Netbook bestseller update: Aspire One AOD250, EEE PC Seashell 1005HA and Toshiba Mini NB205

News in the netbook bestseller list:

1. Acer Aspire One AOD250-1197 for $279.99
   
2. ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005HA-PU17-BK for $347.99
   
3. Toshiba Mini NB205-N230 for §326.33
   

The feature-set is very very close for all 3 netbooks, all of them got a 10.1 glare display, high capacity battery (6-cells) with more than acceptable battery life, 250GB hard drive, 1GB RAM and Windows 7 Starter.

Some differences

• Processor: Intel Atom N270 (1.6GHz) for the Aspire One while the Seashell 1005HA and Mini NB205 got the Atom N280 (1.66GHz)
• Wifi: fast 802.11b/g/n for the Seashell 1005HA and the "older" 802.11b/g for Aspire One and Mini NB205
• Bluetooth: available only for the the Seashell 1005HA while for Aspire One and Mini NB205 you can use a cheap Bluetooth USB dongle
  
• Unfortunately both Seashell 1005HA and Mini NB205 got a 0.3 megapixel webcam, not sure about the Aspire One.
• Keyboard: AFAIK Mini NB205 got the best one, followed by Seashell 1005HA with 92% of a full size. The worse keyboard is for the Aspire One with 89%
• Battery: the Seashell 1005HA is rated for 10.5hours, Mini NB205 with 9hours and Aspire One with 8hours.
• Weight: Aspire One AOD250 with 2.79pounds is the lightest, followed by the EEE PC Seashell 1005HA with 2.81pounds and Toshiba Mini NB205 with 2.93pounds.

Best Pink Netbook: EEE PC, HP Mini, Samsung NC10, Toshiba NB205

Most of the netbooks are sold in only few colors: black, white, gray and blue.
You want a pink netbook? No problem! My favourite is the HP Mini 110-1037NR in any case here you'll find a selection of the best pink netbooks: all with high capacity battery and good feature set.

• Asus EEE PC Seashell 1005HA-MU17-PI for $329 (Windows 7), one of the rare netbooks with matte display (a luxus nowadays!). With 250GB hard drive
  
• Toshiba Mini NB205-N313/P for $360, (Windows XP), 160GB hard drive
  
• HP Mini 110-1037NR for $430 (Windows XP), 160GB hard drive
• Samsung NC10-13P for $365 (Windows XP), also with matte display, 160GB hard drive

If you just want to have a pink netbook and must be very cheap, the only choice you have is the Acer Aspire One AOD250-1962 for $290: a decent netbook, pink and sub 300 dollars. The major difference from the other pink netbooks listed above is the smaller battery, you won't get more than 2 hours battery life.

Here a bigger list of all pink netbooks available at Amazon.com

Pink Netbook - Not only for Girls/Women!

For a women/girl the appearance and color of an object/netbook is a very important decision criteria. This is something men rarely understand... Pink is one important fashion color since a few years now.
A prepared a selection of pink netbooks for all price ranges, first the best (and most expensive...) followed by many netbooks of the $270-330 range.
Last but not least, don't forget to find a nice bag fitting the new netbook!

It's simply beautiful and perfect...
....for your Valentine Day 2010 gift: ASUS Eee PC Seashell Karim Rashid Collection 1008P-KR-PU17-PI 10.1-Inch Netbook - Hot Pink
Designed from Karin Rashid, Indian origin and actually living in Paris, Karin Rashid is one of the most important modern designers.
For $499.99 (USD) it isn't the cheapest netbook out there however: what a netbook! It features a breathtaking design that includes a 10.1" frameless LED backlit display and an ergonomic chiclet keyboard. This beauty is matched by an excellent build quality, keyboard and high end feature for a netbook. Actually it isn't just for women/girls or valentine day: I lile very much this netbook and I'm seriously thinking of getting it for myself...
ASUS Eee PC Seashell Karim Rashid Collection 1008P-KR-PU17-PI

• Intel Atom N450 Processor 1.66GHz (new Intel Pineview processor!)
  
• 2GB DDR2 RAM
  
• 320GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM) + 500GB Free Web Storage; Windows 7 Home Premium Operating System
• 10.1-Inch Frameless Color-Shine 1024x600 WSVGA LCD Display; 802.11 b/g/n; Bluetooth Enabled, 1.3Mpixel Webcam
  
• 6-cell battery for 6+ hours battery life.
  

As you can see above, compared to main stream netbooks, the Eee PC Seashell Karim Rashid Collection 1008P got double as much RAM (2GB) and hard drive (320GB). Furthermore you get Windows 7 Home Premium instead of Windows 7 Starter.

If you want to spend less
I found a very good offer for you: $299.99 to preorder the Asus EEE PC Seashell 1001P-MU17-PI, up to 11 hours of battery life and the new Atom N450 (Pineview processor).

In any case you still can find good fashion pink netbooks for about $300
all of them with the Atom N270 or N280 processor, 160GB hard drive, 1GB RAM, 10.1-inch display. Most of them got also a high capacity battery and Windows XP, some of them got Windows 7 Starter edition.

A selection of other good pink netbooks I found

• Toshiba Mini NB205-313/P for $327 (Windows XP, up to 9 hours battery)
• Asus EEE PC 1005HA-VU1X-PI for $319.77 (Windows XP, up to 8.5 hours battery)
  

Pink netbooks below $300

• Lenovo S10-2 for $294.93 (Windows 7 Starter, up to 6 hours battery)
  
• MSI Wind U100-427 for $279.99 (only 2.5 hour battery life)

Availability of new Netbooks with ARM and Atom Pineview 2010

These days you see Toshiba, Samsung, Acer, Lenovo and other OEMs announcing the new netbook generation based on the new Intel Atom N450 (Pineview, 1.66MHz clock) and ARM cores.
So far these are only announcements, the first Intel Pineview netbooks are going to be available end of January 2010.
Spring 2010 will see the first interesting news IMHO: Skylight, the first ARM based netbook from Lenovo (Qualcomm Snapdragon) is going to be shipped and the first Intel Atom N470 netbooks should be available as well.
The Atom N470 got a higher CPU clock: 1.86MHz and is going to provide the first real life performance improvements since the introduction of the Atom N270 (1.6GHz, vs 1.66 of the Atom N280 and N450). I'm really curious to see the first benchmarks...

Netbook and Bluetooth - integrated vs usb dongle

Bluetooth is a feature that you rarely find in the cheapest netbooks, say below $320 USD.
For example Bluetooth isn't included in most of the Acer Aspire One AOD250 and in many Toshiba Mini NB205. While most of the Samsung netbooks and the Dell Mini 10v and Asus EEE PC 1005HA include Bluetooth.

I personally love Bluetooth you can establish a wireless link to your netbook for example:

• with a Bluetooth headset: you can listen to music and/or make Skype calls (VoIP)
  
• with your mobile phone: to synch data, contacs ot to use the phone as 3G modem for Internet connectivity

My suggestion: Bluetooth support in the netbook shouldn't be a go/not go criteria, you can simply add Bluetooth support using a Bluetooth USB dongle, there are many starting just below $10 (USD) and some of them are so tiny that you even won't see it.
Some USB Bluetooth adapters are so tiny that simply disappears in the USB port of your netbook, so you can plug it once and forget it. You won't notice it! No damage to break it!

Be careful in the choice of the USB dongle, be aware of the fact that some cheap Bluetooth dongles got limitations. Some examples:

• Many cheap dongle don't support A2DP, necessary to listen stereo music
  
• With Windows XP 32-bit you're fine, however please be aware that many dongles got operating system compatibility problems with MAC, Linux, and 64-bit Windows
  
• Some Bluetooth dongles got a very limited wireless reach (2-3 meters)
• Some cheap dongles got buggy/crap software

These two micro USB Bluetooth dongle seem to be very good, according to the user review I read there are no issue at all especially with Windows based netbooks. The IOGear may have problems with Ubuntu 9.04.

Why so many netbooks don't include Bluetooth? Bluetooth is kind of "premium" feature, many people don't neet it. People needing it are supposed to give out few bucks more.
As I said, the average price is falling and the netbook OEMs try to reduce the costs, every cent counts in the netbook market! Netbooks are essentially mini laptops with the absolutely minimum feature set, Bluetooth isn't definetly something everybody needs.