ready computer is just a strech. –Nik Gomez
The first sub $500 Windows Vista laptop [via Gadgetell]
The Windows Vista has been launched, but we all wonder what good it does. A fancier interface so that our computers can run slower? More bugs so that we can engage in the perpetual cycle of updating the system? There is at least one good new feature on the Vista that a lot of people have thought about but never asked, that is to drag and drop files across 2 computers, not 2 screens of the same computer. Microsoft calls that the new “Easy Transfer”. One of the first products in the market to make use of this feature would be this 2.5m long 2-way USB cable from Elecom. If you were to move files from an older XP computer to the Vista, simply install the driver bundled with the cable and you’re good to go. Note that moving files from a Vista to XP will not work, neither would XP-XP transfer possible. The cable and the software are selling for $70 in Japan now. — Sam Chan
UC-TV2BK [Elecom]
