Nokia won't have Windows Phone OS on handsets until at least October

One of the biggest surprises to be unveiled so far this year was the announcement by Nokia CEO Stephen Elop that Nokia would be moving from Symbian to the Windows Phone OS. Notice I didn't say Windows Phone 7. Apparently, the current Windows Phone 7 won't be used and the move to the Microsoft mobile OS will be pushed until at least October 2011 to wait for the next update.


Guardian.co.uk reports that Elop has never once said that Nokia Would be using WinPo 7 and has steered clear from making that comment. This leads some to believe that the next version of the OS codenamed " Mango" may not be called Windows Phone 7. Elop would presumably know about the coming version and what it is called since he was a Microsoft exec until last fall.

What the Mango update will include is unknown, but speculation is that it might be dubbed Windows Phone 7.5. Another thing that stands out is the fact that never once did Elop or Ballmer mention Zune Music Service, which is rumored to replale the Nokia offering.

We have rumors now that the Zune name will be dropped and the service rebranded. Whatever the new Mango OS is called officially, Nokia workers are far from happy about the move from Symbian.



By Shane McGlaun, www.slashgear.com

MSI and Gigabyte Expect Strong Notebook Shipment Growth in 2010

Micro-Star International (MSI) and Gigabyte Technology recently revealed that their notebook shipments picked up in the second half of the year and both companies are optimistic about notebook shipments for 2010.

MSI expects its notebook shipments will have chance to grow more than 10% sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2009 thanks to the launch of Windows 7, but a shortage of optical drives and DRAM, which is expected to last through the end of 2009 and even longer, may hurt growth, chairman Joseph Hsu indicated.

However, Hsu expects 30% on-year growth in both the company's notebook and all-in-one PC shipments in 2010.

For netbooks, Hsu noted MSI's netbook proportion of its total notebook shipments has dropped from a previous level of 50% to only about 30% currently. In addition, market demand for ultra-thin notebook has also been weaker than expected, but Hsu expects ultra-thin models' proportion will account for 20% of the company's total notebook shipments in the first half of 2010 and 30% in the second half as Intel will begin offer dual-core CPUs for the segment later this quarter.

Gigabyte said it is unlikely to achieve its goal of shipping 200,000 notebooks in 2009 due to fewer-than-expected notebook shipments in the first half of the year. However, Gigabyte vice president Richard Ma noted shipments have started picking up in the third quarter, and he expects annual shipments will reach 120,000 units.

In 2010, Ma expects Gigabyte's notebook shipments will reach 300,000 units, as Windows 7 will drive demand. Half of those notebooks will be made by Quanta Computer and half made in-house. Gigabyte will also launch an in-house developed ultra-thin notebook in the first quarter of 2010.


Source: Daily Tech

Asus releases Windows 7 Upgrade guide for Eee PC 1000H

The Asus Eee PC 1000H was one of the company's first 10 inch netbooks. I picked one up in August, 2008 and I'm still using it. The Eee PC 1000H may not be as thin or light as some never netbooks, and it doesn't get quite as much battery life as newer Asus models.

But you know what? It still works pretty well and share a common set of guts with most netbooks including a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU and 1GB of RAM. The model I own has just 80GB of disk space, but there are also 160GB models out there.

Asus stopped making this netbook a while ago, but the company hasn't forgotten the earlier adopters like me. This weekend Asus uploaded a Windows 7 Selt Upgrade Guide for the Eee PC 1000H/XP to the company support site.

Having installed Windows 7 RC on the netbook earlier this year, I can tell you that many features work out of the box. But the upgraded guide recommends that before you start, you make sure you have the latest BIOS version first.

While the step for installing Windows 7 just says "Install Windows 7 operating system from the DVD," step 3 is worth checking out. Once Windows is installed, you may want to download and install drivers and utilities from the Asus support site, and step three explains the order in which they should be installed, starting with the chipset drivers and ending with the Super Hybrid Engine and Asus Update software.

Will anything bad happen if you don't install the utilities in this order (or at all)? Probably not. But it's nice to know that Asus was thinking about us.

Keep in mind, if you upgrade an Eee PC 1000H or any Windows XP computer to Windows 7, your data and settings will not be imported. You could could configure a dual boot system which would preserve your data, but there's your data, but there's no clean migration path from Windows XP to Windows 7 that allows you to import your settings the way can when you upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 7.

Source: http://netbookupdates.com