June 13 - 12:30am EDT   Dell's foray into the mini-notebook market has been dubbed the new "Dell E" series, which will include two different screen configurations: the 8.9-inch model is designed to take on the Asus Eee 900, and the 12.1-inch "E Slim" may be a rival to the MacBook Air and Lenovo X300 (and its successors), according to Engadget. Defining a new product category called the "Mobile Internet Device" for 30 minutes of web experience (vs. 3 min on an Smartphone: "iPhone" pictured), Dell says the new [full story]

June 2 - 8:55am EDT   Sony could be the next major PC builder to leap into the micro notebook field, an inadvertent leak at the WiMAX Expo has shown. An 8.9-inch notebook made by Quanta and based on VIA's OpenBook reference platform reportedly lists Sony as the manufacturer, suggesting the PC is a prototype of a future production model for the Japanese company. A Quanta official asked about the computer declines to confirm the Sony origins. [full story]

May 28 - 7:10pm EDT   Dell CEO Michael Dell recently offered a glimpse of his company's highly-rumored ultra-portable at the All Things Digital executive conference in California. Dell was carrying a sleeved laptop, opening the cover to reveal a bright candy-apple red shell crowning a miniature portable akin to the Asus Eee PC and HP Mini-Note. He was sparing with details, but images reveal three USB ports, a card reader, VGA output, and Ethernet connections, with the system running an unknown version of Windows. [full story]

April 29 - 9:00am EDT   Intel has encountered a supply shortage that will prevent it from fulfilling more than half of the orders for its Atom mobile processors in the next month, according to a report in the Taiwan newspaper Apply Daily. Less than 40 percent of the semiconductor firm's requests are purportedly being met and, as a result, are expected to delay or hurt the rollouts of micro notebooks from a number of new entrants to the field, including from Acer and Dell. [full story]

April 18 - 11:15am EDT   LG Display promises to break open the micro notebook business with a series of new LCDs, according to observations by purported industry insiders. Seeking to up-end the market, the company hopes to develop a 10.1-inch LCD with a 16:9 ratio similar to many HDTVs. At 1024x576, the screen would have a lower vertical resolution than the 600 pixels of sharper ultra-small displays but would cut down on the vertical size of budget notebooks and more properly fit movie ratios. The screen is due in October. [full story]

April 9 - 10:40am EDT   Dell will be next to join the ranks of companies building micro notebooks, according to a claim made by one of its assemblers. An official from Taiwan-based Compal says that his company will produce between 200,000 and 300,000 "low-cost" notebooks a month for Dell starting sometime in 2008, with as many as one to two million readied by the end of the year. The unnamed executive doesn't provide details of the systems but notes that Compal could boost production if demand proves high. [full story]

April 8 - 12:10am EDT   Slightly ahead of a formal release, HP has revealed the Mini-Note, one of the few Western attempts at entering the field for micro notebooks. The previously leaked system aims to improve the formula started by the Eee PC by offering a genuinely comfortable keyboard: despite having just an 8.9-inch screen, the Mini-Note's keyboard is just 8 percent smaller than that of a full-sized notebook. The design is also more upscale than counterparts from ASUS or Everex and is built out of aluminum with a spill-resistant key layout. [full story]