NetbookShow

It’s Windows 7  launch day… and that means many of those pretty little netbooks and notebooks I told you about the other day that come preloaded with Windows 7 are now shipping. I placed an order for an Acer Aspire Timeline AS181T to review and it should ship in a few days. But I’ve already seen evidence that 10 inch netbooks from Asus, HP, Sony, and other PC makers have already shipped.

In related news, Lenovo has updated the IdeaPad S12 order page to reflect the fact that the $429 laptop is now available with a choice of Windows XP or Windows 7 Home Premium. What’s interesting is that there doesn’t appear to be a Windows 7 option for the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 at Lenovo.com. But you can order the company’s 10.1 inch laptop with Windows 7 Starter Edition from Amazon for $349.99. The same laptop is available from Lenovo.com for $299 and up.

With Windows 7 launch day coming up fast, it looks like PC makers and retailers are getting ready. Amazon is a choc full of information today about upcoming laptop specifications and prices. I already told you about the Acer Aspire Timeline AS1810T/TZ and the Asus UL20A. But here are a few more thin and light laptops that popped up on Amazon today:

* ASUS UL20A – 12.1 inch, 1366 x 768 laptop with Win7 Home Premium, 1.3GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 dual core CPU, 2GB RAM 250GB HDD, 7.5 hour battery for $590
* Toshiba Satellite T115 – 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768  laptop with Win7 Home Premium, 1.3GHz Intel  SU2700 single core CPU, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 8.5 hour battery for $450
* Toshiba Satellite T115 – 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 laptop with Win7 Home Premium, 1.3GHz Intel SU2700 single core CPU, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 9.5 hour battery for $480
* Acer Aspire Timeline AS1810T- 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 laptop with Win7 Home Premium, 1.3GHz  Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 dual core CPU, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, 8 hour battery for $600
* Acer Aspire Timeline AS1810TZ – 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 laptop with Win7 Home Premium, 1.3GHz Intel Pentium SU4100 dual core CPU, 3GB RAM, 320GB HDD, 8 hour battery for $550
* Acer Aspire AS1410 – 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel laptop with Win7 Home Premium, 1.2GHz Intel Celeron SU2300 dual core CPU, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 6 hour battery for $400
* Gateway EC1440U – 11.6 inch laptop with Win7 Home Premium, 1.3GHz Intel Celeron 743 single core CPU, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 6 hour battery for $400
* Gateway EC1430U – 11.6 inch laptop with 1.3GHz Intel Pentium SU4100 dual core CPU, 3GB RAM, 320GB HDD, 7 hour battery for $550
* Dell Inspiron Mini 11z – 11.6 inch laptop with Win7 Home Premium, 1.3GHz Intel Pentium SU4100 dual core CPU, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 4 hour battery for $550
* Sony Vaio P – 8 inch laptop with Win7 Home Premium, 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 CPU, 2GB RAM, 80GB HDD, 1600 x 768 display, 3.5 hour battery for $850

And a whole slew of netbooks:

* Samsung N130-13P – 10.1 inch netbook with Win7 Starter, 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB HDD, 5.8 hour battery for $351
* Samsung N140-14R – 10.1 inch laptop with Win7 Starter, 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 CPU, 1GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 7.5 hour battery for $401
* Toshiba Mini NB205 – 10.1 inch netbook with Win7 Starter, 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, 9 hour battery starting at $380
* Gateway LT2022u – 10.1 inch netbook with Win7 Starter, 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, 3 hour battery for $300
* Acer Aspire One AOD250 – 10.1 inch laptop with Win7 Starter, 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, 3 hour battery for $320
* Asus Eee PC 1008HA – 10.1 inch netbook withWin7 Starter, 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 CPU, 1GB RAM, 250GB hard drive, 6 hour battery for $430
* Asus Eee PC 1008HA – 10.1 inch netbook with Win7 Home Premium, 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 CPU, 2GB RAM, 320GB HDD, 6 hour battery for $480
* Asus Eee PC 1005HA-MU17 – 10.1 inch netbook with Win7 Starter, 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 8.5 hour battery for $350
* Asus Eee PC 1005HA-PU17 – 10.1 inch netbook with Win7 Starter, 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 CPU, 1GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 10.4 hour battery for $400
* HP Mini 110 – 10.1 inch netbook with Win7 Starter, 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 3.75 hour battery starting at $380
* Dell Inspiron Mini 10 – 10.1 inch netbook with Win7 Starter, 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 CPU, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 5 hour battery for $400
* Dell Inspiron Mini 10v – 10.1 inch netbook with Win7 Starter, 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 3 hour battery for $330
* Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 – 10.1 inch netbook with Win7 Starter, 1.6Ghz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 6 hour battery for $350
* Sony Vaio Mini W – 10.1 inch netbook with Win7 Starter, 1366 x 768 display, 1.66GHz Atom N280 CPU, 1GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 7 hour battery for $500

Pretty much all of these laptops are scheduled to be available on Thursday, October 22nd, which by some strange coincidence happens to be Windows 7 launch day.

And Amazon’s not the only place where you can pre-order laptops with Windows 7 today. You can also place pre-orders from HP for the Mini 110 with an optional $30 upgrade to Windows 7 Starter. The HP Mini 311 is available with a $50 upgrade option for Windows 7 Home Premium.

Dell is also offering the Inspiron Mini 10v and Dell Inspiron Mini 10 with a Windows 7 Starter upgrade for a $30 premium when you order from Dell.com, although I know some people are going to question whether a switch from Windows XP Home to Windows 7 Starter really qualifies as an “upgrade.” Dell also lets you upgrade the Inspiron 11z to Windows 7 Home Premium for $30 or Windows 7 Professional for $130.

In other news, Amazon Germany is taking pre-orders for the Asus Eee PC T91MT with Windows 7 Home Premium, an 8.9 inch multitouch display, 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 processor, and 16GB SSD and 1GB of RAM for 506 Euros (about $754 US).  This model isn’t showing up at any US retailers that I can find yet.

It’s not a surprise that netbooks are becoming more and more popular, is it?  They are cheaper than regular laptops and ultra portable. Manufacturers are announcing more and more models but at the same time they are shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to overall revenues. Customers tend to ignore laptops and choose the cheaper versions instead. In the second quarter the portable PC market was at $26.4 billion which is 5% less than last year’s similar period. Netbook sales brought in 264% more revenue than last year but, which means that netbooks represent 11.7% share of the mobile PC market. Next year it’s expected that netbooks will account for 21.5% of portable shipments and bring in 10.9%.

Intel is king in the netbook CPU world, but ARM has always tried to get an edge in on what seems to be an unbreakable market. However, the new 40nm Cortex-A9 MPCore processors by ARM may just change that.

The Cortex-A9 ARM chip has two cores and runs at 2 GHz – faster than the 1.6 GHz and 1.66 GHz Atom models. While it will be available for a number of form factors, netbooks are clearly in ARM’s headlights.

The A9 has some perks the Atom doesn’t. It’s 60% smaller, uses two cores, and may offer “up to 5x the performance of Atom for a lower cost and comparable power consumption.” It sounds like an attractive package, and with no limits on the components it can be combined with, ARM may just have found the formula we’ve all been waiting for.