Kohjinsha makes some very cool netbooks

Kohjinsha, a japanese netbook manufacturer, makes a very attractive line of netbooks. In fact, I'd have to say Kohjinsha makes some of the coolest netbooks i've seen yet, with features such as swiveling screens, GPS, touch screen, optical drives, AMD geode processor, and windows vista. Pretty cool. Netbooks are gaining popularity because there are a growing number of people who don't need a full sized laptop, yet want to check email, get on social networks (such as twitter, facebook, flickr, threadless, etc) and make video calls through skype or google talk - enough to where doing it on a smart phone could be cumbersome or impossible. Take a look at Kohjinsha's line of netbooks:

SX3KP06MS (8.9" UMPC with integrated DVD Super Multi Drive)

• Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with service pack 1
  
• Intel® AtomTM Processor Z520 (1.33GHz)
• 1GB DDR2 Ram
• 60gb hard drive
• Bluetooth Ver,2.0+EDR
• CD/DVD Drive
• Wireless LAN： IEEE802.11 b/g
• 8.9" Wide TFT Color LCD (LED Back light) with Touch Screen Resolution (Standard Resolution (1280×768)
• 2 Camera: (Front Camera: 0.35 Mega Pixels, Rear Camera: 2 Mega Pixels)
• 4 Separate Media Slots: SD Memory Card (SDHC Compatible) / MMC Card compatible ; Memory Stick Duo / Memory Stick Compatible
• Approx 1.25kg (with Standard Battery)

SC3KP06GS (7" UMPC with GPS)

• Genuine Microsoft®Windows Vista® Home Premium with ServicePack 1
• Intel® AtomTM Processor Z520 (1.33GHz)
• 1GB DDR2 Ram
• 60GB hard drive
• Bluetooth Ver,2.0+EDR
• PCMCIA ExpressCard
• Wireless LAN： IEEE802.11 b/g
• 7" Wide TFT Color LCD (LED Back light) with Touch Screen Resolution (Standard Resolution (1024×600)
• Camera: 1.3 Mega Pixels
• 3in 1 Media Card Slot: SD Memory Card (SDHC Compatible) / Memory Stick / MMC Card compatible
• Approx 820g (with Standard Battery)

SR8KPO6S (First 7" UMPC with integrated DVD Super Multi Drive)

• Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Premium
• Intel® processor A110(800MHz)
• 1GB DDR2 Ram
• 60GB hard drive
• Bluetooth Ver,2.0+EDR
• CD/DVD Drive
• Wireless LAN： IEEE802.11 b/g
• 7" Wide TFT Color LCD (LED Back light) with Touch Screen Resolution (standard display) WSVGA (1024×600)
• Camera: 1.3 Million Pixels
• 3 in 1 Media Slot: SD Card (SDHC/SDIO) / Memory Stick / MMC Card compatible, CF Card Slot (Type-II) x 1
• Approx 1.1kg (with Standard Battery)

SH610BS (7" wide, LED backlight with touch screen display)

• Microsoft® Windows Vista® Home Basic
• Intel® processor A100(600MHz)
• 512MB DDRll Ram
• Hard Disk 120GB
• Bluetooth Ver,2.0+EDR
• Wireless LAN： IEEE802.11 b/g
• 7" Wide TFT Color LCD (LED Back light) with Touch Screen Resolution (standard display) WSVGA (1024×600)
• Camera: 1.3 Million Pixels
• 3 in 1 Media Slot: SD Card (SDHC/SDIO) / Memory Stick / MMC Card compatible, CF Card Slot (Type-II) x 1
• Approx 985g (with Standard Battery)

SA1F00KS (7" with touch screen LCD)

• Microsoft® Windows XP Home Edition
• AMD Geode LX 800
• 512MB DDRl Ram
• Hard Disk 40GB
• Bluetooth Ver,2.0+EDR
• Wireless LAN： IEEE802.11 b/g
• 7" Wide TFT Color LCD (LED Back light) with Touch Screen Resolution (standard display) WVGA
• 3 in 1 Media Slot: SD Card (SDHC/SDIO) / Memory Stick / MMC Card compatible, CF Card Slot (Type I & II) x 1
• Approx 990g (with Standard Battery)

The netbooks are being sold in Japan and on some Hong Kong websites, and a few are popping up on ebay but it looks like they haven't really hit the US market yet in full force. I hope that will happen soon and drive the price down (the SA1F00KS is currently $480)

Asus Lamborghini VX5 with 1 terabyte SSD, 4GB RAM, core 2 quad

The Asus Lamborghini VX5 will undoubtedly be the baddest laptop on the market. With a 1 Terabyte SSD (solid state drive) from pureSilicon, an intel core 2 quad processor, and 4GB of RAM. The SSD drive pushes an impressive 300 MB/second burst speed, as well as sustained read/write of 240 and 215 MB/Second, respectively. The laptop also features a blu-ray optical drive, as well as an HDMI output. The laptop also has an impressive "full HD" resolution of 1920 by 1080 and an nVidia GeForce GT 130M graphics card with 1GB of GDDR3.

Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds dual screen laptop - finally!

It has been a long time coming, but a dual screen laptop finally hit the market. The Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds has a slide-out 15" screen, in addition to its primary 17" screen. The W700ds comes with several intel core 2 quad processors, a maximum of 960GB SSD/HDD storage, and up to 8GB RAM. It also has the nVidia Quadro FX 3700M GPU and a built in Wacom digitizer. Pretty sweet for photoshop work - put all your pallettes on the right side, bust out your stylus, and wham! Ultimate portable photoshop machine! Unfortunately, most people won't be willing to shell out $3600 (base price) for the W700ds, when they can just attach a separate Wacom digitizer and live with just 1 screen (or attach a second free standing second monitor). Still, a genius idea, if extremely ugly and clunky. I would still like to see a dual screen laptop where the primary monitor can slide to the left, and the slide-out monitor is the same size as the primary. Perhaps that wil be possible when OLED displays become more widespread and inexpensive.