It looks MSI are on the way to give us the best netbook we have ever seen, disguised as an e-reader.

The MSI gadget will sport two 10-inches capacitive touch displays supporting multi-touch, Intel Atom Z530 processor and will run on Windows 7 Home Premium.
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And all of a sudden your 1GHz Snapdraggon-powered HTC HD2 doesn’t seem all that powerful any more. Apparently Qualcomm are almost done with the development of not one but two new mobile CPU units that are about to top their lineup.

Before January has ended 1.3 GHz Snapdragon 8X50A CPU with reduced-size 45nm core process will be offered to manufacturers and is expected to appear in end-products by the end of this year. We guess, HTC HD3 will be getting one of those.

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LG is moving in to resurrect the MID with its Moorestown-powered LG GW990. Moorestown platform might just be the precursor to Atom-powered smartphones, but for now is just a resurgence of the Mobile Internet Device platform – something, which made obsolete by modern smartphones – just like PDAs.

Here’s what we know of the LG GW990 – it is powered by the Intel Moorestown platform, which includes a 45nm Atom-core Pineview CPU (basically like those new netbooks, though possibly at a lower clockspeed), a graphics controller and built-in wireless capabilities – 7.2Mbps HSDPA and 5.76Mbps HSPA in the case of the LG GW990. Moorestown platform is extra light on the gas pedal and power consumption is deemed 10 times lower than that of last year’s Atom platforms.

LG GW990 could be the saviour of the MID

The GW990 screen is 4.8″ with 1024×480 pixels resolution, putting it midway between smartphones and tablets size-wise – the sweet spot for MIDs (monsters like the HTC HD2 skew things a bit but still). The LG GW990 also packs a 5-megapixel camera as well as a built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS and digital compass. The battery is 1850mAh but we don’t know what that means for battery life.

There’s no information on the OS for the LG GW990, but the interface is a definite S-Class derivative. Under the hood, it’s probably a modified Moblin OS, which is a Linux-based thing designed specifically for Moorestown devices. The wide screen is put to good use thanks to the “Multi-Window” view for enhanced multitasking- it places three screens side by side in landscape view, looking quite similar to the cards of WebOS.

More LG GW990 promises desktop browsing on the go

LG GW990 labels promise HD video and 3D gaming on the LG GW990 but as far as real-life usability goes, we’ll have to see it to judge it.

It doesn’t seem like the LG GW990 is capable of voice calls over the 3G network, but you can always use VoIP, I guess. There’s a handy earpice on board for that. Straight from the birth of the Moorestown platform Intel have been promising call capabilities so we wouldn;t be surprised if this thing can even be used as a mobile phone.

Intel and LG have partnered up and have been promising a MID for 2010 – and they’ve obviously kept their word with the GW990.

iSlate may be the proper name for the long rumored Apple tablet. MacRumors posted an evidence for the Apple’s ownership of many international iSlate domains including iSlate.com and iSlate.co.uk.

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I broke two of my own rules today when I got myself a new ultra cheap netbook. It’s a viewbook actually or at least that’s what Viewsonic is calling their VNB102. But whatever Marketing is naming it, it’s a plain netbook that’s hardly exciting enough to write home about. Yet I’m writing about it here as it made me break my two top buying rules.

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Yes, it’s a phone. No, it’s not, it runs XP. Yes, IT IS! No it’s not, it’s as big as a brick. Yes, it is a phone – that’s the ITG xpPhone.

Now that we’ve got that cleared let’s get a little bit more serious. The ITG xpPhone monster of a mobile phone has been sitting in the spotlight since day one so naturally when its first video demo pops up we just can’t miss sharing it with you. What becomes evident though is the huge size of the device.

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If you’re suffering from Apple MacBook Air or Dell Adamo XPS cravings this just might be your lucky day. Meet the Dell Vostro V13 – it’s a 16.5mm thick 13-incher that brings very much the same specs as the Dell Adamo XPS, but at a netbook-scale price.

Okay, I’ll admit that the XPS 9.9mm thickness for a laptop sounds (and looks) amazing – it can even put most smartphones to shame. But the price is just too hard to swallow. The Dell Vostro V13 on the other hand is actually reasonably priced… though it’s only available in Singapore right now. Which isn’t a big deal, considering it’s not quite official yet (though it’s up on the Dell Sinagpore website, specs and all).

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Acer are obviously prepping a new gaming laptop. The new monster will come with an 1.6 GHz Intel i7 quad-core processor, 8GB DDR3 RAM and AMD HD5850 video with 1GB GDDR5 – all that promises full DirectX 11 support.

The amazing specs list continues with an 18.4-inch LED 1080p Full HD display, two 640GB SATA HDDs and a BluRay drive.
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Yesterday Google officially presented their Chrome OS to the world. Well, sort of. They’re still an year ago from release. But we got the heads up on what it’s all about. It will be online based and with rapid boot times and it will be optimized for specific hardware rather than run on all walks of rigs.

What hardware-optimized means is that Google Chrome OS will be tailr-made for specific hardware configurations and you won’t be able to just download and install it on any computer. Only that way Chrome OS will be able to offer the promised unmatched boot times as it skips any hardware checks other OSes do at boot. The netbooks and similar kind of internet devices are the primary target of the new OS as it’s heavily online-based.

Chrome OS won’t work with any native apps, instead it will operate with web apps. Got you interested, read on for more.

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There are quite a lot of rumors floating around about an upcoming MacBook tablet. Well, in case you don’t feel like waiting, it seems there’s an option out there already. It’s called tablet conversion and what it means is that the internals of your current Mac are taken and then transformed into a touch-only device. You’d bet that’s not some garden-shack DIY project you might undertake yourself. And no, Apple have not started converting to tablets.

Read more to see what this conversion is all about. This WILL void your warranty.

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You never thought Microsoft would give Apple a free run here now, did you? Apparently the guys over at Redmond are working on a UMPC, which should rival the Mac tablet, whenever those two actually manage to hit the shelves. Microsoft Courier may not have gone much further away than the drawing board but the ideas those guys are having are amazing.

The Courier file browser is called library

If Windows Mobile has destroyed your fate in Microsoft and their ability to create a user-friendly UI, than you look no further than Courier to rebuild it. So unbelievably fluid and nicely intuitive this is easily among the best interfaces we have ever seen.

Of course, when something seems too good to be true it usually is and we don’t really believe any reasonable hardware will be able to provide as smooth real life performance as the first video suggested. But don’t let our negativism get in the way – enjoy it while it lasts with more screenshots after the break .

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There was always talk of using Android as a netbook OS (a “smartbook”) but until that comes along we’ll have to settle for Android as an instant-on OS. In today’s example – the Acer Aspire One AOD250 dual-boots Android and Windows XP. The Android experience is sub-par but the important thing here is that Android runs on a x86 CPU at all.

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We’ve seen lots of “dual-something” products (did somebody say dual-SIM phones?) but who would guess that there will be a dual-display netbook? Well, there is – the Singaporean company Kohjinsha has just announced one. And we have it caught on video.

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