The Dell Mini Notebook

Dell CEO Michael Dell was showing off a cherry-red mini notebook at the D6: All Things Digital conference this week. This will be Dell's first entry into the now-hot market for subnotebooks, which has taken off in the last 6 months with the unexpected success of the Asus EeePC.

After eagle-eyed Gizmodo editor Brian Lam spotted the notebook, Mr. Dell gave him an exclusive closeup look at the thing, and a little later Dell officially confirmed the subnotebook's existence. No details on specs yet, though the company is saying the product is a response to a call they made to the user community to help the company design a mini laptop.

But if you go by the initial impression of the blog community, the unnamed mini-Dell might be one generation behind.

Why? The screen seems a bit-too small (it looks like 7- 7 ½ inches), and looks a bit chunky compared to the newest Eee PC.

There's a Windows key on the released picture, and Dell has a long history with Microsoft, but it wouldn’t surprise us if they also offered a Linux option.

I looks like the laptop includes a web cam, average-sized keys (edging all the way towards the end of the case) and as Lam pointed out, three USB ports, a card reader, a VGA port and an Ethernet port.

Samsung plans 256GB SSD drive this year

Samsung Electronics plans to launch within this year a flash memory-based solid-state disk that boasts a 256GB capacity and high-speed interface, it said Monday. The drive, which was unveiled in prototype form at a Samsung event in Taipei, has the same form factor as a 9.5-millimeter high 2.5-inch hard-disk drive for which it is designed to be a drop-in replacement. Solid-state disks (SSDs) are an emerging type of storage device that use flash memory chips in place of the spinning magnetic disks used in hard-disk drives.

The memory chips mean the drives are more sturdy and typically have a higher performance but the per-byte storage cost is also much higher, so they are generally more expensive. That has largely restricted them to niche applications but as flash prices come down they are expected to become more widely used. The prototype drive announced today by the company has a read speed of 200M bytes per second (Bps) and a sequential write speed of 160M Bps, said Samsung. Samples of the drive will be available to customers from September with mass production due by the end of the year. A version with a similar form factor to a 1.8-inch drive is also expected to be available in the fourth quarter of the year, the company said.

Source: PC World