Laptops - Page 44

There are always a lot of rumors associated with Apple as their products are surrounded by security up until they launch. Today brings another rumor who is citing sources in the supply chain. As always, until it is confirmed by Apple (so, at launch), it is a rumor, so take some salt, throw it over your shoulder and read on.

As Apple's Tim Cook said at the close of the iPad 3 launch, "There's a lot to look forward to." Not only is he promising us more releases, but he is promising them to be good. If the sources are correct, one of these good upcoming releases will be the next generation 15-inch MacBook Pro. The rumor says that it will not be Air-like in its unibody construction.

Rather, it will be a thinned down version of the current unibody design. In order to thin the case, Apple will be removing the optical drive, but who uses those anyway? This means that the power button will be moved to where the eject button used to be on the keyboard. Of course, it features a compliment of connectivity ports along the side.

Everyone has heard of the Intel Ultrabook by now. Intel has spent large sums of money on advertising Ultrabooks as well as helping manufacturers develop Ultrabooks. Unfortunately, as of right now, Ultrabook pricing has been high and out of the range of many consumers, including yours truly. By not using the name 'Ultrabook,' HP doesn't have to fully abide by Intel's rules.

This new line is said to feature both AMD or Intel processors along with a choice of 14- or 15.6-inch screens. Prices are said to start around $599 as opposed to the $749 starting price of other Ultrabooks. The aggressive pricing should help bring in more consumers, and it certainly has my interests piqued.

The machines are maintained at 19.8mm thickness, or less, and weigh under 1.8kg. Battery life is said to last for between seven and nine hours. The release of AMD Trinity, which should occur soon, will further boost the platform. The lack of Ultrabook qualification does have a few detriments, but overall this new machine should gain a lot of support from consumers.

Rumors about upcoming Apple products are often some of the most interesting and fun as Apple products are often shrouded in security and hard to pin down any detail. As such, many rumors pop up that aren't true but sound reasonable. This rumor could very well fit into this category, or it could end up being true.

It's important to note that the picture above is a mock-up and not an actual photo of the upcoming MacBook Pro 2012. The rumor we are dealing with today says that Apple will be ditching the optical drive in the next iteration of the MacBook Pro. As Apple has proven the CD-less model works using the MacBook Air, this isn't out of the realm of possibility.

Ditching the optical drive will leave a gaping hole in the chassis, so one might think that the case will get a size reduction similar to the Air. The rumor states that this is wrong and that instead the MacBook Pro will be getting a larger battery along with a second drive. The two drive system would provide one SSD for boot only and a standard HDD for everything else.

Samsung have done the world some good, pre-announcing their Series 9 Ultrabook. The model in question is the Samsung NP900X4C, which will be the company's first 15-inch model in the Series 9 family of notebooks.

Ivy Bridge processors destined for Ultrabooks aren't supposed to be available for another month, but this hasn't stopped Samsung's UK-based branch from teasing us with their Series 9 line of notebooks sporting the 22nm-based processor. The NP900X4C sports a mid-range Core i5-3317U running at 1.7GHz with a top turbo speed of 2.6GHz.

Filling the Ultrabook out is the HM75 chipset, 8GB (!) of 1600MHz DDR3 memory, a 128GB SSD drive, the 15-inch aforementioned screen with a resolution of 1600x900 and a panel with 400nits brightness. Graphics power will be driven with Intel's HD 4000 IGP, which isn't gaming-worthy, but its better than previous offerings. The NP900X4C also comes with 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi with WiDi support, Bluetooth 4.0, a microHDMI port, two USB 3.0 ports, a USB 2.0 port, combo headphone/mic jack, an SD/MMC slot and a 1.3-megapixel webcam.

Images have leaked out onto the Internet of Lenovo's Ivy Bridge-powered Ultrabook thanks to Swiss retailer ThinkpadCenter.ch. They've posted a photo and some information on specs for Lenovo's upcoming Ultrabook, and tablet.

The new Lenovo products should arrive within the next eight weeks or so. The leaked image teases the Lenovo ThinkPad X230, which is an Ultrabook which keeps Lenovo's ThinkPad aesthetic, sporting a chiclet-style AccuTyre keyboard.

The site also shows off some information on the ThinkPad X230t, which is the tablet version of the product, but there's no pictures available for that model. The laptop and tablets will sport 12.5-inch screens with a 1366x768 resolution display. Storage options include 320GB and 500GB traditional HDDs, as well as a 180GB SSD option.

Ultrabooks are here, but they haven't really been huge sellers yet. No sales records are being set, there aren't any 8-hour lineups outside of retailers, but Dell are actually doing surprisingly well with their XPS 13 Ultrabook. Sales have been higher than the company's initial projections, with Dell saying that demand has been around three times what they expected for the Ultrabook. Vice president of Dell's Consumer and SMB product group, Sam Burd, says:

Dell haven't provided specific numbers, but this is great news for Ultrabook makers as a whole. Price was meant to be the main selling point of Ultrabooks, where they were meant to be priced at around $600 but the original units that arrived on the market were much more than this.

Samsung have just unveiled their Series 7 Gamer notebook, and whilst you might think "Samsung... Gaming notebook... really?", you might want to think twice! It is definitely specced very nicely, and it looks awesome, too.

Let's talk some specs, the Series 7 Gamer notebook sports a 17.3-inch next-generation Full HD LCD with Samsung's SuperBright technology which gives a 400-nit screen, which is up to 50-percent brighter than traditional PCs. An Intel Core i7 Ivy Bridge CPU fills out the CPU duties, it supports up to 16GB of RAM, up to a 1.5TB HDD, and comes with an NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 675M GPU for your gaming needs.

Filling out the specs, we have Dolby Home Theater v4 speakers, Windows 7 Home Premium, a 2.0-megapixel webcam, 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, and it weighs in at 13.34lb, as well as a battery life of around 3.7 hours. Price? Just $1899.99.

Apple is all about a sleek product and slim product line-up and as such analysts are predicting that Apple will kill off the 17-inch MacBook Pro when they do their next refresh. The next refresh of MacBooks is predicted to combine the slim and portable profile of the MacBook Air with some additional performance and storage like people expect from the MacBook Pro.

This prediction is just one in a set of general predictions as to Apple's strategy for the upcoming year. While the 17-inch laptop does have a loyal following of users, its sales have slumped as of recent partly due to the push for Intel's Ultrabook form factor. Not a word has been heard from Apple yet, so keep the flowers to yourself for a little bit longer.

Ming-Chi Kuo an analyst for KGI made these additional predictions:

Dell's upcoming Alienware M18X R2 gaming notebook is nearly upon us, and what a beast it is. First up the Alienware M18X R2 is an 18.4-inch beast of a notebook, with a Full HD (1920x1080) resolution LCD White-LED Glossy screen.

Filling this out are three CPU options, all Intel Ivy Bridge-based Core i7 models, with the i7-3610QM, i7-3720QM and i7-3820QM at 2.3GHz, 2.6GHz and 2.7GHz, respectively. Storage-wise, we have normal HDD options and SSD options, the HDD options come in either 500 or 750GB, both at 7200RPM. SSD-wise, we have three options, 256/512GB Samsung PM830, 32/64GB Samsung PM830 or 512GB Micron C400. The SSDs are all SATA 6Gbps standard.

RAM options are not too bad either, with 1600MHz on offer in 2, 4 and 8GB as well as 1866MHz for 2GB options. Let's get onto the juicy stuff, shall we? GPU options are quite kick arse, with 3 different options. Radeon HD 7970M in CrossFire, GeForce GTX 675M in SLI, or a GeForce GTX 660M (it's unknown if this will be a single-GPU or SLI offering).

Intel have talked about this before, where they've said that there'll be 75 new Ultrabook designs floating out into the wild throughout the year, but now we have Intel reiterating the fact. Pricing of the new systems should kick off at $699, which is $100 cheaper than the cheapest machine available now.

Intel's general manager for the PC client group, Kirk Skaugen, says that some of the new designs will sport Windows 8 and touchscreens. Yay. This means that a bunch of the new Ultrabooks won't land until after the Windows 8 launch, but with Intel investing large sums of time, effort and most of all, cash, into Ultrabooks, we should only expect good things. The cash injection? Just $300 million.

Skaugen has said:

HP's EliteBook 8460p business notebook is looking to be succeeded by HP's EliteBook 8470p. The new model shares the same 14-inch display, and bead-blasted aluminum/magnesium construction, but the new 8470p is said to have Intel's latest Ivy Bridge processor inside.

HP is expected to put on offer multiple Intel Core processors, with one of the prototypes running a 1.7GHz Core i7, according to leaked specs posted on Laptop Reviews. HP's latest business notebook is also expected to sport the 9-cell accessory battery that the 8460p used. This claimed a very, very impressive 32 hours of run time.

Filling out the EliteBook 8470p we have integrated Intel graphics, USB 3.0 ports, up to 8GB of RAM, multiple storage options, and a choice between 1366x768 and 1600x900 display resolutions. No pricing has been set, or launch details.

Apple's next-generation MacBook Pro 2012 could be hitting us much sooner than expected, this is all in relation to some of the current models being out of stock, including J&R and Best Buy. Best Buy isn't even accepting online orders for them right now.

If you want a 2011 Edition MBP, you'll have to find out, if they're available. According to Apple Inside, 40- to 60-percent of Best Buy shops in Chicago and Austin are reporting "stock outs" on the 15-inch 2.4GHz MacBook Pro. Retail channels usually find themselves running out of stock as Apple shuts down production.

This is done to flush the distribution channels out of units, so that the new models can come through. No details are available on the new MacBook Pro, but we expect them to at least sport Intel's latest 22nm Ivy Bridge CPUs, upgraded HD4000-series graphics as well as a discrete AMD or NVIDIA GPU. I'm also expecting SSDs to be a default now, which should've been made so in the 2011 Edition, as well as a personal hope here: higher-resolution screen. 1920x1200-pixel should be default, with the 17-inch hitting 2560x1440. Please, Apple. Do this and I'll replace my 17-inch 2011 Edition MacBook Pro.

The latest rumors to come from DigiTimes, who quotes a report from China's Economic Daily News, says that supplier checks are now indicating that due to the late-April availability of Intel's Ivy Bridge CPUs, Apple now plans to push back the launch of the refreshed MacBook Pro and iMac models to near the end of the company's fiscal second quarter, which ends in June.

But, these new rumors could prove to be real as earlier speculation points to Apple beginning to use new glass tech a company called G-Tech for the display screens, which are said to be less reflective and reduce glare.

Manufacturers of the new units are said to be handed over to Foxconn and Quanta, which will benefit from the smaller and more energy-efficient, but faster Ivy Bridge chips, as well as support for internal PCI-Express 3.0, USB 3.0 and faster graphics. Other reports are pointing toward the new iMac being thinner, which could then point to the new iMac losing its optical drive, just like the MacBook Air.

MSI's latest gaming notebook is quite the gem, first up we have some delicious specs such as a keyboard designed by SteelSeries, a Killer NIC, Dynaudio speakers and a 17.3-inch Full HD display. Topping this off, we have a mobile variant of Intel's Ivy Bridge, and a 600-series mobile GPU from NVIDIA. You'd think that with those specs, MSI have the bragging rights already, yes? No.

MSI seem to have decided that running RAID with two HDDs wouldn't be enough so they started over and came up with something they call Super RAID. The picture above shows off a normal WD Scorpio Black 2.5-inch 500GB storage drive, but if you look to the top left, where the second HDD normally goes we can see a pair of mSATA SSDs smashed onto a small PCB which takes up less than half the space a regular 2.5-inch sized SSD or HDD would take up.

The SSDs you see are a pair of OEM models from Sandisk, and seem to be a pair of U100 drives. This notebook has two 64GB drives installed, with the RAID element of this setup handled by Intel's chipset. The 64GB models aren't the fastest mSATA's SSDs on the market with rated sequential read speeds of up to 450MB/sec and write speeds at 220MB/sec. In RAID 0 however, they're entirely different beasts.

We know that there will be ARM-based Windows 8 products, but what of mobile chip superstar Qualcomm? Well, you can rest easy now knowing that Qualcomm senior VP, Rob Chandhok said on Friday that the quad-core version of the Snapdragon S4 would hit Windows 8 notebooks.

Chandhok went one better, though: he expects the company will show up Intel's Ultrabook concept with thinner designs and longer battery life, and who would complain about that? They would share the 28nm process behind the dual-core versions, but the extra power in the quad-core chips would make them much better solutions for gamers and users of more intense applications.

We should expect to not see Snapdragon S4-based Ultrabooks on the Windows 8 launch in October, but we could be surprised. There should be a few NVIDIA- and Texas Instruments-based devices, with Snapdragon-based devices arriving shortly after.

HP's slip up has allowed us to gain some new information regarding Intel's upcoming Ivy Bridge, AMD's upcoming Trinity, and nVidia's upcoming mobile chips, along with HP's upcoming models. HP appears to be increasing the technology included in their base models. Pictures and specs are worth more than a bunch of words, so without anything more, let me introduce the dv4:

This computer features Intel's upcoming i7-3610M which is apparently a quad-core part. It features 4GB of RAM clocked at 1600Mhz, a 1TB hard drive, and a GeForce 630M. Next is the dv6, which is similar. The only difference is it takes a step down in the storage department by featuring only a 750GB hard drive.

The dv7 features Intel's 2.6GHz Core i7-3720QM along with two 1TB drives linked together, 8GB of RAM, and the yet unannounced GeForce 650M.

NVIDIA's Kepler GPU may not be available for the desktop yet, but Acer has let their latest Ultrabook, the Acer Aspire Timeline M3, go on sale, and the company has decided to lift the embargo early for the mobile part. Yippee!

This Ultrabook marks the first time NVIDIA's Kepler-based GPUs have been included in an Ultrabook. Acer's Aspire Timeline M3-581TG is a 15.6-inch Ultrabook that sports a full-sized keyboard. The M3 still sits within the constraints of Intel's Ultrabook restrictions, but still packs quite a huge punch in terms of performance.

Acer's M3 features an Intel Core i7-2637M (1.7GHz dual-core, 4MB of L3 cache), 4GB of DDR3-1333 RAM, a 256GB SSD, a 3-cell Li-Polymer battery, and the standout feature: NVIDIA's GeForce GT 640M 1GB. The GPU in question is known as the GK107 which sports 384 cores and operates at up to 625MHz. When idling the GPU clocks down to 135MHz, with the standard clock rate sitting at 405MHz, while it can scale up to 625MHz, when needed.

The original Razer "the world's first true gaming laptop" Blade is loved by swarming groups of fans, but there are of course, critics who don't like it. I'm one of those people. Don't get me wrong, I love Razer gear. I rock their mouse and keyboard combos and love them. My BlackWidow Ultimate Stealth Edition sits on my desktop as my everyday keyboard, and my Mamba, I love her to bits.

But the Blade was a bit of a miss for me, it had a lacklustre GPU that really made the Blade struggle when compared to other gaming laptops. The GPU in question was the GeForce GT 555M, which to me, just isn't powerful enough to let Razer claim its the "world's first true gaming laptop", but, it still sold in supreme numbers. Selling out, not once, but twice.

So it doesn't really matter what Razer baked into the Blade, it sold well, and that's all that matters. Time moves on, and now we're staring down the barrel of the Razer Blade 2.0 eventually hitting the hearts and souls of gamers around the world. The Bright Side of News is reporting that they've heard rumbles from within the industry that Razer is preparing a refresh of the Blade.

According to The Verge, ASUS are working on a major Ultrabook refresh, which should slide right onto shelves close to the time that Intel unleashes their Ivy Bridge CPUs, with The Verge getting their mits on the full spec sheets, oh boy!

Currently, we have the UX31 and UX21, with the replacement models the UX31A and UX21A, respectively. The similar model numbers may fool some, but the upgrades are pretty serious. Matte screen options are said to be available on both new models, with the highest spec sporting a 1920x1080 resolution, with an IPS-based display. Hot. Another bonus is, that's for both the 13.3-inch UX31A and the 11.6-inch UX21A.

If you opt for the IPS-based display, you'll be greeted with 350 nits of brightness, with the LCD-based display only sports 300 nits of brightness, and a drop of resolutions to 1600x900 and 1366x768 for the UX31A and UX21A, respectively. Intel Ivy Bridge-based processors will be found inside the new ASUS Zenbooks, with the low-voltage (17W TDP) models making an appearance, from the simple Core i3 model, right up to the powerhouse Core i7:

Earlier on today we were invited to an Intel Ultrabook event at the Sherwood hotel here in Taipei where we got a run-down on Intel's Ultrabook technologies including Intel Rapid Start Technology, Smart Response Technology, Smart Connect Technology, Anti-Theft and Identity Protection Technology. All of the demos Intel ran at the event were actually rather impressive and paint the Ultrabook platform to be a very solid product in my eyes.

After the event we were allowed to go hands-on with all the Ultrabooks on display from ASUS, Acer, Dell, Lenovo, Samsung, HP and Toshiba. Since many of you would have already seen these covered before, we opted not to focus on them, but what we did find was a brand new prototype / reference design next-generation Intel Ultrabook with a touchscreen display. That spiked your interest, right?

This is just a system built my Intel to show the capabilities of next-gen Ultrabooks and you won't actually be able to buy it. As I mentioned, it comes with a touchscreen display which bodes well for Intel's vision to build a platform which is premium portability, style and performance.