Yes, we have falsely predicted two or three times before when Dell was going to announce their netbook.  That however is not stopping us from disseminating this latest rumor that Dell’s littlest Inspiron is being announced this Friday, September 5th.  There is about as much credibility to this rumor as all the previous ones, besides the fact that Dell has to announce this soon if they want to cash in on the holiday shopping season.  Hopefully, this time the rumor will actually be true and our credibility may be recovered from the gutter.

Acer has just annouced that the Aspire One will be getting a price cut; making one of the better netbooks out there an even sweeter deal.  The Windows XP model will now sell for $349 (down from $399), while the Linux model will sell for $329 (from $379).  There will also be a version with a larger 6-cell battery and Windows XP for $399.  If you are interested in a 8.9″ screened netbook, these prices are pretty enticing.

Lenovo IdeaPad S10

To prevent the previous post in this series from becoming a one-off, one-hit wonder, I have been tirelessly searching the past two weeks for another Blast from the Past.  The inspiration came to me when I saw that Lenovo began selling their IdeaPad S10 netbook earlier this week.  Looking at the IBM WorkPad z50 lying next to my desk.  I began to realize the similarities.

Even though the IdeaPad is much more of a full-fledged notebook than the WorkPad ever was, they occupy a very similar niche and have similar form factors.  The WorkPad z50 for those unfamiliar was a Windows CE-based Handheld PC.  It had a QWERTY keyboard and the trademark red eraserhead trackpoint from the ThinkPads.  It was meant to be an ultraportable companion for a computer when portability was key and a true ultraportable notebook was too expensive or did not have enough battery life.  In this regards, the IdeaPad S10 is the spiritual successor to the WorkPad z50.  Fast forward 9 years, and true ultraportable laptops still cost an arm and a leg.  Netbooks, like the IdeaPad, offer the portability of a small computer without the cost.  They also have limitations, like the WorkPad, in that they cannot do everything a full-sized computer can.

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The rumor mill just keeps on turning.  Evan has written a few posts about the open secret, still to be announced Dell netbook.  Today, there have been two separate rumors about the Dell Inspiron 910, which has previously been rumored to be called the Inspiron Mini or the Dell E.  The picture at the left was posted along with others on a Chinese website called PCPop.com.  It claims to be a picture of the Inspiron 910 in the wild.  It looks pretty legitimate, but an even juicier rumor showed up first on Gizmodo.  According to that rumor, the Inspiron 910 will be announced and start selling August 22th, Friday of this week.  There is also a spec sheet that does not turn up any surprises: Intel Atom processor, 512MB-1GB RAM, Solid State Drives, Wi-Fi, Webcam, and Ubuntu or Windows XP.  The only missing piece of information is price.  Hit the read link after the jump to see the whole post on Gizmodo.  In the meantime, the waiting game continues.  Hopefully, Friday will enlighten us about the littlest Inspiron.

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Alright, so the rumors that the Dell Mini Inspiron would come out last Tuesday were not exactly legit, but the Internet is abuzz with new rumors this Friday morning. The new information is saying that rather than being the Dell E, the new mini laptop will be called the Dell Inspiron 910 and will be released on August 22nd. After being burned earlier this week I don’t know how much stock I would put into this rumor. Read on for technical specifications.

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Around a year ago, Asus created the soon to be dubbed “netbook” market with its diminutive Eee PC.  The Eee was a surprise hit and spawned many imitators.  Pretty soon, it seemed like everyone and their mother had a subnotebook device in their product pipeline.  Some of those products have been hits, while others have been misses.  With all these new models from the likes of HP, MSI, Acer and soon to be joined by Dell and Lenovo, is there really a market for all these devices?  Or is this just a flash in the pan like so many other attempts at watered-down technology?  (Internet appliances, anyone?)  Read on after the jump.

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The Eee PC blog is reporting that Dell will be launching its Inspiron Mini Netbook on  August 12th. The expected price of these 8.9 in LCD laptops is starting at $299, which would be awesome making these a nice little netbook to have. These will have a 4GB SSD and 512MB of RAM, using the 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU. They will weigh in around 2.2 lb so get psyched…maybe, this is still just a rumor.