Samsung unveiled yesterday their first two netbooks for the Philippine market. Sporting the latest Intel Atom N450 processor are the N220 and the N150. The N220 has a stylish color finish (looks like glass-encased) while the more affordable N150 has a glossy scratch-resistant finish.

Spec-wise both models are pretty basic:

• Intel Atom N450 (1.66GHz)
• Windows 7 Starter (can be upgraded)
• 10.1” WSVGA LED display (1024×600)
• 1GB DDR2 RAM
• 160GB HDD for the N150 and 250GB for the N220
• Wifi, LAN, Bluetooth, 3 USB ports
• 0.3 megapixel Digital LiveCam

Aside from the design and disk space, the only other difference is the battery life. The N150 has a 4400mah 6-cell battery (8 hours) while the N220 has a 5900mah 6-cell battery (12 hours).

Samsung also included a lot of proprietary utility software to make life easier for the user. Also a feature on both netbooks is the Hyperspace which allows you to instantly use your netbook without waiting for Windows to boot.

The Samsung N150 is priced at P21,900 and comes in black and white while the N220 will go for P24,900 in either green or red. Both should be available in the market this month.

Today Smart is offering the HTC Magic for free on Smart Gold Plan 1800. Not really a huge deal until you get to the part where the plan comes with unlimited surfing. Now that’s a nice mobile plan altogether.

Smart’s regular Gold Plan 1800 includes 450 free SMS and 344 minutes free calls per month.

If you’re the type of person who feels intimidated using DSLR’s or lazy enough or don’t have the patience to tinker with the manual settings just to take a shot then you would probably want to consider the SP-800UZ.

The SP-800UZ is an easy to use “all-in-one” 14-megapixel camera that caters to people who wants to take good, quality shots without dwelling too much on the intricacies of a camera’s settings. Not only that, this paparazzi camera has a super-telephoto 30x optical zoom (28mm wide-angle to 840mm telephoto) to capture big, up-close images from afar.

A cool new feature available in the SP-800UZ is the “background defocusing” scene mode. Yup, choosing this scene mode will blur the background and focus on the subject in the foreground for those artistic photographs that people love.

The Olympus SP-800UZ is an upgrade from the SP-590UZ which can only do 26x zoom and requires 4 AA batteries as opposed to the Lithium Ion of the newer model. This new model can also record 720p hi definition videos.

See complete specs from dpreview.

The SP-800UZ will be available this month for P22,995 and comes with a 4GB SD card, Lens Pen and a Speedo Watch. For the 15x zoom model, SP-600UZ, the price is P16,995 and comes with 4GB SD card and a Lens Pen.

Familiarity for iPhoto users

If you love how iPhoto ‘09 manages your photo library then you will love how it is now incorporated with Aperture 3. Yup, Aperture 3 can now replace your iPhoto as your photo editing and management software. It also inherited iPhoto 09’s Faces (face recognition and tagging) and Places (geo-tagging) feature that is quite useful if you take a lot of vacation photos. Uploading to Facebook and Flickr is also included.

iPhoto in steroids

Aperture 3 is not your ordinary photo organizer software. If you usually edit your photos to correct lighting, white balance, etc., then you would you find it easy to use Aperture 3’s presets and brushes.

Users of Adobe Lightroom are familiar with presets where you can treat photos with artistic effects based on preset settings. Aperture 3 has those but also offers brushes if you only want to treat a certain portion of a photo. You can set presets to your brushes so you can only apply for some spot treatments like only brushing the sky or the water with the polarizer preset.

Create beautiful slideshows on the fly

If you want to show your relatives your vacation photos but want to do it with style, Aperture 3 allows you to create beautiful slideshows with a click of a button. Just select a library to show and the theme that you want and that’s it. You can also choose a soundtrack from your iTunes and export it as a video for your iPhone, iPod, HDTV, etc. and never show a boring slideshow to your family ever again.

Pricing

Aperture 3 is available through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com.ph) and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of P10,290 and existing Aperture users can upgrade for a suggested retail price of P5,190.

You can also try a full-version of Aperture 3 for 30-days by downloading it from http://www.apple.com/sg/aperture/trial/.

Yep, new Office 2007 customers can download the Office 2010 come June at no additional cost for their free upgrade.

To be eligible for the Office 2010 Technology Guarantee program, you must:

• Purchase Office 2007, or a new PC with Office 2007, and activate it between March 5, 2010 and September 30, 2010
• Have, or create a Windows Live ID
• Redeem your Tech Guarantee before October 31, 2010 by visiting www.office.com/techg

That’s it! No need to go back to your store for a CD installer. If you want to try out Microsoft Office 2010, there’s a beta version available at www.office.com/beta. 

Separating itself from those glossy, black or decal-painted netbooks, the Asus Eee PC 1008P Karim Rashid Collection sports a rubbery-texture crocodile-looking hide that looks so good that you don’t want to put it in a bag or a sleeve.

This designer edition netbook is based on the Eee PC Seashell 1008HA that was released last year. It has the same slim form factor and light weight at only 1.145kg. What’s new with the 1008P is the Intel N450 processor, Windows 7 OS and 250GB hard drive.

The Eee PC 1008P also has a 3-cell Li-polymer battery which Asus claims can go for 6 hours on a single charge. More like 4 hours in normal usage which is pretty low considering that it’s already using the Intel N450.

People would want to have this netbook mainly for its style and at P25,900, it’s already a good price IMHO. The Karim Rashid Collection comes in glossy Hot Pink for the ladies or matte Coffe Brown for the gentlemen.

This limited edition Asus netbook is only available in select dealer stores: Octagon – Megamall, Complink – MOA, Villman – North Edsa and Accent Micro in Park Square, Makati.

Here are bits and pieces of Qualcomm-related news:

• Qualcomm announced that its Snapdragon platform will be the first to support Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series software
• Oracle and Qualcomm announced plans to pre-integrate Oracle’s Sun Java Wireless Client on the Brew Mobile Platform operating system
• 3G connectivity to automobiles brought by Audi and Qualcomm collaboration
• Qualcomm to hit other market segments like e-Readers, gaming devices and M2M commectial application with its Gobi multimode wireless technology
• Qualcomm unveils new smartbook applications for live mobile TV
• The company announced its new FLO-EV mobile broadcast technology

This year’s Mobile World Congress surely proves that wireless innovation is alive and growing.

ASUS, one of the premiere motherboard manufacturers offer excellent performance, reliability and safety on their motherboards through its Anti-Surge feature. Not only that, if in the small chance that the Anti-Surge feature fail to protect your motherboard from power surge, it will also cover your investment with a Burnt Warranty.

Under the Burnt Warranty policy of ASUS, if the onboard power section of any of the motherboards offering this warranty is burnt due to power fluctuation or external sources; the customer need not worry as the motherboard will be replaced or repaired by the company at no extra cost. Customers just need to return the motherboards at the dealer store where they purchased it. The warranty is valid for three years from the date the motherboards were manufactured.

Motherboards under this policy include the following: P7H55-V, P7H55-M, P5G41-M LE, P5G41T-M LX, P5KPL-AM/PS, M4A79T Deluxe, M4A785T-M, M4A785-M, M4A78LT-M LE, and M4N68T-M.

“Over the last few years we have been steadily advancing our Internet for All advocacy and investing our energies to make wireless Internet more affordable and widely available – whether via mobile phone, the PC, or laptop – anytime, anywhere, so that Filipinos may benefit from it. Offering Smart Bro SurfTV is a natural progression of that strategy, this is a service that will put the Internet right in the homes of Filipino families,” said Orlando B. Vea, Chief Wireless Advisor of SMART.

Smart Bro SurfTV comes in a boxed set complete with a keyboard, a mouse, a remote control, and a Smart Bro USB stick-type modem with a prepaid SIM, pre-loaded with PhP100 worth of load. The entire kit costs only PhP4,500, and Internet access costs only PhP10 for every 30 minutes. Load for the prepaid Smart Bro SIM is available through any of SMART’s network of over a million Smart Load sellers all over the country.

If you’re a Filipino aged 10-16 years old, all you need to do is creatively answer in a 30-60 second video the question, “Why I deserve to win the Sony Ericsson Search for the FIFA World Cup™ flag bearer.”

You can do anything you want. Dance, sing, juggle a football, have friends or family play a part in the video, just use your imagination to impress the judges. You can submit as many entries as you want at http://www.clickthecity.com/sonyericssonfifa/ until March 5, 2010.

On March 8, 2010, five videos will be selected by the judges and the public will decide which child should carry the FIFA flag come July. The five finalists will also receive a Sony Ericsson Kita gesture gaming phone as prize.

The winner, together with his parent or guardian, will fly to South Africa complete with hotel accommodations and pocket money. He will walk the pitch with other young flag bearers and watch a thrilling FIFA World Cup™ semi-finals match firsthand.

For more info, visit http://www.clickthecity.com/sonyericssonfifa/.