Packard Bell recently overhauled its logo in an effort to keep up with the times, but are its offerings up to the same task? The new imedia lineup immediately recalls the recently announced M-series desktops from Acer, and that's no accident. The innards are remarkably similar too, with the top models sporting Core 2 Quad or AMD Phenom II X4 processors, a 1.5GB GeForce GT230, HDMI out, Blu-Ray combo drive and a maximum of 8GB DDR3 memory and 1TB of storage. While none of the specs are on the blistering edge of innovation, there's plenty of power there and keen pricing could make them an attractive proposition. The entry-level Celeron-based units start at £299 ($490) in the UK.

The announcement wasn't scheduled for a few more days -- four according to the teaser site -- but it looks like Alienware's All Powerful gaming laptop has been set free anyway. So, does it live up to the clues? Pretty much... how does a pair of 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M GPUs strike you? No Core i7 listed, instead we're looking at a Core 2 Extreme quad-core CPU at the top end with up to 8GB of 1333MHz DDR3 memory, and 1TB of 7200-rpm disk or a 512GB SSD if you prefer. RAID 1 or RAID 0? Sure. Rounding things out is a nine-cell battery of unstated performance, FireWire, 4x USB, eSATA, ExpressCard, 802.11n WiFi, 8-in-1 media card reader, dual-layer Blu-ray, a 1920 x 1200 pixel edge-to-edge LCD, DisplayPort and HDMI-outs all wrapped up in a massive chassis weighing 11.68-pounds with a 15.98 x 12.65 x 2.11-inch footprint. It's also packing a GeForce 9400M G1 GPU with HybridPower technology that allows you to scale the graphics back to conserve battery power. Prices start at $1,799 for a lot less than we mentioned above.

As a footnote to the details above, PCWorld also says that Alienware will use next week's E3 show to update us on its 42.8-inch curved monitor we went hands-on with back in January of 2008.

[Thanks, Steve]

The kind folks at OCZ Technology's CeBIT booth told us that they expected the forthcoming Z-Drive to be priced between $1,500 and $2,000, and unfortunately for consumers, they were obviously just talking about the starting tag. Today, the much-hyped PCI-Express SSD card -- which strings a few blocks of flash memory together on a wicked fast PCI-E pipeline -- has been listed at Amazon, and the asking prices are downright eye-popping. The drive is slated to ship in 250GB, 500GB and 1TB flavors, with Amazon demanding $1,561.30, $2,450.50 and $3,368.99 for each in order of mention. We know read rates up to 500MB/sec and write rates of up to 470MB/sec are appealing and all, but damn.

[Thanks, Gary]

Read - 250GB Z-Drive listing
Read - 500GB Z-Drive listing
Read - 1TB Z-Drive listing

Mmm, PCI-Express-based SSD storage. Be honest, is there anything more delicious? The camera-wielding cats over at Hot Hardware managed to climb behind the scenes at OCZ Technology and snap a bevy of shots of the outfit's highly anticipated Z-Drive in prototype form, and while the device doesn't look all that different than the press shots we peeked last month, there seems to be some ways yet to go before this bad boy's available for purchase. At any rate, the innards look about as you'd expect 'em to, with loads of green PCB littered about with oodles of ultra-speedy flash storage. The drive pictured above is actually a 512GB version with a single 4-pin molex power connector and an X4 PCI-e slot, and it benched at upwards of 500MB/sec during read tests and 400MB/sec on write tests. Check the read link for a closer look -- just don't forget to prep the drool rag before heading over.

Technically, OCZ outed this here PCI-Express SSD way back at CeBIT in March, but it's just now making things super official. Now available with a fresh face and hard specifications, the Z-Drive is aiming to take on wares by firms like Fusion-io and provide blistering transfer rates to anyone who buys in. Essentially, this device removes the SATA bottleneck by employing the PCIe architecture and four Vertex controllers configured in four-way RAID 0 array. Curious about performance? Read speeds can hit upwards of 510MB/sec, while write speeds top out at 480MB/sec -- plenty respectable in our eyes. OCZ's planning to push these out in 250GB, 500GB and 1TB capacities, and while final pricing is still being kept under wraps, we're told that it'll be kept "competitive."

Clearly LaCie's going for that "timeless" look, 'cause the Rugged XL looks precisely like the original Rugged that launched over three years ago. The drive, which was unsurprisingly designed by Neil Poulton, touts a durable aluminum casing with external and internal shock absorbers, USB 2.0 and eSATA connectors along with a software suit to handle your backups. Packed within is a single 1TB drive, and externally, there's a "warm orange LED strip" to either keep you informed of drive status or just look stupendously fashionable, one. It's up for grabs today (or it should be soon, anyway) for $159.99, and no, the orange exterior cannot be swapped for a non-DOT-approved hue.

We understand, you're not ready to let go of the BSG season finale just yet even though Tiger and Phil are charging up the back nine at Augusta, but keeping a lot of HD on the DVR can fill up space quickly -- which is where these two come in. Amazon is now taking pre-orders of the long-awaited 1TB edition of Western Digital's TiVo compatible (or other eSATA enabled box) DVR Expander, although no ship date is listed, and Apricorn took our advice on its fugly 500GB, 1TB or 1.5TB sized boxes, giving them a sleek new look. It's dual USB 2.0 / eSATA compatible, but not TiVo, so Scientific Atlanta 8300, DirecTV and DISH ViP owners can claim this one at $219 for the 1.5TB, while the WD will set you back $183.

Read - Apricorn Unveils New Look for the DVR Expander
Read - Western Digital WDG1S10000N My DVR Expander 1TB eSATA (Black)

We're just now wrapping our heads around that 1TB SSD that pureSilicon launched in January, and already ASUS is looking to place us back in a state of disbelief with its newfangled Lamborghini VX5 laptop. Said machine, which is slated to debut tomorrow alongside a litany of other products here in Hannover, will sport a 1TB SSD, a Core 2 Quad CPU, 4GB of RAM and a 16-inch "Full HD" display. You'll also find a GeForce GT 130M graphics card with 1GB of GDDR3 memory, an illuminated "chiclet" style keyboard and a Blu-ray optical drive to boot. Needless to say, this one's aimed at those not fazed by stratospheric price tags, and we're saying that well before the MSRP has been made public. Call it a hunch... or just superb deductive reasoning.

[Via Electricpig]

It's been a long time coming, but Seagate's finally unveiled its first 2TB hard drive, the 3.5-inch Constellation ES. The hefty spinner also comes in 500GB and 1TB varieties and runs at 7,200RPM, which should make it a bit faster than Western Digital's behemoth, according to reviews for the latter. It'll be out calendar Q3, which we take to be fancy schmancy business talk for "this Summer." Meanwhile, the 2.5-inch ES-less Constellation line sports 3 Gbps SATA and SAS 2.0 interface. Look for this one in 160GB and 500GB sizes sometime this quarter, with Dell said to be one the first companies to offer the drives. Check out one more out-of-this-world promotional image after the break.

Pretec may have laid claim to the title of world's fastest SATA SSD, but it looks like pureSilicon has a feather of its own to put in its cap, with it announcing what appears to be the world's first 1TB 2.5-inch SSD drive. You may want to think twice about holding out for one of these in your next laptop, however, as pureSilicon is apparently specifically pitching it as a more energy-efficient solution for servers, datacenters, and supercomputers, with four of the drives able to deliver 4TB in the same space as a standard 3.5-inch hard drive. According to pureSilicon's own benchmarks, the drives "approach" the maximum SATA II transfer speed of 300MB/s and, if 1TB is a bit excessive for your needs, the company also has drives ranging from 32GB to 512GB in its Nitro series. No word on price, naturally, but the drives will apparently be available sometime in the third quarter of this year.

We've been around this stuff long enough to know that hard drives just keep getting bigger with time, but if you were eager to know exactly when a 1TB unit would be prepped and ready for your notebook, try 2010. According to those infamous "undisclosed sources," both Western Digital (which started shipping a 500-gigger today) and Fujitsu are looking to pump out 750GB 2.5-inch HDDs by mid-2009 and 1TB variants in 2010. Keep the faith, brethren.

Remember the day you drooled all over your keyboard when Hitachi introduced a 1TB internal hard drive? Yeah, like a year and a half ago? The outfit's most recent HDD announcement isn't likely to have nearly the same effect, but those who skipped the first-gen version in order to get a more refined product the second go 'round will surely be delighted. Today marks the debut of the 1TB Deskstar 7K1000.B, which goes down as "the world's most energy-efficient 7,200RPM one-terabyte hard drive." Said drive features a new three-disk design which improves idle power consumption up to 43% over its 1TB predecessor, but unfortunately, there's no telling how long you'll have to wait to actually buy this currently unpriced overlord of storage.

[Via PCLaunches]

For budding audio / video editors that can't stand to leave home without a RAID setup in tow, you should probably give Sonnet's incredibly mobile Fusion F2 a look. This portable SATA RAID solution now tops out at 1TB (a 640GB model is also available) and features an eSATA connector, fanless design and compatibility with Sonnet's Tempo SATA ExpressCard/34 card. Within the 1.22-pound, 5.9- x 6.2- x 0.72-inch enclosure, you'll find a pair of 2.5-inch 7,200RPM HDDs that are able to deliver 134MB/sec read and write rates. Word on the street places a $995 price tag on the 1TB edition, which is all set to ship "early this month."

[Via Macworld]

Thanks to an overzealous e-tailer, we already knew that Sammy's Spinpoint M6 was ready to be ordered en masse, but Samsung has finally put out some official verbiage to substantiate the obvious. The outfit's 500GB Spinpoint M6 ($299) and 250GB Spinpoint MP2 ($199) are both shipping as we speak, and that curious sound you hear over there is your current laptop begging for a storage upgrade. On a slightly related note, the company is also announcing that its 7200RPM Spinpoint F1 RAID-class (F1R; pictured) 3.5-inch SATA drive has hit mass production, meaning that you can bulk up your enterprise storage solution 1TB at a time for $299 each.

Read - Spinpoint MP2 / M6 hit mass production
Read - Spinpoint F1R hits mass production