A 10-inch smartbook from Pegatron was spotted at the Connected Community Technical Symposium on Friday. It runs on Linux Ubuntu and is powered by an ARM processor, though other details are scarce. The sighting comes just one day after Pegatron GM Chou Biao Sheng said the company will bring out a smartbook in the first quarter of 2010, priced at less than $200.
An analyst report sent today hints at Apple producing an iPhone that would work with both GSM and CDMA networks. The OTR Global note obtained by AppleInsider claims to know of an iPhone in development with a hybrid Qualcomm chipset that will support the two normally incompatible standards. It would support UMTS-based 3G on carriers like AT&T and would presumably support EVDO-based 3G on Verizon and similar CDMA carriers.
Pegatron, a subsidiary of ASUS, has built a prototype netbook that uses the same ARM Cortex A8 chip on its Freescale iMX515 CPU that's in the Palm Pre smartphone. In the nameless netbook, however, the chip is clocked at 1GHz rather than the 600MHz in the Pre. While the clock speed is lower than that in the majority of Intel Atom-powered netbooks, the Pegatron netbook's CPU is capable of playing back 720p HD movies and supporting 3D games.
Foxconn today tried to deflect rumors that it was building the slim PS3. Following a newspaper's claim yesterday that the new Sony console was to be shipped by Foxconn for next month, the assembly firm has filed an official stance with the Taiwan Stock Exchange that turns down commentary on the rumor, citing "customer confidentiality." Pegatron, which has been rumored to share responsibilities for making the new system, hasn't formally responded to the apparent leak.
At the Computex show currently taking place in Taiwan, MSI has shown off its WindBOX nettop PC powered by NVIDIA's Ion chipset. The computer's presence at the show indicates MSI is the latest to jump on the NVIDIA Ion bandwagon, with Acer and Lenovo confirmed to be releasing Ion-based PCs, with ASUS, Foxconn, Pegatron and, most recently, Dell and HP, rumored to be releasing their own as well.
Computer makers HP and Dell will both launch netbooks and all-in-one desktop PCs running on NVIDIA's Ion platform sometime between the start of July and the end of September, says a Tuesday Digitimes report. The unnamed industry sources claim the two manufacturers will join ASUS, Foxconn, Lenovo and Pegatron in providing Ion-based computers, all of which have been linked earlier to the hybrid graphics and system chipset. Models and their features aren't mentioned in the slip.
PC maker Pegatron has decided to use an SiS chipset instead of the NVIDIA Ion for its Ultra Slim Pegatron Atom NetTop, NotebookItalia reported on Friday. Like the NVIDIA chipset, which Pegatron used when it showed off a nettop prototype recently, the SiS672/968/307DV will also support Intel's low-power 1.6GHz Atom 230 CPU. While the SiS mainboard is likely cheaper than NVIDIA's, it is potentially slower as well.
NVIDIA's Ion platform for netbooks was spotted in two systems from ASRock and Pegatron at a recent press conference in Taipei, Taiwan. Also at the conference, NVIDIA said it expects its Ion platform to be available in 40 products that include netbooks, nettops and all-in-one PCs before year's end.
Qualcomm and Freescale, who build ARM-based platforms, are expected to demonstrate netbooks using their products at the Computex Taipei expo in June, DigiTimes reported on Thursday, citing sources at netbook makers. The show will reportedly see the debut of a Pegatron netbook running on Freescale's i.MX51 CPU on ARM's Coretex A8 mainboard as well as a Wistron model with a Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU.
Freescale began its year today by introducing a new i.MX chip it hopes will gain a foothold in netbooks. The i.MX515 is based on the same ARM architecture shared by many smartphones and set-top boxes but is tuned for the higher performance of the mini notebooks, with clock speeds ranging between 600MHz and 1GHz. It also touts rare support for DDR2 memory and an integrated OpenGL graphics core capable of both 3D as well as accelerated 2D, such as video in Adobe's Flash Lite.
Both Apple and ASUS have dramtically cut their notebook production going into the fourth quarter of the year, says the Commercial Times. The Chinese-language paper reports that the companies have slashed outsourcing by 20 to 30 percent, affecting Quanta Computer -- a Taiwanese company thought the be the main builder of unibody MacBooks -- and Pegatron Technology, which handles production for ASUS. ASUS has suggested that its fourth-quarter shipments will be limited to 1.7 million notebooks, preventing it from reaching its 2008 goal of 6 million.
