When talking about ultra-mobile PCs these days, first thing that comes into my mind is the Eee PC from ASUS, but its birth lead to a bunch of similar products making their way into the market, and today I have a two-in-one article for you... First, we'll talk about the upcoming Eee PC from ASUS, and then we'll move to a very interesting competitor from it, coming from MSI.


Sooo... the new Eee PC will come with an Atom processor, and its arrival is scheduled to happen in May. The 8.9-inch screen will have a 1024X600 native resolution, and you can go for a Windows XP version with 8GB SSD/1GB memory, or Linux Xandros with 12 or 20GB SSD and 1GB of main memory.

As ASUS previously said, pricing will be around the $500 mark.

Leaving the ASUS Eee PC behind, we'll get to its competitor from MSI, pictured above. Fortunately, we have enough details available at this time, less the launch date - the MSI "Wind" will have a 10-inch display, the Intel Shelton 08 platform under the hood, with CPU speeds between 1GHz and 1.6GHz, 2.5-inch HDD or SSD, 1GB of main memory, Windows or Linux, and an expected battery life of no less than 7(SEVEN!) hours!

Depending on the options chosen, the price of the MSI Wind laptop should be somewhere between $458 and $1072, which doesn't sound bad at all. Unfortunately, I must repeat that the release date is yet unknown...

Although they are not currently represented into the desktop processors market by any product, IBM has always been a company leading the way into research and development of computer processors, and now they are teaming up with Hitachi to bring the industry to a whole new leavel.


Today, IBM and Hitachi announced a research agreement that would allow them to improve semiconductor technology, and the most important part of the whole deal is - in my opinion - the fact that this may lead to an early arrival of the 32nm and 22nm semiconductors on the market.

While it's obvious that smaller circuits allow increased performance for less power, manufacturing is also more efficient, which leads to reduced costs - or at least that's both IBM and Hitachi hope to achieve.

Since this agreement was signed for the next two years, and Intel claimed recently to expect its 22nm chips by 2011, I guess IBM and Hitachi will arrive in the first place in the race for the 22nm chip, but - as usual - that's something only time will tell.

The Eee PC from ASUS proved to be a very inspired product, and it seems other producers are already following the road it has open. While some try to copy it, or at least release products having features and price as close to it as possible, ASUS decided to do what a lot of people considered necessary - adding support for Microsoft Windows. In fact, it's more than just that...


While the first Eee PCs available came with a Linux version customized for their hardware features, some enthusiasts managed to install and run Windows on them, but without being able to take full advantage of that OS, of course. Now, ASUS decided to make things right, so they announced the Eee PC with pre-installed Windows XP, instead of Linux.

For now, it's not known exactly what version of Windows XP will be installed on the Eee PC, but they will come with Microsoft Works bundled.

Other than the above, you should know that the Eee PC 900, the next generation of these computers, will have 1GB of memory, storage up to 12GB, 8.9-inch screens, and a price of about 400 EUR each.

Getting back to the Windows XP Eee PC available earlier than the Eee PC 900, scheduled to become available this summer, I should add that the XP-flavored Eee PC should arrive in early April, and no word about pricing has been heard just yet...

After hearing that Apple's Macs may get Blu-Ray drives, I just heard another interesting rumor, this time about Microsoft's Xbox 360 game console...


Since there's not much else to say, let's get straight to the point - according to Financial Times, Microsoft is currently talking with Sony about the chance to add Blu-Ray drives to their Xbox, since now, the Xbox 360 comes by default with a DVD drive, and also allows you to get an optional HD DVD drive.

Because the HD DVD format lost the HD optical format war, Microsoft needs to have this option replaced by something that users would really need, like the Blu-Ray. Obviously, adding a Blu-Ray would also increase the price of Microsoft's console, but as more and more producers will start using it, I am sure the Blu-Ray drive will start to become more and more accessible.

Do you think you have enough memory installed? Are you sure your video card has enough memory? Well, most of us, at least those that upgraded recently, would answer "yes", but hardware producers want to prove us wrong once again. How?


Well, that should be pretty obvious - by adding more and more memory to the video cards, but that's not all. While DDR2 memory is currently the best choice for most users, more and more producers start to manufacture such modules, so it's only a matter of time until DDR2 remains behind...

Today, I have two memory-related news for you. One of them is related to DDR3, and the other, as you probably got it already, about the memory installed on video cards...

First, it seems everyone is going big. For example, Jetway announced a GeForce 9600 GT card with no less than 2GB of GDDR3 memory, which should go right into production once of these days, so if you really want to "play it big", you'll probably be able to have such a thing in your computer before the end of the month. Wow!

At last, we have Mushkin Inc., a company that just arrived in the DDR3 camp, by announcing their XP3 series of DDR3 memory, "Designed for trailblazing enthusiasts seeking ultimate performance, the XP3 modules offer the reliability and speed needed for maximum frames per second in games and chart-topping benchmark scores."

These XP3 memories will be available as single 1GB and 2GB modules, as well as in 2X1GB and 2X2GB kits, all being hand-tested and featuring the FrostByte heatspreader. Anyway, don't hurry to get them, because they won't be available until April!