Laptops News - Page 54

Lenovo India has removed three of the leading Indian e-tailers from their authorized sellers list: Snapdeal, FlipKart and Amazon India. The Chinese based PC and mobile device maker also issued a notice in their website with a message that users should check the warranty period while purchasing from such sites. Few months ago, Nikon delisted FlipKart and Snapdeal from their authorized list.

Many of these companies with its own online retail websites have started a protest against such online retail websites as their 'predatory' pricing are hurting their business and profit margins.

Lenovo India said: "It has come to our notice that some of the online stores and marketplaces are selling Lenovo products at heavily discounted prices. Our observation is that these may not be Lenovo authorized resellers and keeping our end customers' interest in mind, we have accordingly issued an advisory on our Web site."

CES 2014 - There aren't many thin gaming notebooks on the market outside of the Razer Blade, but it looks like GIGABYTE's new Aorus series will take care of that. GIGABYTE's Aorus is the company's new PC gaming hardware brand, which has started off with a new gaming notebook.

The Aorus X7 is a 17.3-inch gaming notebook which features Intel's Core i7-4700HQ processor, two NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M GPUs in SLI, up to 32GB of RAM, a pair of 512GB SSDs and the storage is backed up by a 1TB mechanical HDD. All of this arrives in chassis that is just 0.9 inches thick, with two fans, four vents and five thermal pipes doing everything they can to keep GIGABYTE's Aorus X7 cool.

Connectivity wise we have dual HDMI ports, a mini DisplayPort and VGA socket that will drive up to three more monitors from the Aorus X7. GIGABYTE has provided some anti-ghosting keys, dedicated macro buttons on its backlit keyboard, a Killer NIC networking chip, and 802.11ac Wi-Fi to wrap things up. We should expect the GIGABYTE Aorus X7 to ship in March, with prices falling between $2,099 and $2,799.

CES 2014 - We all know Lenovo has some of the best notebooks on the market, but it has just refreshed its X1 Carbon notebook at the Consumer Electronics Show 2014 that is currently cranking along in Las Vegas.

The refreshed Thinkpad X1 Carbon offers a carbon fiber-constructed chassis, which weighs in at 2.8 pounds. Something unique that Lenovo has done with its X1 Carbon is provide an Adaptive Keyboard, which the company claims "dynamically adjusts based on the software or application being used to highlight the most relevant keys". The 14-inch display is of the anti-glare variety, with Lenovo offering up a 1600x900 or 2560x1440 resolution.

Lenovo has provided a rapid-charge technology, which will provide 80% of the total charge in under an hour, on top of a nine-hour battery. The pricing on the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon isn't bad, starting at $1,299. The refreshed X1 Carbon will be available starting at the end of the month.

This morning MSI announced the launch of a new mobile lineup that includes the industry's first 3K gaming notebook and an Adobe certified 3K workstation. Just in time for Christmas, the all new GT60 20D-261US features a ultra-HD display resolution of 2880x1620 which provides bright, sharp and crisp graphics for an unmatched experience.

The GT60 gaming notebook features an Intel Core i7-4700MQ processor, 16GB of DDR3L RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M GPU, and a Killer NIC. A 720p webcam is on hand while Dynaudio speakers and a subwoofer handle the audio. The 2880x1620 3K display is of the 15.6-inch class, but does not feature touch sensitivity. Three USB 3.0 ports and two USB 2.0 ports, and a 128GB SSD / 1TB HHD combo rounds things out.

The GT60 Workstation has been optimized to run Adobe Creative Suite 6, Autodesk software, and Solidworks, and the 3K display allows professionals to work in stunning ultra high-resolution for the highest quality work possible from a mobile workstation. The GT60 2OKWS-278US features the same CPU, RAM, and storage. The difference in the powerful NVIDIA Quado K3100M workstation GPU that MSI has fit inside.

Acer has announced their new Acer C720P Chromebook, which is a touchscreen version of their C720 budget Chromebook that was introduced last month. The Acer C720P will be available early December, and will come equipped with a HD 11.6 inch 1366x768 LED touchscreen display. This is Acer's first touchscreen Chromebook.

The Acer C720P has a 7.5 hour battery life and a 7-second boot up time. It runs off an Intel Celeron 2955U processor, it also comes with a 32GB SSD and 2GB of DDR3 memory. Other features include an HD webcam, duel speakers, both USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, as well as an HDMI port. It can support 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and will come with 100GB of Google drive storage free for two years, plus 12 free Gogo inflight passes. The Acer C720P will be available to purchase from Amazon, Best Buy, and directly from Acer early December for $299.99.

Acer CTO Arif Maskatia: "Our new touchscreen C720P gives customers an intuitive way to browse sites online, enjoy apps, and do more with the Chromebook. The Acer C720 Chromebook line has been praised for its performance and battery life, and this new touchscreen model allows us to address the needs of an even wider range of customers with exciting new capabilities. We're certain many holiday shoppers will jump at the chance to get a touchscreen Chromebook for just $299.99."

HP and Google's new Chromebook 11 was promised to be this holiday seasons biggest notebook seller, but things are not looking to good for the $279 Chrome OS laptop. Today The Verge received a tip from a Best Buy insider who says that Best Buy corporate offices have sent urgent memos to store managers to stop selling the Chromebook 11.

"Stores should stop selling the HP Chromebook 11 effective immediately," reads an internal memo to Best Buy managers. "Partner with Sales Support to pull the product off the sales floor to a secure location in the warehouse." Since the memo went out, Best Buy has removed the Chromebook 11 from its website. Amazon, HP, and Google have also all listed the device as being out of stock on their websites as well.

At the moment it is unclear as to why sales and shipments of the devices have been suspended, and other than speculation about lower than expected stock levels, no other explanation has been poised by analyst. Amazon does list the item as being unavailable because "customers have told us there may be something wrong with our inventory of the item, the way we are shipping it, or the way it's described here." I have reached out to Google, HP, and Best Buy for comments and will report back when they reply.

Today Lenovo announced the all new IdeaPad A10, the companies first ultra-portable, dual-mode laptop to run Android 4.2. The A10 holds to its description of being ultra-portable too, the laptop weighs in at less than 2.5-pounds and measures just 17.3mm thick. Lenovo says that the new A10 was designed with users on the go in mind and that its new dual-mode feature will greatly enhance the user experience.

"With the recent explosive growth in Android-based, smart connected devices, customers are relying more on Android apps for both work and play. Why should they be required to switch and duplicate to use their laptop? Lenovo's A10 brings ultra-portability and dual-mode benefits to Android users at a reasonable price," said Bai Peng, vice president and general manager, notebook business unit, Lenovo Business Group. "Thin and light, with multiple modes and user-inspired innovations for an outstanding user experience ? the A10 is uniquely Lenovo."

The laptop features a 10.1-inch 1366x768 resolution display which can be flipped 300 degrees to enter "stand mode" allowing for a comfortable viewing angle when watching video content. The A10 is powered by an RK3188, a quad-core ARM Cortex A9 processor which gives the device the power it needs to function as a productivity device as well as an entertainment hub.

Today Apple issued a recall on all MacBook Air models sold between June 2012 and June 2013 that have a 64GB or 128GB SSD inside. These smaller SSDs were manufactured by Toshiba and have a defect from the factory that could cause users to lose all of their data. MackBook Air's with 256GB SSDs are not affected as their SSD was manufactured by Samsung.

Apple has determined that certain 64GB and 128GB flash storage drives used in the previous generation of MacBook Air systems may fail. These systems were sold between June 2012 through June 2013.

Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP) will replace affected flash storage drives, free of charge.

Fujitsu has just unveiled its latest notebook, the Lifebook U904, which features a 14-inch IGZO panel and a super-high resolution of 3200x1800. There are two models, one with a glossy panel and touch input, and the second is an anti-glare panel without touch capabilities.

The Lifebook U904 is powered by Intel's Haswell range of processors with Intel HD Graphics 4400 powering the graphics side of things. We have it weighing in at 3.06 lbs and a thickness of 0.61 inches. Fujitsu claims that its Lifebook U904 is the "world's thinnest 14-inch ultrabook." There's a choice of an SSHD or SSD for storage, USB 3.0 and HDMI connectivity are featured, as well as optional LTE wireless which is a nice touch.

You can grab the Lifebook U904 from Fujitsu's online store starting from $1,999 which comes with a glossy touchscreen and 320GB SSHD. Windows 8.1 is featured, so you shouldn't expect to receive the Lifebook U904 until after October 17.

Apple is losing its war in multiple fronts at the moment, all while money is filling its coffers. It looks like MacBook shipments will decrease this year, even with the company increasing its orders to the upstream supply chain for new MacBook models.

The news comes from DigiTimes' sources in the upstream supply chain who also said that their shipments for the new MacBook devices have been increasing since June, with volumes in Q3 increasing by 10-20%. This growth is expected to continue going into this month. But, Apple is seeing issues with its shipment numbers in relation to a suspension of component shipments for a three-month period in the first half of the year, which will hurt overall MacBook shipments across 2013.

Last year, Apple shipped 13.03 million MacBooks, but only 5.3 million units were shipped in the first half of this year. This means that Apple needs to ship over 7.73 million units in the last six months of this year to just be equal to 2012's performance. I think this comes down to Apple not giving the world anything exciting in its Mac line, if it pushed touchscreen models into the mix, we might see a turn around.