MSI X340: Now priced-out by the MacBook Air?
I was excited to talk to MSI in January about their upcoming X320 and X340. The ultra-light 13″ laptops closely resembled the MacBook Air with the bonus of offering a removable battery and better connectivity.
It seems the $700-1,000 price target is hopefully looking accurate for when the X340 starts shipping. The HDMI equipped X340 briefly appeared on MSI’s website recently at $1,099. The lower powered X320 is likely to be in the $700-800 range.
In January this pricing seemed sensible…until MacBook Airs started appearing for $999. This week MacMall and Apple were both listing Airs starting at $999, although these may be refurbs. Given that the Air has a way faster CPU than the X340, this looks like MSI is going to have a difficult job convincing buyers to choose their laptop over the Air.
The only sore points for the Air continue to be the weak connectivity and low capacity battery, which is outperformed by many similar weight netbooks for runtime.
On the plus side $999 now buys a super-svelte 3lb 1.6ghz Core 2 Duo MacBook Air, which a year ago cost almost twice as much and is capable of running OSX and Windows. Nice.
Neil Berman
iMac Sales Plunge, Apple Slashes Refurb Macbook Air to $1,149
It’s been a week that Apple fans will want to forget. NPD reported that Apple sales for November were flat year on year whilst Windows PCs gained 7%, iMac sales collapsed by 38% whilst Windows desktops fell only 15% and Apple announced that the company will stop attending Macworld after the 2009 show. Apple laptop sales rose 22% compared to 15% for Windows laptops.
What does this mean for Apple? Most likely something needs to be done…and pretty fast. Apple has responded by slashing prices of its refurbished models, a move likely aimed at removing the carrying costs of old inventory. Macbook Airs are available for $1,149 on Apple’s US website at the time of writing. Deep reductions are offered across other lines as well and online stores are offering serious discounts on new models. After a while this discounting could erode the premium perception of the brand and hurt Apple retail store sales, which are typically made at full price.
Netbooks captured the the public's imagination in 2008
This may be a short term band-aid to improve working capital, but Apple needs to look deeper at its product line and offer models at prices which relate to the current economy. The company has been too late in coming to the Netbook market, which exploded with colossal growth this year following the arrival of the Asus EEE in late 2007. Apple needs a Netbook quickly, and it will need to compete with the quality of the MSI Wind, Acer Aspire One and Asus EEE range, which all sell for around $300-400.
Steve Jobs said that “We don’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk.” Well Apple might have to learn how. Five hundred dollars is now premium Netbook territory as prices have been falling throughout 2008.
I expect that if Apple enters the market they would choose the $600-800 range with a couple of configurations. They need this because Macbooks are no longer the coolest laptops to pull out of your bag…Netbooks are. A glance at the Amazon bestseller list shows Netbooks occupying slots which Macbooks used to live in.
The MSI Wind Netbook was one of the most hotly anticipated products of 2008. Can Apple introduce its own competitor to stop the rising Windows sales?
Whilst Macbooks used to be the laptop of choice for Manhattan coffee shop outings, Netbooks now get the curious admiring looks. In an America looking to downsize cars, energy usage and spending, Netbooks are the Prius of today’s laptop showroom.
Clearly the slowdown in the economy has affected Apple as a seller of premium products. It also seems that Apple’s negative advertising campaign throughout 2008 against PCs may have not had the positive sales effect Apple was hoping for. In fact the plunging iMac sales figures indicate that Apple might have done better through a positive campaign promoting the benefits of the iMac compared to Windows desktops. It may be that consumers simply were unable to identify a positive value of spending the extra bucks on an iMac, which is a classic outcome of a negative advertising campaign, unless the competing product is seen as truly worthless. Clearly not the case in this instance as iMac sales plunged 23% more than Windows desktop sales.
Whilst I think Apple will pull through, it needs to revitalize its line-up to be attractive in today’s economy. And hopefully that revitalization effort will give us reasons to buy Macs, instead of reasons not to buy PCs. I want to want Macs for good reasons, not because I’m told the competition is bad.
Neil Berman
Acer Aspire One Review
Following a false start worthy of the Olympics, Acer’s repair shop just delivered me a new Aspire One. My first One must have been so fried that it was not worth repairing, so take two begins…
First impressions are just as before: great ultralight design, perfect keyboard, boots in under twenty seconds…but this time continue beyond five minutes as the WiFi connects swiftly and I’m off surfing in no time. I upgraded to Firefox 3 with this handy guide.
And that’s when it hit me: the One is loading pages faster than anything I own. I’m unable to pin it down to any one system element, but the combination of the Intel Atom, the SSD and Firefox running on Linpus Lite makes the internet scream on this baby. Way faster than my EEE 2G was, no comparison. Firefox’s full screen option makes the experience even better, taking advantage of all 8.9 LED backlit screen inches.
I installed Skype and tried a video call. I told Skype to start video automatically and the webcam worked perfectly. My friend at the other end of the line in Tokyo could hear and see me clearly and I could hear him fine too. Again, the quality of the experience hit my old EEE for a home run…where I tended to reach for my Nokia N810 for Skype due to the 2G’s choppy chatter, the One was clear as a bell and it was handling the video well too.
The One also ships with several installed applications, such as OpenOffice, a media player and photo maanger, which together with the web browser 
may take care of most owners’ needs. Again, OpenOffice opened much faster than on my EEE 2G and saved documents almost instantly. This Linux version running Linpus Lite ships with an 8GB SSD. If you need more storage there are two SD card slots, of which one allows an inserted card to show as a hard drive extension in the file manager. The second slot shows up as removable storage.
Unlike my EEE experience, I have been able to touch type naturally on the One. The keyboard is very usable with everything in the right place. I’ve also found the trackpad to be big enough, as long as you’re a tap-to-click type and not a button pusher. I would like Acer to have implemented a MacBook style double finger right-click tap, as right clicking requires moving off the trackpad to find the button. There is a dedicated button on the keyboard for opening context sensitive menus however, which makes this omission easier to forgive.
The keyboard and wrist rest also remain at a reasonable temperature during use, as does the underside of the One. This is probably due to the low power consumption of the Intel Atom processor. A small fan kicks in now and again but it is unobtrusive.
Given its size and weight I expect my One to get plenty of outdoor use. The screen is bright enough to use outside in the shade, but becomes unreadable when hit by direct sunlight. As a guide it’s a lot brighter and sharper than the EEE 2G, but is outshone by a MacBook. The One does ship with a slip cover, which offers useful (non-waterproof) protection in transit. Regular travelers might prefer a closed protective case, but it’s a great free addition as a basic cover. Nice One Acer.
Battery life is quoted at three hours for this three cell Linux version and I achieved close to that with sensible moderation of the screen brightness to fit my environment. On full brightness with constant WiFi usage I’d expect that to go down to around two hours. Acer quotes the Windows XP version at 2.5 hours, probably due to the SSD being replaced by a regular hard drive. After boot-up I hardly ever see my SSD light illuminated, but the XP model is likely to be busier. So taking more frequent disk accessing together with the effort required to spin the platters would definitely reduce overall battery life.
On balance, the One represents the best balanced experience of any of the small (< 9 inch) netbooks I’ve tried so far. Its keyboard beats the EEE 901, its size is more practical than the seven inch models and its processor runs more efficiently than the VIA C7 powered HP Mini-Note or Everex Cloudbook. In six cell guise with XP, it would be compelling but I have also appreciated the fast boot-up time and low resource usage of Linux.
The market is about to get more crowded with the imminent arrival of Dell’s mini Inspiron and future VIA Nano based machines. The ten inch Lenovo, Asus and MSI netbooks are also worth considering if you want to move up on screen size. For now though, the Acer One is a solid contender amongst the midsize netbooks.
Update: Acer has now lowered the retail price of the 3-cell Linux version to $329. The 3-cell XP version is now down to $349 and the 6-cell XP version is set to retail at $399.
Neil Berman
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- Netbooks captured the the public’s imagination in 2008
XP extended to at least 2010 on Asus EEE style computers
Michael Dix’s announcement on Thursday that Microsoft would now offer Windows XP Home until at least June 30th 2010 tells us one thing: the Redmond giant is getting more sensitive to its little customers.
The message behind the April 3rd statement seems clear: Microsoft is nervous of losing a whole market to Linux and Google-apps-cloud-style computing. That market is what Dix called the ULCPC (Ultra Low Cost Personal Computer), which includes the amazingly popular Linux-powered Asus EEE, Everex Cloudbook and forthcoming models rumoured to be on the way from Acer and HP amongst others.
In the past I think Microsoft might have just said, ‘our current platform is Vista, make your hardware better‘. However on this occasion market forces led to the creation of a more viable option. Most EEE buyers are probably happy with the price/power/battery trade-off in the unit. I know I am. Would I pay another few hundred bucks for a same size, same screened EEE with enough power to run Vista? No way.
So Microsoft will now continue offering XP Home to OEMs of ULCPCs for the next few years. Good decision, and well done for responding to customer opinion. Dix said there is no intention to extend the sales period similarly for other XP versions. In any case, Vista sales have just reached one hundred million licenses so I would not expect the other versions to get a further extension.
Microsoft’s statement was swiftly followed by Asus announcing that they would start selling an XP-powered EEE on April 9th, priced at $400. The specs are believed to be identical to the existing 4G model, only this time some of the nice bits, such as the webcam, are more likely to work out of the box with applications like Skype. According to Laptop Magazine, XP boots in 40 secs on the EEE. That’s pretty quick for XP. Asus is going to sell bucketloads of these.
A few weeks ago Microsoft reinstated support for certain legacy file formats in Office 2007, following requests from the user community. I would expect that users of those legacy formats (mainly Office 97) are already strong candidates to move to OpenOffice or Google Docs. Perhaps this reversal from Redmond might keep them on side for a little longer.
Is there a trend emerging here? Perhaps the giant is feeling like some dwarf’s are getting taller.
Neil Berman
www.neilberman.com
HP TX1000z Tablet PC Review
For the past decade consumers have been on the verge of adopting tablet PCs of one form or another. Apart from some early fledgling attempts which gathered little steam, the main thrust came from expensive laptop tablets based upon Windows XP Tablet Edition. Since then Vista has come about with its tablet extensions and new UMPC formats have sprung up such as Samsung’s Q1 to take advantage of them. So is there still a need for full size laptop tablets?
When newer is cheaper
Cue HP’s TX1000z range and recently released TX2000z. This 12.1 inch laptop has an ultraportable tablet format without the price tag associated with the genre. Powered by AMD’s Turion range it should have the horsepower it needs to ease through daily tasks and it’s swivelling screen gives it the all important ‘wow’ factor. 
It also has handy chassis mounted buttons for quick access to multimedia functions. The Vista Premium TX1000z unit I tested was fitted with a DVD rewriter and 2 GB of RAM, in place of the standard 1 GB.
Groping around
Looking around the laptop everything feels pretty solid, if a little heavy. The battery sticks out at the back, which is a tad ugly, but overall the design is slick. 
At 4.2 pounds the HP weighs in a fair amount more than my Everex 12 inch laptop. It’s not unbearable but not exactly in keeping with the spirit of the term ultraportable either.
Open the lid and the TX1000z’s keyboard and trackpad layout echo current HP silver and black smart simplicity. The trackpad looks great and has both horizontal and vertical scrolling. The keyboard feels OK; it’s no IBM but it’s perfectly usable.
The screen joint feels very strong, holding the screen happily at some very bizarre angles.
In use
In use there weren’t too many surprises, with the exception that performance from the 1.9 GHz AMD TL-58 was a little below expectations. 
My 1.6 GHz Core Duo laptop kept up with it pretty well in general use and surpassed it in almost all Passmark tests…and it only has 1 GB RAM. Most disappointing was the 3D graphics performance, which let’s just say is a good way to make sure you stay productive. The webcam too was average, under-performing against my MacBook in low light.
The Altec Lansing speakers on the other hand were nice and loud, if lacking in bass, and the bright screen is readable even with sun coming onto it through a window.
Is the writing on the wall for the traditional laptop?
Whilst the HP is certainly good value, I’m not sure how the average consumer would really take advantage of the tablet functions. The aspiration of note taking or sharing ideas across a meeting table have long been the promise of tablets, but something like a Samsung Q1 might be the modern day prince-in-waiting to this eventual throne due to its weight. If you have a use in mind for the tablet features then the TX1000z is a good buy. If not then look past the glamor of the swivelling screen and see how it stacks up against more traditional designs.
At the time of writing, the starting price for the HP TX1000z was $899.99 on www.hp.com
Also worth considering (prices correct at time of writing):
- Apple MacBook, Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz, 1GB RAM, 80GB HD (refurbished), $949.00 at www.apple.com
- Gateway T-1625, AMD TL-60, 2GB RAM, 250GB HD, $749.99 at www.bestbuy.com
- Toshiba Satellite U305-S2808, Intel Core 2 Duo 1.67 GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD, $949 at www.bestbuy.com
Asus EEE, Where Art Thou?
The Asus EEE PC is here. At under four hundred dollars, this is THE hottest property in IT right now.
With a proper stength Intel processor, the two pound ultraportable ships with Linux (Windows XP version apparently on the way), an integrated webcam and a solid state 4Gb hard drive for ultra-fast access times. Wifi, USB and an SD expansion slot are included.
Neil Berman
theONbutton
Turning the world on, one gadget at a time.
