Its sober, squared-off chassis may look uninspiring, but under the hood the Clevo D900F notebook is anything but shy.  The D900F packs a choice of Intel Core i7 processor with the X58 chipset, together with three 500GB hard-drives and NVIDIA’s G280 GPU with 1GB of memory.

As you might guess, this makes it very much a desktop replacement rather than an ultraportable.  That’s given Clevo room to slot in an HD-friendly 17.1-inch WUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD and a TV tuner, together with an HDMI output, Dual-Link DVI and eSATA, among plenty of others.  There’s also a Blu-ray burner.

Buyers will be able to choose between Intel’s  2.66, 2.93 or 3.2GHz Core i7 CPU, while RAM for the D900F is Intel’s Turbo memory with up to 8GB of DDR3 available.  Users will be able to choose between RAID 0, 1 or 5 for the three drives.  No word on pricing, but expect it to be expensive when it lands in Q4 2009.

Lacking the power of the D900F, but a whole lot happier with drops and falls, Clevo’s rugged 8.9-inch touchscreen slate uses the Intel Atom Z5×0-series processor and pairs it with a chassis that meets IP54 standards.  Provisionally known as the Clevo T89xM, the device is intended for outdoor workers such as engineers and surveyors.

As well as the 1024 x 600 touchscreen, D-pad controller and integrated speakers, there’s Bluetooth 2.0 and a fingerprint reader for security.  Clevo were showing the device with an attached hand-strap, which fits over the hand like a glove and allows for use of the device when walking.

No word on pricing for the touchscreen slate, but we’re expecting it to hit the market in early Q3 2009.  We’re hoping to have more specification details today.

China’s white-box notebook shipments have a chance to reach 500,000 units per month in the second half of 2009 as more makers join the market, according to market sources in China.

Current monthly shipments are around 200,000 units.

Many local makers of consumer electronics products such as DVD, digital music, and portable media players, and handsets have made moves to cut into the white-box netbook market, meaning total white-box notebook and netbook shipments are likely to top 3.5 million units in 2009, the sources estimated. (continuare…)

Nokia is currently in talks with Taiwan notebook makers and EMS companies for cooperation on its plans to possibly enter the netbook market, according to sources at Taiwan notebook makers. The sources have pinpointed Compal Electronics and Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) as the top-two potential partners.

Contrary to Nokia’s strategy of outsourcing mostly OEM orders for its handset business, the company is considering a joint design manufacture (JDM) strategy for its netbook products, the sources noted. (continuare…)

Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) and Hewlett Packard (HP) will together invest US$60 million to establish a PC manufacturing plant in Turkey, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) report.

The plant will mainly supply HP’s PC demand in markets in the Middle-East and Europe.

Intel plans to launch two new ultra low voltage (ULV) CPUs by the end of March this year mainly targeting the company’s consumer ultra low voltage (CULV) platform for ultra-thin notebook products, according to sources at notebook makers.

The two CPUs are the Core 2 Duo SU9600 with a core frequency of 1.6GHz and priced at US$289 in thousand-unit tray quantities, and Core 2 Solo SU3500 at 1.4GHz and US$262.

The two CPUs join the previously launched SU9400, SU9300, SU3300 and Celeron 723 under the CULV product line. All can be pared with the GS45 IGP chipset. (continuare…)

Battery provider Boston-Power has announced that it is expanding production capacity of its Sonata rechargeable Li-ion batteries through a strategic partnership with Hong Kong-based GP Batteries. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Under the five-year agreement, GP Batteries will dedicate its Li-ion battery factory in Taiwan exclusively to produce Sonata batteries, using technology and materials supplied by Boston-Power. The company also indicated that its factory will double monthly production in 2009, but did include any shipment figures.

Boston-Power and GP Batteries will also undertake a joint R&D effort to expand the capacity and performance of Sonata cells.

In December, Boston-Power announced that its Sonata batteries would be used by Hewlett-Packard (HP) in the notebook maker’s HP Enviro Series Program. HP is expected to begin shipping Sonata batteries this quarter, Boston-Power added.

Inventec has announced that it will invest 230 million Japanese yen (US$2.37 million) in Japan-based Kohjinsha (KJS). The investment will raise the company’s holdings in Kohjinsha from 42.75% to 61.69%, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report. Having taken a majority stake in the notebook vendor, Inventec plans to increase its OEM orders for KJS’s mini-notebooks from the current 60% to 80%.

Psion

Intel

Intel has joined the fight against Psion over the “netbook” trademark, arguing that the public already uses the term in a generic manner to represent “extensions of the notebook category, smaller computers purpose-built for mobile Internet access,” according to the Courthouse News Service. The chip-maker also pointed out that Psion trademarked the term for for a line of notebook computers that has been out of production since 2003. In a similar filing, Dell asked the US Patent Office to revoke the “netbook” trademark. The company also cited the discontinued product line, while claiming that Psion has no plans to start building the systems again. (continuare…)

Silicon Valley-based VisualOn, a provider of multimedia solutions for mobile devices, has said that its multimedia solutions have found their way into a number of OEM/ODM device makers, including High Tech Computer (HTC), Mitac International, Quanta Computer, Wistron, as well as Research in Motion (RIM).

The company is now pushing sales of its advanced multimedia software to the first-tier handset vendors such as Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Sony Ericsson, according to company CEO Yang Cai. (continuare…)

Acer has relaunched the Gateway brand in Europe, restyling the cow spotted direct supplier as a channel only brand pitched at SMEs.

Gateway Professional consists of three parts: the Gateway brand’s residual value in Europe, a restricted set of notebook, desktop and server products, and a specially-recruited channel which gets a remote management service to sell to its SME customers alongside the kit.

The market segment is the mid-sized business where dealers influence sales more than the product brand. Acer is looking for VARS and system integrators (SI) and offering them a simplified business process, one distributor per country, no retail or e-tail competition for the Gateway Professional brand, good margin – which everyone promises – and an added value service to sell as their own and which should deliver recurring revenue. (continuare…)