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KOREAN ELECTRONICS OUTFIT Samsung might be quitting the netbook business if a report on a French language web site is to be believed.

According to the report that we begrudgingly ran through Google Translate, Samsung has told its partners of its plans to shuffle off the netbook business in 2012 and will focus on ultrabooks and ultraportable 11.6 and 12 inch models instead.

“Following the introduction of our new strategy in 2012, we stop the product range in 10.1 [inch] (Netbook) in Q1 2012 for the benefit of Ultraportables products (11.6 and 12 inches) and ultrabooks to be launched in 2012,” says the email that is reproduced at the Blogeee.net web site.

We’ve asked Samsung to comment and perhaps confirm that this is the case, and are waiting for a response.

In the meantime we can speculate about the decision and suggest that it might be a reflection of what has been acknowledged for some time – that netbooks are pretty boring when compared to tablets and, despite not being like for like equivalents, have become so in the minds of punters, who often prefer the latter.

While netbooks might have had their day, the same is not said about ultrabooks, and analysts who are paid to do this sort of thing are already suggesting that they will swagger into the sales charts and waltz off with just under half of the market within a couple of years.

Samsung also has a stake in the tablet market, but there it has found itself bogged down in ongoing patent disputes with Apple over its designs. µ

In a private media event this week Corsair unveiled its latest contribution to the PC industry: gaming keyboards, mice and headsets. All of these new peripherals fall under the Vengeance brand. The motivation behind this move is simple: starting with memory and eventually expanding into power supplies, SSDs and cases, Corsair wants to be your one-stop shop for nearly everything you need for your PC. The CPU, motherboard and video card markets are either impossible to get into or undesirable for a manufacturer that doesn't already play in those spaces, leaving peripherals as one of the only options for expansion.

Traditionally companies avoided getting into the peripheral space because you have to compete with very wealthy and experienced competitors: Logitech and Microsoft. With Logitech trying to expand into other areas beyond peripherals it appears that Corsair is hoping that its competitor will lose a bit of its focus. Whether or not this works out for Corsair remains to be seen, but let's look at the products.

Vengeance Headsets

Corsair has dabbled in headsets already but with the Vengeance brand it expands the line considerably. Starting this October the company will offer three different Vengeance headsets priced from up to .

 

The Vengeance 1500 is the top end SKU with two 50mm drivers, simulated 7.1 surround sound and USB support (integrated audio codec). The 1300 is the same as the 1500 but substitutes in a 1/8" stereo plug instead of USB.

 

The 1100 is a lighter design that uses 40mm drivers but with USB support.

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Corsair Vengeance Headsets

 

Vengeance 1500

Vengeance 1300

Vengeance 1100

Price

 

Vengeance Keyboards & Mice

The entire Vengeance peripheral lineup is targeted at gamers. Start focused and expand beyond there seems to be the strategy. Corsair's initial keyboard & mice offerings are targeted at two genres of games: MMO/RTS and FPS. All of the Vengeance keyboards & mice feature an aluminum construction.

The MMO/RTS targeted products are called the Vengeance K90 and M90. The K-series are for keyboards while the M-series refer to mice. The K90 is backlit with over 90 individual LEDs (almost one behind every key). It uses Cherry MX mechanical red switches for each key which have a 2mm actuation travel (4mm total travel). There's no accompanying click sound with these keys, they have a nice linear but springy travel to them. The Cherry MX red switches apparently require the least amount of force to actuate out of their entire lineup of switches. Corsair claims the keyboard will recognize up to 20 simultaneous keystrokes.

The MMO/RTS focus comes in with the K90's 18 customizable macro keys. You can switch between three different sets of macros, for a total of 54 total macros. The macros are defined using Corsair's Vengeance gaming software.

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The corresponding mouse is the M90:

The M90 uses an Avago ADNS-9500 5700 DPI laser sensor. The mouse has 9 customizable side buttons.

On the FPS side there are the K60 and M60. Let's start with the K60:

The aluminum chassis and Cherry MX red mechanical switches are both present, but the individual key lights are gone as are the macro keys. The K60 instead ships with a removable wrist wrest (which is actually quite comfortable) and easily removable, textured WASD and 1-6 number keys. When not in use, the textured keys can be stored in the wrist wrest. The feel of each keypress remains the same as the K90, but the macro keys are gone and the styling of the K60 is a bit different.

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The M60 mouse includes a sniper button that allows you to quickly switch between high and low DPI modes (customizable in software).

Corsair Vengeance Headsets

 

Vengeance K90

Vengeance K60

Vengeance M90

Vengeance M60

Price

9

9

 

Final Words

I had some brief hands on time with all of the newly announced Vengeance peripherals, they all felt good but it'll take much longer than a short play session to really evaluate these things. I'm mostly curious to see how well these things do in the hands of hardcore gamers. Does Corsair have what it takes to pull customers away from the likes of Logitech, Microsoft and Razer?

Corsair's new Vengeance lineup will be available starting next month.

JAPANESE DISPLAY MAKERS Hitachi, Sony and Toshiba have decided to unload their LCD businesses into a government backed fund.

Japanese LCD firms are facing stiff competition from those based in South Korea and Taiwan, such as Samsung and AU Optronics. To defend firms such as Sony and Toshiba, which are seen as national symbols of pride in Japan, from dropping out of the market altogether, the Japanese government has created a fund that should keep some level of LCD manufacturing in Japan.

With Hitachi, Sony and Toshiba all divesting their LCD operations to this government backed fund, it could create the world’s biggest mobile LCD screen manufacturing unit. The idea is that by combining the firms it can better compete on price against its foreign rivals.

Norio Sasaki, president of Toshiba said, “Unless we have a top market share, we can’t cope flexibly with set-makers’ requests. The scale of our business is too small to grow continuously, or to remain competitive.”

The LCD market has been extremely tight in the past few years, and even well known brands such as Sony have struggled to make a go of the business. Sony acquired its LCD manufacturing technology from Seiko Epson only as recently as 2009 and the resources it will free up from the sale will go back into other components such as imaging sensors.

Bloomberg reports that even Samsung, which is the largest maker of flat-panel display screens, is looking to slim down its display division, aiming at “boosting the LCD unit’s competitiveness and stabilizing the organization”.

At this point it is difficult to say what the reduction in the number of LCD manufacturers will mean for consumers. Obviously choice is a good way of keeping end-user prices down, but given that the Japanese firms were all doing badly in the market, it seems that combining these three firms might actually provide better competition with Samsung and AU Optronics, which seem to be setting the market. µ

JAPANESE DISPLAY MAKERS Hitachi, Sony and Toshiba have decided to unload their LCD businesses into a government backed fund.

Japanese LCD firms are facing stiff competition from those based in South Korea and Taiwan, such as Samsung and AU Optronics. To defend firms such as Sony and Toshiba, which are seen as national symbols of pride in Japan, from dropping out of the market altogether, the Japanese government has created a fund that should keep some level of LCD manufacturing in Japan.

With Hitachi, Sony and Toshiba all divesting their LCD operations to this government backed fund, it could create the world’s biggest mobile LCD screen manufacturing unit. The idea is that by combining the firms it can better compete on price against its foreign rivals.

Norio Sasaki, president of Toshiba said, “Unless we have a top market share, we can’t cope flexibly with set-makers’ requests. The scale of our business is too small to grow continuously, or to remain competitive.”

The LCD market has been extremely tight in the past few years, and even well known brands such as Sony have struggled to make a go of the business. Sony acquired its LCD manufacturing technology from Seiko Epson only as recently as 2009 and the resources it will free up from the sale will go back into other components such as imaging sensors.

Bloomberg reports that even Samsung, which is the largest maker of flat-panel display screens, is looking to slim down its display division, aiming at “boosting the LCD unit’s competitiveness and stabilizing the organization”.

At this point it is difficult to say what the reduction in the number of LCD manufacturers will mean for consumers. Obviously choice is a good way of keeping end-user prices down, but given that the Japanese firms were all doing badly in the market, it seems that combining these three firms might actually provide better competition with Samsung and AU Optronics, which seem to be setting the market. µ

ANALYST OUTFIT IDC claims that China has overtaken the US to become the largest PC market in the world.

IDC’s PC market share report shows that China, which was a close second to the US in previous quarters, has finally pulled ahead in the second quarter of 2011. IDC forecasts that full calendar year results will show the US still has a slender 0.3 per cent lead over China, but it estimates that ultimately China will be out in front by over two per cent in 2012.

IDC claims that the US holiday buying season will mean that it will retain the top spot for this year. Kitty Fok, VP for greater China research at IDC said, “There are of course still risks ahead for China, including not just inflation but also the impact of economic conditions in the U.S. and Europe … But in the meantime, the Chinese government’s 12th Five-Year Plan should help large enterprises in various infrastructure verticals to continue to move along, not to mention of course the ongoing efforts to increase consumer penetration in lower-tier cities.”

The growing demand for PCs in China opens up the possibility that a Chinese company will look to buy HP’s PC business. Last week HP made the shocking announcement that it will consider selling off its PC business, even though it has held the number one spot for a number of years.

When IBM decided to shed its iconic range of PCs and laptops, it was the Chinese PC maker Lenovo that stepped up. In recent quarters Lenovo has done a sterling job of building up worldwide market share and has kept quality, especially in its Thinkpads, very high. If IDC’s figures show that China is going to become the single most important sales market for PCs, there is a chance that Lenovo might look to build on its position.

Regardless of which company makes a bid to pick up HP’s PC business, the news that China will overtake the US in PC market demand is a graphic illustration of just how big its economic power has become. µ

KOREAN ELECTRONICS GIANT Samsung is shipping 10 per cent more smartphones than a year ago, helping the overall mobile phone market grow by 11.3 per cent in the second quarter of this year, according to IDC.

The mid to high-end segments of the smartphone market were Samsung’s strongest performing areas, thanks to its flagship models the Galaxy S and Galaxy S II. All regions showed increased demand and shipments.

Mass-market models, such as the Ace, Mini, and Gio showed increased sales too, while Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablets also sold well.

Samsung expects both the smartphone and tablet markets to continue to perform strongly in the next two quarters. It predicts a 19 per cent increase in demand for smartphones in the second half of the year.

Samsung’s market share decreased slightly from 19.4 per cent a year ago to 19.2 per cent last quarter. This is still a fairly healthy position, however, and close to four times the 5.6 per cent market share of its rival, Apple.

IDC reports that the global mobile phone market increased 11.3 per cent in the second quarter, slightly less than the 13.3 per cent it predicted. It’s also a fair bit less than the 16.8 per cent increase seen in the first quarter this year.

Samsung reported a slight decrease in shipments of feature phones compared to the previous quarter, supporting IDC’s findings that the feature phone market shrunk by four percent compared to the same time last year.

The decline in Samsung’s feature phone demand will recover somewhat in the second half of the year with an increase of 14 per cent, largely due to the holiday season. Samsung also expects overall growth of 15 per cent for mobile phones in the second half of the year, with single-digit growth predicted for the third quarter.

Despite Samsung’s strong performance in the mobile sector, it reported a decline of 25 per cent in operating profit and an 18 per cent decline in net profit. The lower profit was largely due to low chip prices.

At the time of writing, Samsung’s share price is up by 7,000 won (£4.07) to 844,000 won (£491.36), an increase of 0.84 per cent. µ

SCATTER CUSHION HARDWARE, the tablet computer, will make its way into most homes with the Android operating system in place, according to a report.

Informa Telecoms and Media said that despite its considerable hold on the market Apple’s IOS based machines will start to fall out of favour with users over the next four years before being completely swept aside by Android devices.

Informa has gone into some detail about the rise of Android on tablets and has decided that it will really start punching its weight in 2013 before battling with Apple in 2016 and knocking it onto the canvas the year after.

“Three factors have proven to be decisive in the success and failure of tablets: brand; access to distribution channels; and product quality, including the application environment offered,” said Informa telecoms and media principal analyst David McQueen.

“At the moment, the iPad leads in all three areas but Apple’s edge is likely to wane as the quality of the competing products and application environments improves.”

Although there are some low-priced Android tablets available already, Informa reckons that it will be increased availability that really increases Android tablet sales. It estimates that by 2015 some 230 million tablets will be sold every year. µ

CHINESE PHONE MAKER ZTE has big plans for the UK market and was in London Wednesday evening to share these with the world – well, a handful of IT press, anyway.

The firm has signed a deal with distributor Brightpoint, which will see ZTE-branded unlocked handsets hit the high street and online stores in the coming months. Specifics of the devices were not given.

ZTE has already launched the Blade, rebranded as the San Francisco and available from mobile operator Orange in the UK. It will launch the Skate handset by the fourth quarter, which will be sold as the Monte Carlo by mobile operator Orange but might also be available as one of the SIM-free devices.

The Skate is a bigger and faster version of the San Francisco with a 4.3-inch 480×800 touchscreen and an 800MHz processor running Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

Wu Sa, the firm’s UK director of mobile device operations, was keen to play up the innovative nature of the company, with 10 per cent of revenues ploughed back into R&D.

He added that ZTE is aiming to sell 80 million handsets worldwide this year, a 33 per cent increase on the 60 million sold last year.

The INQUIRER went along to the ZTE event, held at the Ice Bar, which Sa said was appropriate for such ‘cool’ products. You can see us wearing some very ‘cool’ outfits in the picture below.

We knew there would have to be a connection between ZTE and the choice of venue, and we were wondering if it was something to do with Skate-ing on thin ice with its sales targets.

Whether the Skate will actually appear in the fourth quarter remains to be seen. Maybe it will go the same way as the goodie bags which Sa promised for all attendees, but failed to materialise. Perhaps they got stuck in the ice. µ

Today has been a long time in coming; we first heard about Llano way back in 2008, but even then the target date was 2011. Even so, AMD has been hurting for a compelling mobile platform since… well, since ever. Even in the glory days of the K8 platforms, AMD never had a great mobile strategy, a fact that Intel capitalized on with the launch of Banias and the original Pentium M Centrino platform in 2003. Presumably the goal of most laptops is to actually work well as mobile computing platforms, and prior to 2011 the best AMD could do was compete on performance and price, with battery life (e.g. actual mobility) never quite keeping pace with the times. Earlier this year, AMD launched Brazos, their low-power alternative to Intel’s Atom ecosystem. It boasted better performance and much better graphics than Atom, with battery life that checked in at a respectable 8+ hours for a moderate 56Wh battery. Of course, there are Intel laptops that can provide battery life that’s very close to Brazos with general performance that’s 3x faster, so Brazos isn’t a panacea.

Enter Llano, the mainstream alternative to the low-power Brazos that brings AMD’s APU A-series to market with a much faster CPU and GPU. Llano is also AMD’s (GlobalFoundries’) first 32nm CPU, which brings AMD back to parity with Intel in terms of process technology. The process shrink should bring lower power requirements, smaller die sizes, and better performance. Add in power gating, Turbo Core, and expected pricing starting at 0 for quad-core laptops and the A-series starts to sound quite compelling.  So just how good is Llano, and can AMD finally start to steal more of the mobile market from Intel? Let’s find out.

Today has been a long time in coming; we first heard about Llano way back in 2008, but even then the target date was 2011. Even so, AMD has been hurting for a compelling mobile platform since… well, since ever. Even in the glory days of the K8 platforms, AMD never had a great mobile strategy, a fact that Intel capitalized on with the launch of Banias and the original Pentium M Centrino platform in 2003. Presumably the goal of most laptops is to actually work well as mobile computing platforms, and prior to 2011 the best AMD could do was compete on performance and price, with battery life (e.g. actual mobility) never quite keeping pace with the times. Earlier this year, AMD launched Brazos, their low-power alternative to Intel’s Atom ecosystem. It boasted better performance and much better graphics than Atom, with battery life that checked in at a respectable 8+ hours for a moderate 56Wh battery. Of course, there are Intel laptops that can provide battery life that’s very close to Brazos with general performance that’s 3x faster, so Brazos isn’t a panacea.

Enter Llano, the mainstream alternative to the low-power Brazos that brings AMD’s APU A-series to market with a much faster CPU and GPU. Llano is also AMD’s (GlobalFoundries’) first 32nm CPU, which brings AMD back to parity with Intel in terms of process technology. The process shrink should bring lower power requirements, smaller die sizes, and better performance. Add in power gating, Turbo Core, and expected pricing starting at 0 for quad-core laptops and the A-series starts to sound quite compelling.  So just how good is Llano, and can AMD finally start to steal more of the mobile market from Intel? Let’s find out.