The HP Mini 210 HD, to be officially announced next week, boasts a 1.66GHz N450 Atom CPU and GMA 3150 graphics. The N450 is half as small as and nearly 20% more efficient than its predecessor. The HD designation will likely come courtesy of Broadcom's Crystal HD video chip.

The netbook will be available in Sonoma Red, Solid Black, Silver Crystal or Pacific Blue and is expected to ship for $330 next week after its official announcement at CES. [Logic Buy via Engadget]

The event looks like a proper announcement party, if not a full launch—demonstrations are on the itinerary, which is unsurprising given that Google has been handing out Nexus Ones left and right. (And that we've already played with one.) The meat of the announcement, presumably, will be about how they're going to sell it. We now know that the phone will be "supported" by T-Mobile, but we don't have a full picture of the rate plans, contract situation (if any) or, obviously, the price.

Also interesting: they've scheduled this right at the beginning of CES. To the tech press, most of whom will be bivouacked in Vegas by then, this is a minor annoyance. To everyone planning on making waves at the conference, this is more than an annoyance, it's a crippling blow: Google could steal the show at this year's CES, like Palm did last year. The difference is, they'll do it without even being there. [AllThingsD]

Thankfully LG didn't compromise on diagonal size, with this prototype coming in at 42-inches. It's LED-backlit, with a 120Hz processor (for the US market, anyway) and apparently only weighs 4 kilograms.

Please excuse me while I fall over in shock. [I4U]

As for what the Tegra 2 is, nobody really knows, because the closest Nvdia execs will get to a spec rundown is to offer vague promises of MORE: evidently it will be at least twice as powerful as its predecessor, which was was impressive in its own right. We'll get a sense of how powerful it is at CES, but the major point Nvidia would like to make is that unlike last time, the Tegra 2 will actually get used:

At CES we are going to make a major announcement about Tegra family. It is highly possible that we will see some very interesting form-factors coming out at the same time. [There will be products] shown by our partners using the next-generation Tegra device. You are going to see roll-outs and deployments of tablet PCs, smartbooks, netbooks, MIDs throughout the first half [of the year]; and then you will see major roll-outs of smartphones in the second half

This jibes with chatter from the last few months that companies like Samsung, Nintendo and even Nvidia themselves have suddenly started working on Tegra hardware; we just didn't know until now that it'd be next gen. What we still don't know is what that means: If the original Tegra could decode 1080p video, what can the new one do? Decode 1080p video more enthusiastically? [XbitLabs]

An updated Pre is the safe bet. I don't think they're going to let their brand go an entire year without a new high-end phone, and the Pre is getting a bit worn compared to the hype on the 3GS and the Droid (and Android as a whole). Palm has to pull out something big to wow people back into their camp.

Electronista also points out that this will be the first "major presentation" for CEO Jon Rubenstein since he became CEO.

You can help him win the slot by simply voting for him. Voting will run through 11:59 p.m. PT on 11/29/09. Good luck Jake!

The information posted regarding Sony television models is incorrect. Any specifications, model names, photographs or other details were not issued by Sony and do not represent the company's current or future product line.

The updated XBR series would scale up to 60-inches, and feature 240Hz Motionflow, W-LED-backlighting, a new Bravia Engine 3 Pro with HD video processor, and UV2A panel technology. HDTVLounge also believes the shot above may well be a glimpse of the 32-inch XBR11's new floating glass design.

As for the OLED TV, it's just one of several models that are on the proposed list:
• KDL-S6100 | Entry CCFL
• KDL-V6100 | Mind Range CCFL
• KDL-W6100 | Mid Range CCFL
• KDL-Z6100 | High Range CCFL
• KDL-X500 | Mid Range Edge-Lit LED LCD
• KDL-650 | High Range Edge-Lit LED LCD
• KDL-XBR11 | High Range W-LED Backlit LCD
• KDL-XBR12 | High Range Advanced LED RGB Backlit LCD
• KDL-ZX Series OLED

Fingers crossed we see some of these at CES in January. [HDTV Lounge]

"The mPower Reserve Battery offers an unprecedented minimum shelf life of 20 years and has an immediate activation to full power. Through an intricate battery design, mPhase developed a way to eliminate power dissipation before initial activation."

The flashlight uses an intense, high-performance LED, and has an accessory USB connection to charge your mobile devices. It's slated to arrive in March, but we hope to get a better look at it at CES in January. [CNETand Yahoo News]

The reason this is even a subject again is because of an oddly (and perhaps tellingly) vague piece posted on the the WSJ's Digits blog by Ben Charny, who flat out claims that that Apple plans to use CES to replace Macworld, which it walked away from last year:

Apple plans to attend the show's 2010 version, marking the first time in memory the Cupertino, Calif., consumer-electronics giant will be there.

That sounds clear enough, but it's buried in a piece that otherwise seems to be about how the chief executive of the CEA, Gary Shapiro, can't get in touch with Steve Jobs. But hey, he's probably just being vague, and drew his conclusion from quotes that he didn't include! That's what journalists do, sometimes! Except the meeting from which Charny drew his conclusion was a dinner with multiple attendees, one of whom happens to be ex Engadget editor and current CEA advisor Ryan Block. He took issue with Charny's reading of events:

[I]t's also specious and flatly wrong. I was seated directly across from Gary, and present for the entire conversation, wherein a dozen or so other journos chatted with him and one another. When asked about the CEA's ongoing contact with Jobs, Gary joked that every once in a while Steve might even return his email — to which we all laughed knowingly. Yep, that's our Steve. Shapiro went on to mention that Apple was a great and long-standing supporter of the efforts of the CEA, but that their only direct involvement was sending a check each year to pay their membership dues.

As far as the WSJ post goes, this is pretty damning. But it really just rules out Charny's version of this dinner, not the possibility that Apple will actually go to CES. As far as that question goes, we're left with the same evidence we had last time rumors like this went around, all the way back in January. The verdict then, and still, is that they probably won't: January's a pretty terrible time to launch new products, but more to the point, Apple doesn't even care about industry trade shows—which CES epitomizes in all the worst ways—anymore. Their statement from all those months ago hasn't been followed up:

Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple's Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.

Apple would gain nothing from going large at CES, so until a credible story comes along that says otherwise, that's the word. [WSJ via Engadget]

The two big chipmakers seem to think so. CNET's sources at CES told them that the processor, which will be priced above the Atom but below the pricey ULV Core 2 Duos found in ultraportables and current thin laptops like the MacBook Air and Voodoo Envy 133, are "going to enable notebooks that are less than one inch (25mm) thick," but that don't cost as much as the aforementioned computers. The performance level will be commensurate with the price, give or take: significantly more powerful than the Atom, but by no means a flagship processor.

Details are scarce for the time being, but the processor seems to have an identical mission as AMD's Neo: create an entirely category of laptop, designed like an ultraportable, but priced between a netbook and a notebook. Does anyone need this, or want this? HP's 12-inch DV2 is the first of its kind, and by definition these new ultrathin laptops won't deviate much from its precedents. If it doesn't get your juices flowing, it's doubtful that any of these new bridge machines will. [CNET via Engadget]

Their tent, sponsored by LG, had connectors for a variety of handsets (good on LG for that), and I've read scattered reports today that said you'd get about a 30% charge in 30 minutes.

Now, if they could only find a way to recharge our exhausted CES 2009 staff, who are no doubt spent after their extensive conference coverage and a few innocent pranks. Those CES massages were a start, but only a start. I imagine they need something more.

TreeHugger has some video of a GotWind rep explaining the system and making a charge:

[Treehugger]

The zombies represent, uh, unrecycled TVs or something, I guess. And it appears that they got kicked out really quickly, so in order to make up for the lack of footage they shot them doing the thriller dance. Ohhhkay.

But in the end, their message, that TV companies should provide convenient ways for people to recycle their old sets to protect the environment, is solid. And their methods, while awkward, are helping them get the message out, this post included. So kudos, awkward zombies. [Take Back My TV]

OLED TVs—a nigh miraculous display tech that blows away plasma and LCD when it comes to sheer OMGorgeousness—were supposed to hit their trade-show fantasy prime this year: Still too expensive for you and me, but flooding our greedy retinas with stunning images at every corner, just a few months away from hanging on Usher's bathroom wall. It's not just that there aren't any of the big OLED TVs we'd been hearing about—nothing near 40 inches—we're just not seeing them.

The announcements were really low-key or non-existent. Sir Howard gave a brief shout-out to Sony's new flexible OLED in his keynote. Not a peep of new product in Samsung's conference. The booth footprint is also tiny—remarkably so, considering how hard S & S were cheerleading last year.

OLED TVs being shown off this year would still be crazy expensive, yes, and big ones, retardedly so. But the argument that the economy deflated the rapidly expanding OLED TV bubble doesn't make a whole lot of sense—the economy panic really hit in late summer/early fall, while development cycles are years long. More than that, affordability has never been a tenant or consideration in the annual parade of what's new, what's amazing, what's next. Last year, they said it was OLED. So where is it?

Samsung says they need to run through at least one more generation of LCD—with a new, heretofore unseen generation of LED backlighting technology—before OLED will be ready for primetime. And it's unlikely they're going to let Sony step ahead of them, so now we're talking 2011ish at the very minimum. Not to mention, the plasma guys—Panasonic and Pioneer—aren't even going to talk OLED till they've finished milking their ultra-thin plasma strategy dry.

There is a bright side, at least for a handful of rich dudes: A slowed OLED TV development cycle means their 11-inch XEL-1s will be special for that much longer.

One of Intel's special projects division threw the screen together to demonstrate the Core i7's polygon-crunching skillz (you may be able to see a tiny fps meter there in the corner as the model spins), and they don't plan to bring it into any commercial products any time soon. Still, spinning a 3D model floating between two sheets of glass with your finger (only one though, sadly no multitouch) is still a thrill, after all these years. But would you want to do it all day working for Precrime division? My toothpick arms wouldn't hold up.