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Ruslan Kogan is more than just an Australian with an electronics company named after him. He’s the guy who brought us the Kogan Agora netbook based on community input, and who didn’t quite bring us the Kogan Agora cheap, unlocked Android-powered smartphone. So what’s net for Kogan? a $200 tablet running Google Android that looks like it’s set to undercut the Apple iPad (on pricing, if not necessarily features).

And that’s $200 Australian, we’re talking about, which means that the Kogan tablet could sell for as little as $180 US, if it ever comes to the US. Although to be honest, it’s not entirely clear if it will even be released in Australia at this point.

Kogan is showing off a prototype with a 600MHz ARM-based processor, a 7 inch, 800 x 480 pixel capacitive touchscreen display, 2GB of storage, and 512MB of RAM.

The tablet also has an HDMI output. Kogan tells APC Magazine that the demo unit can run Android, Ubuntu Linux, or Windows — although I’m assuming he means Windows CE, since you can’t run the desktop version of Windows on an ARM-based processor.

Samsung appears to have launched an updated version of the Samsung Go netbook. The new version looks identical to the original Samsung N310 and has the same rubberized case and chiclet-style keyboard that I loved so much when I reviewed the laptop last year. But the updated Go has a shiny new 1.66GHz Intel Atom Pine Trail processor.

Here’s a rundown of the specs for the new Samsung Go N315:

•CPU: 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450
•Graphics: Intel GMA 3150
•Display: 10.1 inch 1024 x 600 pixels
•OS: Windows 7 Starter
•Memory: 1GB
•Storage: 250GB HDD
•Connectivity: 802.11b/g/n WiFi, 10/100 Ethernet
•I/O: 3 USB, VGA, mic, headphone, SDHC card slot
•Battery: 4 cell
•Dimensions: 10.3″ x 7.3″ x 1.1″
•Weight: 2.7 pounds
•Price: $429
The Samsung N315 is available for pre-order from Amazon for $429.

It’s still not clear when the first tablets, netbooks, or other devices with Pixel Qi displays will start to hit the streets. But Pixel Qi founder Mary Lou Jepsen says that you’ll be able to pick up a DIY kit for installing a Pixel Qi screen in your own device by this summer.

Pixel Qi’s LCD displays combine some of the best elements of a fully saturated color display and a high contrast e-Ink screen. In a nutshell, you can treat the screen as a slightly thicker, more expensive color LCD and never take advantage of the ePaper mode. But you can also turn off the backlight to reduce the screen’s power consumption from 2.5 watts to about 0.5 watts.

And as an added bonus, while the screen looks a bit closer to black and white in this mode (with some faint colors showing), the screen becomes easily readable outdoors. In fact, in ePaper mode, it’s easier to read text in direct sunlight — something which is hardly true for traditional LCD screens.

Pixel Qi has been showing off the new display technology for a while, and typically those demonstrations include Pixel Qi displays retrofitted into off-the-shelf netbooks from companies like Acer and Lenovo. So while there’s no compatibility list yet, it seems like a safe bet that if you have a device with a 10.1 inch display, you’ll be able to use one of these DIY kits to swap out your screen.

There’s no word on pricing yet. Jepsen says the company will be making an announcement prior to the release of the DIY kits.

While there’s a lot of buzz around the upcoming iPad and dozens of other internet slates, tablet PCs have been around for nearly a decade. The difference is that most Windows-based tablets available today feature full sized keyboards and swivels that let you fold the touchscreen down over the keyboard for use in tablet mode. The iPad is a touchscreen-only device with a low power processor. As a result, the iPad will be lighter, get better battery life, and be altogether more portable than most existing tablet PCs.

But what happens when you take Microsoft’s original vision for a tablet PC and shrink it down to netbook size? I’ve reviewed a couple of convertible tablet style netbooks and to be honest, I haven’t been that impressed with the results. But there are a number of new models slated to come out in the next few month, and Sascha at Netbook News got a chance recently to sit down with three of them and give us a good look at the similarities and differences.

The Gigabyte T1000, Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t, and Viliv S10 Blade all have 10 inch touchscreen displays. But the Lenovo has a 1024 x 600 pixel display while the Gigabyte and Viliv models has a 1366 x 768 pixel HD display. The Gigabyte laptop dis a bit larger, and overall more solid looking. But the Lenovo is significantly cheaper.

The Viliv S10, which shows up about 9 and a half minutes into the video below is much slimmer than the other models. But it also uses a different chipset. While the Lenovo and Gigabyte laptops have Intel Atom N450 or N470 processors, the S10 has a lower power Atom Z530 or Z550 processor.

Overall, it looks to me like the Viliv has the best case design of the bunch, but as we learned yesterday, the touchscreen isn’t particularly responsive.

The Fujitsu LifeBook UH900 is a tiny laptop with an an Intel Atom processor. But there are two things that keep it from being a true netbook. First, with a starting price of about $849, it’s more than twice as expensive as a typical netbook. Second, with a 5.6 inch display and keyboard that’s barely touch-typable, the UH900 almost feels more like a smartphone than a laptop — you know, if smartphones could run Windows 7 Home Premium.

Pocketables has published a review of the Fujitsu LifeBook UH900. The verdict? Sure it’s expensive, but good luck finding another device this small and light with this many features.

The unit Jenn reviewed for Pocketables is a Japanese model that has a 2GHz Intel Atom Z550 processor, 2G of RAM, and a 30GB solid state disk. It includes Bluetooth, WiFi, and WiMax capabilities and has a 1280 x 800 pixel 5.6″ touchscreen display. Oh yeah, and it only weighs about 17 ounces.

She wasn’t that impressed with the build quality. And while the UH900 has a multitouch display, she found it was actually faster to use the mouse controls to zoom or rotate content than to use the touchscreen gestures.

Make sure to check out the full review for the results of Jenn’s battery test, typing test, and overall impressions of the UH900.

The folks at Engadget have snagged a series of new photos and some new details about Microsoft’s upcoming Courier tablet. It sounds like Microsoft is prepared to take on Apple’s iPad using pretty much the same strategy it’s bringing to bear against the iPhone: The Zune HD and Windows Mobile 7 Series operating system.

The Courier will reportedly weigh just over a pound and measure less than an inch thick. it features two screens, and when you close it up, it’s a little bigger than  5 x 7 photograph.

Under the hood, Engadget says the tablet will have an NVIDIA Tegra 2 chipset, which is a low power chip capable of HD and 3D graphics. The OS will be based on the latest version of Windows CE. But the UI should look more like the Zune HD interface than the Windows Mobile 6.5 user experience.

The Courier is designed to be a “digital journal,” and relies pretty heavily on stylus input and handwriting recognition. Engadget says it should be out later this year.

Remember that Gateway EC14D notebook that was announced earlier this year? You know, the one with the 11.6 inch display, Intel CULV processor, and built-in DVD burner? Yeah, you can go ahead and pre-order it now. Amazon is taking pre-orders for the laptop for $629.99 + free shipping.

While that price makes the notebook a little more expensive than other CULV netbooks such as the Acer Aspire 1810 or Asus UL20A, it’s the only 11.6″ thin and light laptop with an 8 hour battery and DVD drive I’m aware of in this price range.

The Gateway EC14D has a 1.3GHz Intel Pentium SU4100 dual core processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive. It runs Windows 7 Home Premium and has an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel HD display and Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics. The DVD drive is an 8x SuperMulti double-layer drive.

Wandering the show floor at CeBIT in Germany, jkkmobile stumbled across 2 nice looking tablet computers from DPT. Both feature 7 inch displays, but one model has a 1024 x 600 pixel display and runs Windows 7 while the other is a Windows XP tablet with a lower resolution 800 x 480 pixel display.

The Windows 7 version has a multitouch display, 8GB to 16GB of solid state storage, and an Intel Atom Z5xx series processor. It has 1GB of RAM, 802.11b/g/ WiFi, and an HDMI output as well as a SIM card slot and an optional 3G module.

We’ve seen a lot of Windows XP and Windows 7 tablets over the past few months, but I’m still not convinced there’s a very large market for these slate PCs. The technology to produce them has been around for years, and to be honest, companies have been selling them for quite a while. But while they’ve definitely been popular in certain niche markets and among a small group of enthusiasts, they’ve never really taken off with the general public. I have the feeling that if the Apple iPad takes off, it will be tablets running Google Android or Windows CE that give it a run for its money, not tablets running a desktop operating system designed for use with a keyboard and mouse.

Ruslan Kogan is more than just an Australian with an electronics company named after him. He’s the guy who brought us the Kogan Agora netbook based on community input, and who didn’t quite bring us the Kogan Agora cheap, unlocked Android-powered smartphone. So what’s net for Kogan? a $200 tablet running Google Android that looks like it’s set to undercut the Apple iPad (on pricing, if not necessarily features).

And that’s $200 Australian, we’re talking about, which means that the Kogan tablet could sell for as little as $180 US, if it ever comes to the US. Although to be honest, it’s not entirely clear if it will even be released in Australia at this point.

Kogan is showing off a prototype with a 600MHz ARM-based processor, a 7 inch, 800 x 480 pixel capacitive touchscreen display, 2GB of storage, and 512MB of RAM.

The tablet also has an HDMI output. Kogan tells APC Magazine that the demo unit can run Android, Ubuntu Linux, or Windows — although I’m assuming he means Windows CE, since you can’t run the desktop version of Windows on an ARM-based processor.

The Jolicloud team has announced that the final release of Jolicloud “Robby” is due out before the end of the month. The update will incorporate a number of features we’ve already told you about, including support for Intel Atom Pine Trail and VIA C7-M processors. But there are two major new features:

1.The web app platform will be based on the Google Chrome browser rather than Mozilla Prism
2.There’s a new desktop mode designed for nettops and other computers with screens larger than 11 inches
The desktop mode makes a lot of sense, since there are plenty of nettops out there with the same guts as netbooks (Intel Atom processors, Windows XP or 7, integrated graphics or NVIDIA ION). But the move from Prism to Chrome for the web apps is a pretty big deal.

According to the folks at Jolicloud, this will lead to a faster browsing experience, more efficient memory use, and support for Chrome extensions in all web apps. It will also help performance on ARM-based netbooks and tablets.

The default web browser for Jolicloud is still Firefox. But the Chrome rendering engine will handle all the web apps you’ve “installed” on your system.

The new release will also be the first that the Jolicloud team says is compatible with 100% of the netbooks on the market with Intel processors. That includes systems with older Intel Celeron CPUs or the latest Atom Pine Trail chips as well as computers with NVIDIA ION graphics or Broadcom Crystal HD video accelerators.