Laptops - Page 50

Remember the Dual Screen Laptop we told you about? Well there is some additional information out about it now.

It is looking like the specifications are firming up (although they could change). The first models out should be either 16 or 17 -inches. They will have a 2.8 or 2.53GHZ Core 2 Duo (T9600 or T8700, up to 4GB of DDR2 800 RAM, an Intel P45M chipset and an nVidia 9800M with 512MB dedicated memory.

These specifications are interesting. I would have thougt they would be planning for a mobile quad core and a better GPU but as they say all of the specifications are subject to change.

Pricing and availability is still up in the air but we do know that the first models will be sold directly from gScreen or on Amazon. They hope to have these available in Best Buy within one year from launch. Personally I cannot wait to try one of these out. I tend to always need more and more screen real estate as I work.

There should be additioanl images and a video of the gScreen in action soon.

After we heard the big news on Tegra being dropped into the new Zune HD we had a chance to talk to nVidia about this new System on Chip product.

At the time nVidia was unusually willing to talk about future generations of Tegra but was very tight lipped about what Tegra might be used in.

We hear tiny rumors of Smart Books, Smart Phones, and MIDs in general but nothing concrete or detailed.

Well now we hear that Tegra could be making its way into products from both Lenovo and Acer. But that is not the only interesting news, it seems that unlike many ARM based products these will not be running Embedded XP or Android but Google's Chrome OS. There is no indication on if these will be called netbooks or if they will be the new "Smart Books" that have been talked about.

This development will be fun to watch on many levels. With Tegra it will show if the tiny system can indeed keep up in the computing world. Meanwhile Chrome OS will need to show that it can compete in the world of Windows and OSX.

We will be watching this development very carefully to see if the rumors are true and how they play out if they are.

Asus' Eee (EEE??) PC line up has been aired. Someone has gotten a hold of a few slides from what looks like an inside product/roadmap briefing and they have put them up on the internet. This means that as of right now just about everyone has read them.

So what is new in the Eee line up? Well the first thing that jumps out is the switch from XP Home to Windows 7. This does not mean that the Eee PC is now a power house. It just means that MS is pushing the new OS and it is slimed down enough to work on the new netbooks (I have it installed on an MSI Wind U100).

Next up is the inclusion of nVidia ION chipsets. This comes as a surprise; there was much talk at Computex from Asus that they would not be moving to ION. However it is interesting to note that ASRock (still controlled partially by Asus) has a couple of ION offerings. This may have been a case of Asus using ASRock to test the waters and once they saw they were ok, jumping in themselves.

Last on the list is the inclusion of a few touch/multi-touch models. This is a very cool option and one I cannot wait to get put into play.

If you have never heard of the company gScreen you are not alone. I had never heard of them either before this morning. But they are going to be in my head for a long time to come.

gScreen is coming out with a dual screen laptop. This is not like Lenovo's where they tacked on a small 10-inch screen to one side. No this is a full dual screen notebook.

And they did not scrimp on power either. According to the specifications this book 15.4-inch book will have some healthy power under the hood.

The first model listed is the gScreen SpaceBook 2009. It should have a 2.26 C2D, 4GB DD2, 320GB 7200 RPM HDD either an nVidia 9800M GT (512MB dedicated memory) or an nVidia Quadro FX 1700M again with 512MB memory.

The dual screen mechanism is designed so that if you do not need both screens it can slide out of the way. gScreen also has 16, 17 and 13-inch models planned for the future.

gScreen hopes to have these out to the hungry public by December of 2009.

Personally I am hoping that Santa can arrange a 17-inch version of one of these with a GTX280M, Core i7 Mobile, 6GB DDR3, and a couple of 500GB SSDs under the hood for Christmas.

Important news for any Lenovo ThinkPad owners as Lenovo announces another recall on their batteries.

This is not the first time Lenovo has had to recall its batteries but this one is not about anything overly dangerous. These batteries are merely defective and cause mundane things like "irreparable damage" errors popping up.

Other indications are your battery life becoming very short. a message saying that the battery cannot be charged. Lenovo has announced that they will replace the batteries for free and have even posted a tool to help you determine if you have a bad battery.

The affected models are R60, R61, T60, T61, X60, and the X61,

I have been reading an interesting rumor about the Netbook market. It says that Asus and Acer are delaying netbook launches until 2010. The netbooks in question are Acer's upcoming Dual boot (XP and Android) offering and Asus' Android based model.

One of the reasons, the rumor goes on to say, is that Intel delayed Pinetrail until next year. The Acer delay is also being linked to supposed research showing a dual boot netbook is not something that will not work in the market just yet (I could have told you that). I would have thought that lesson would have been learned after the initial Linux based launches.

I wanted to know if there was any credit to the rumor so I contacted someone I know at Asus and asked directly. The response was interesting but not truly conclusive.

"I can say that at this time that the only model we have talked about is the 11-inch. When we have new models to talk about -- and we will -- we'll make a formal announcement."

To me this would indicate that no new models are planned beyond the mentioned 11-inch model in fact I was told that the launch plans have not changed at all. I do not see a true delay if they are not ready for launch as designed. After all if part of the design includes a CPU with an IGP there is no way to launch without that. If the provider of that part does not have them ready it is not a conscious delay. The rumors that are going around would seem to indicate that Asus is not launching them and making the conscious decision to wait, not that they are being forced to wait due to a lack of parts.

Of course the root of this is whether or not Intel is actually delaying the Pinetrail. This has also been plastered around the internet but as far as I can tell there has never been a confirmation from Intel. I took the opurtunity to ask Intel and was told that Pinetrail is still on track for a late 2009 launch.

As for CULVs well Asus feels that while these are new products they are not the same as when the netbook launched. They do not anticipate quite the same buzz or excitement that netbooks generated. They are planning to launch a few CULV based laptops and should be annoucing them soon.

So we have another rumor that does not stand up to the existing facts. Intel says there is no delay planned for Pinetrail, and Asus is saying they do not have any plans to change launch schedules.

As of this writing Acer has not replied to my questions.

Good grief, it seems that everyone has a netbook or a "net" system now. Phone companies are giving them away, stores are marking them and now even monitor manufacturer Viewsonic has one. The funny thing is that they are all about the same in terms of hardware so one is just about as good as another.

The Viewsonic offering is called the VNB101 and has the typical Intel Atom N280, 1GB DDR2 RAM, and the standard 160GB HDD. Nothing new to see here; except perhaps the space for a 3G SIM and a Lithium-Polymer Battery. It does look a little like an Asus with some added color but then again most netbooks look alike anyway.

But here is the rub, as with anything inexpensive to build and sell, there is a saturation point that kills the market. I think we have just about hit that point. Furthermore the marketing for the netbook/nettop is terrible. They are being marketed as inexpensive laptops. That is something they are not; just ask anyone that has tried to use to replace a standard one and you will see.

Of course I am waiting for someone like Wicked, or Vivid to make one, now that would be something interesting.

Last week we told you that Microsoft received a call from Apple asking to remove the "laptop Hunters" ads. At the time we were told that MS thought it was a joke and laughed it off.

The story said that Apple claimed that since they had reduced the price of the Mac Books by $100 then the ad was no longer accurate. Now this in itself is funny as there is very little about Apple ads that are accurate. It would be interesting to see someone ask for the ads claiming that Macs do not crash, and have no security problems to be removed. But that is for another story.

What is interesting is that some lawyers (perhaps looking for s bit of the spotlight) say that Apple might have a case. Now I am not sure what part of the world they are from but the ads clearly say what they are comparing. So if the MS ad says you can get a better 17-inch laptop for X dollars less than a Mac or for under a certain dollar ammount; and someone finds one then the ad is accurate.

Sorry Apple, it is a nice try (and I am sure they will still try) but the laptop hunters ads just do not constitute false or misleading advertising.

Are you thinking you need the absolute fastest laptop on the planet? If you do and you have the cash you might want to check out the latest offering from Rock Xtreme.

The new Xtrem 790 and 840 would seem to have the top spot hands down. They each have at least one GTX280M and support for up to 6GB of DDR3 The Xtreme 790 has a 17-inch HD display, up to 1.5TB of storage (three 500GB drives in RAID),and an Intel Core i7 CPU.

The Xrtreme 840 features a larger 18.4 Inch display and Support for SLI GTX 280Ms and Core 2 Duo or Quad CPUs. Other nice extras on the 840 are customizable lighting, touch sensitive buttons and eight gaming buttons that can be setup for each game.

For extras both Xtreme models have USB 2.0, Wireless (b/g/n), a 7 in 1 card reader and a three year warranty. These come stock with Vista Home Premium but you get a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it is available.

Not matter how you slice it these are going to cost you some serious money (the top model runs at over $3,700 USD) but if performance is your thing and you can take this type of heat on your lap these might be up your alley. You can pick one up at the end of the month.

There is good news for netbooks; well it is good news for people that would like HD on their netbooks. It looks like Intel may have decided to increase the allowable screen resolution to 1366x768 this will include the coveted (by some) 720p range.

This move allows for netbook makers to use the N series Atom instead of having to go with the Z series. The size of the display is still limited to 10.2-inches. So if you do get 720p HD resolution you are still getting a very small display to watch it on.

Intel has been trying to establish a clear distinction between the low powered netbook and more mainstream notebooks. However many manufacturers would prefer to keep this line blurry as it enables them to market the netbook as a low cost notebook alternative.

Sony has entered the netbook market in the US. This is really not shocking news as just about everyone has a netbook these days. It is just the thing to do.

The new offering will still fall under the Vaio name (Vaio W). This confusingly named product will run similar to most other netbooks. The Vaio W will have an Atom N270, 160GB HDD, 1GB RAM, Windows XP and the rest of the usual trimmings.

What is different is the price, Sony is asking for $500 for this 10.1-inch book. I am not really sure if this is going to be worth it for most as you can get a similarly speced netbook from a couple of different vendors for much less.

Hmmm this is interesting; despite hearing about how little AMD is interested in the netbook market we find news that there will be a new AMD based netbook available soon.

The company responsible for this is called Medion the name of the book will be the Akoya Mini E1312.

What makes it even more interesting is that although the product is classified as a netbook it is using a low powered Sempron 2100U and an ATi Radeon TM Xpress 1250 Graphics Chip. The rest of the E1312 is pretty common with an 11.6 Inch display, 160GB HDD, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 1.3 MP web camera, WiFi (b/g/n) you know the drill by now.

The Sempron 2100U should offer better performance than the Atom single core CPUs while the Radeon 1250 is going to be much more snappy than the Intel graphics found in most flavors of netbooks today. What is not know is how this new book will stand up if placed head to head against an Atom on an ION based device.

We have heard tell that MSI will likely (paper) launch its brand new MS-1241 tomorrow based on AMD's Yukon platform.

The little lappie is a lightweight, low-cost 690E which MSI hopes will be something of a challenger to HP's Dv2. Not that it's particularly hard to challenge the DV2 in this writer's opinion.

In the world of cellular phones the leading manufacturer in the world is not Apple like many think; but Nokia. This Finnish cellular giant has been a player in the game for a very very long time. They have made many innovative moves that have brought better and more flexible phones.

Now they look like they might be making another move, this one is not phone based (yet) but is a dive into the Netbook/MID pool. To make this change Nokia has chosen Intel as their CPU of choice. This is an interesting departure as they have been working with ARM for so long that bringing Intel in is a big deal.

Of course this could be a preview of things to come as Intel works hard on their own SoC design. It could be that we see Intel based Smart Phones from Nokia in the future.

Read more here

ASRock has a new netbook out that features not only ION but a Dual Core Atom 330. The new G22 is a 12.1 inch device, putting it right on the edge between a netbook and a thin and light. The big difference being the Atom CPU.

The G22 will not have a DVD-drive, but will support multi-touch, b,g, and n wireless, gigabit Ethernet and a few other very nice features.

There is no word on pricing or availability yet but this one bears watching if you are looking for an above average netbook to tote around.

Read more here.

AMD's Congo is coming and it looks like it will not be the "Atom-Smasher" that many are calling it. Rather it will enter Intel competition with Intel's thin and light segment.

AMD has maintained that netbooks will eventually fade and be assimilated by the notebook market. There are some indications of this happening as netbook makers play a game of technological leapfrog with netbooks each one offering a more powerful (and of course more expensive) version.

I have to wonder if the netbook will eventually fall to the level of the MID. And the Thin-And_Light will be the next big rush.

Read more here.

In the world of IT marketing there are some good moves and there are some, well not so good moves. At the top of our list of really foolish things to do for Computex today we have Microsoft's comment that they thing the term netbook should not be used any more.

The new suggested term is "Low Cost Small Notebook PC". I do not know about you but I think I will keep calling them netbooks. After all they were intended to be used primarily for the internet and not as a standalone unit.

The new term if it gets accepted will only serve to bring more confusion to a product that already has an identity crisis.

Read more here.

Psion has decided to give up its rights to the term netbook. In what is being called an "Amicable" settlement Psion is waiving all rights to the netbook name.

Now Intel and other companies can officially use that title to describe low-power, small, inexpensive notebooks, just like they have been since early 2008.

Very few details of the settlement have gotten out other than Psion relinquishing control of the netbook name.

Read more here.

An interesting story is floating around the internet today. The line goes something like this; Intel and Microsoft are working together to limit the licensing of Windows 7 on netbooks.

Now if we believe what is being bandied about we find that special OEM pricing for the starter version of Windows 7 will only be available to 10.2-inch netbooks and smaller.

Many claim this is going to hurt Via as they have a better grip on the 11-inch and up netbook market. However, there is an alternate possibility; what if someone is finally trying to put netbooks into a proper category? After all in an 11-inch netbook you can have better hardware and cooling. So it stands to reason that keeping the software cost on netbooks 10.2-inches and smaller would keep them in a lower price range where their lower performance naturally puts them.

read more here.