Dell to dump 1 million UMPCs on the market

Ultra-mobile PCs are getting all the attention these days, but even if we don't own or want one, is it really possible not to like these cute little machines? The word on the street in Taiwan is that Dell has ordered 1 million UMPCs to local contract manufacturers. The small computers would have solid state drives (SSD) of 4GB or 8GB.

We're still waiting for the official announcement of the Dell Inspiron 910 aka Dell mini-Inspiron aka Dell E.

Sony to enter ultra-low-cost laptop market

not actual photo

It might be the “race to the bottom” that Sony had feared: the netbook market is getting hot (if that wasn’t obvious), and with major players like Dell & HP jumping in, Sony has little choice but join the fight. Digitimes reports that Foxconn Electronics (a contract manufacturer) is “set to manufacture the notebook for Sony”. While not everyone agrees with the scope of the work to be done by Foxconn (build the whole thing, or only provide the components), there’s little doubt that major Japanese manufacturers are going to enter this market. And I bet that they will overwhelmingly choose Intel’s Atom as their processor of choice.