Dell's Vostro 1310, 1510, and 1710 small business laptops redefine boxy
[Via Notebook Review]
15.4-inch posts

The word in Taiwan circles is that Foxconn (yeah, that Foxconn) has an order from Apple for some 15.4-inch MacBooks, which are due to ship in May 2007. Apparently all it takes to get Apple to stop their exclusive use of Asustek for MacBook orders is a few human rights violations and a couple of ensuing investigations. It seems like a 15.4-inch MacBook could put a significant dent in MacBook Pro sales, so hopefully Apple has something fancy up their sleeve to please the aluminum-lovers among us. In other news, Foxconn is also signed up for some PS3 production next February (though the article says February 2006, which seems unlikely), since it's pretty clear by now that Asustek isn't quite hacking it on that front.
You probably thought we were done with this latest volley of Merom-powered laptops. Ha -- you were wrong. Next up to board the Core 2 Duo train is Velocity Micro's 15.4-inch NoteMagix L80 "Ultra Notebook Computer," which adds T5500, T5600, T7200, T7400, and T7600 options (ranging from 1.66GHz to 2.33GHz) to the already available suite of regular Core Duo and Celeron M configurations. So besides the latest processors, what makes this model so "ultra"? Well first of all, it ships with a 256MB nVIDIA GeForce Go 7600GS card standard -- a refreshing change-up from the usual integrated graphics we see around here -- plus an option to bump the LCD resolution up to 1,680 x 1,050 from a ho-hum 1,280 x 800. You can also cram in as much as 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 7,200 RPM 100GB hard drive, and dual-layer DVD burner, with WiFi, a card reader, and three USB 2.0 ports part and parcel of any configuration. Available immediately, you can pick up a decently-speced L80 for about $1,655, but of course for the one we'd want, pricing is a little closer to $2,600.
Toshiba's got more notebooks in store for us today than just the R25 convertible and U205 ultra-portable we spotted earlier; nine more in fact, as the 14.1-inch M105, 15.4-inch A105, and 17-inch P105 Satellites have all been upgraded with three new configurations each. Focused on multimedia and gaming, the new P105 configs (pictured) -- the $1,199 S6024, $1,499 S6084, and $1,999 S9312 -- offer several compelling features, highlighted by Core Duo processors throughout the line, a nVidia GeForce Go 7900 GS graphics chip in the S6084, and an external USB tuner in the Windows Media Center Edition-powered S9312. The A105 also gets three fancy new looks, all featuring 5,400RPM hard drives, 533MHz DDR2 RAM, and integrated graphics: the $700 S2141 (1.46GHz Celeron M, 512MB of RAM, 80GB HDD), $999 S4074 (1.6GHz Core Duo T2050, 512MB RAM, 120GB storage, dual-layer DVD burner, Media Center Edition 2005), and $1,349 S4134 (same as the S4074 except for a 1.66GHz T2400 and 2GB of RAM). Rounding out the upgrades are S1021, S3041, and S3064 versions of the M105, which sport either Celeron M, Core Solo, or Core Duo processors, between 512MB and 1GB of RAM, 80GB or 120GB hard drives, and either a combo drive or DVD burner -- and are priced between $650 and $1,199. All nine new models are available immediately either directly from Toshiba or from your friendly neighborhood PC retailer.
Along with the 15.4-inch 5670 and 20.1-inch 9800 notebooks that we'd already known about, Acer formally unveiled at Computex two other HD-DVD- and Centrino Duo-toting models from the Aspire line that we hadn't seen before: the 17-inch 9510 and 15.4-inch 9110 (pictured). All four models are being billed as all-in-one multimedia centers, and with all but the 5670 sporting 1,920 x 1,080 resolutions, S/PDIF and HDCP-capable HDMI outputs, optional analog and DVB-T tuners, and of course those high-def, backwards-compatible optical drives (still waiting on those Blu-ray models, though), it sure sounds like Acer knows what it's talking about. Both of the new-new notebooks also offer up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM and nVidia graphics cards, but the 9510 rocks the GeForce Go 7900 GS with 512MB of RAM and up to 240GB of hard drive space, while the 9110 has to settle for the GeForce Go 7600 with 256MB of RAM and a HDD that maxes out at 120GB. Unfortunately, Acer was so busy selling us on the benefits of all these new machines that they forgot a few important details, so both pricing and release dates for each and every one remain a big fat mystery for now.







