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Eurocom intros powerhouse Scorpius laptop, touts more video memory than most desktops
Eurocom has carved out a strange but soft spot in our hearts for its desktop replacement-level laptops -- the insistence on overkill hardware leaves even the vaguely ultraportable Monster packing the kind of power reserved for larger-screened (if also much thinner) counterparts. Nowhere is that too-much-is-never-enough attitude truer than in the just-launched, 17.3-inch Scorpius. While supporting up to 32GB of RAM isn't unique anymore, the Scorpius can optionally carry two of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 680M graphics chips with the full 4GB of video RAM per piece. That's more graphics memory than the total system memory of some entire PCs, folks. Eurocom can optionally slot in two of AMD's Radeon HD 7970M or step down to a single graphics core, and the usual bevy of processor and storage choices culminates in as much as a quad 2.9GHz Core i7 and four drives. The lowest price that will net a fully functioning Scorpius is $1,793, although we'll admit that it's very tempting to pick that dual 680M option and come out with a $2,857 bill -- not to mention some serious bragging rights with the gamer crowd.
MSI outs new CR41 notebook, hopes you like the color royal bronze
What's rectangular, coated in a royal bronze finish, opens like a clam and lasts for up to seven and a half hours? If you answered MSI's new CR41 notebook, you'd be right (though we would've accepted self-destructing jewelry boxes as an answer). The 14-inch multimedia "mobile companion," announced just today, packs a 1,366 x 768 HD display, dedicated HM76 graphics chipset, choice of Intel's third-generation Core i processors and comes in a variety of storage configurations: 500 GB, 640GB or 720GB. Weighing in at 5.3 pounds (2.4kg) and measuring 13.8 x 9.2 x 1.3 inches (349.7 x 234.8 x 32mm), the laptop also features a six-cell 4,400mAh battery, support for Bluetooth 4.0 and WiFi b/g/n, an optical drive, ports for HDMI, USB 3.0 (x2), USB 2.0 (x2), an SD slot and the requisite headphone jack. So far no official pricing or release dates have been made public for the Windows 7 rig, but when it does hit retailers' shelves, rest assured it'll be upgrade-ready for Redmond's next great OS. Follow on past the break for the official PR.
Samsung Series 9 13-inch lands 1.9GHz Core i7, 256GB SSD edition for the power user set
When we looked at the 13-inch Samsung Series 9, we lamented that there was only one version on offer: if anyone wanted more than a Core i5 and a 128GB drive, their dreams were crushed. Samsung must feel that there's hope for us yet, as there's now a higher-end spec that slots in a 1.9GHz Core i7 and doubles the storage to 256GB. That's good news to us, even if the 4GB RAM ceiling will still have some avid Ultrabook fans turning elsewhere. Springing for the new flagship will set shoppers back by about $300 more than the previous top of the line, or $1,700 -- still pricey relative to the competition, but much more palatable you're searching for a premium Windows 7 ultraportable and aren't willing to budge on screen size.
Ideum unveils speedy Platform and Pro multi-touch tables, says PixelSense ain't got nothin' (video)
Who knew giant multi-touch tables would trigger the next big speed race? Ideum clearly thinks that the PixelSense-based Samsung SUR40 is lagging with that AMD Athlon II X2, because it just rolled out a pair of speed demon 55-inch, 40-point touch surfaces (but not Surfaces) in the Platform and Pro. The Platform has a respectable dual 2.2GHz Core i7 and 8GB of RAM, but it also carries a pair of 256GB solid-state drives in case that museum exhibit app won't load quickly enough. Hopping to the Pro switches to two not quite as speedy 500GB hard drives in standard trim. It more than makes up for this with a quad 3.4GHz Core i7 and NVIDIA's Quadro 600 for the truly stressful projects -- the combination can juggle multiple users and tasks even more smoothly than its MT55 Pro ancestor. Outside of raw speed, picking a table depends mostly on svelteness versus expansion: the Pro has a full-fledged HP tower inside that can drop in SSDs and other upgrades you might fancy, while the Platform is half as thick as a SUR40 (at two inches) and sleeker overall than its big brother. We're working to get price quotes, but the early five-digit figures we've seen in the past likely rule out upgrading the family coffee table. You can convince yourself with a video after the break.
Dell XPS 14 review: a 14-inch Ultrabook with Ivy Bridge and graphics might
While we can't say that we universally liked Dell's first attempt at an Ultrabook, the XPS 13 we reviewed about three months ago, we can quite confidently say that it earned our respect. Here was a smartly styled, sophisticated machine free of stickers and bloatware from a company that, let's be honest, has delivered its share of each over the years. That machine was far from perfect, but it showed a purity of vision in design that you couldn't help but acknowledge. So where do you go from there? Why, you go bigger of course. Meet the new Dell XPS 14, successor in name only to a model that went out of production over a year ago. It is, as you might have guessed, an inch larger than the XPS 13 and so has more room for ports and pixels -- but there's more to it than that. In some ways this feels like a more polished machine than the 13 that came before, and it's certainly faster but it, too, is far from perfect. Join us for a joyous exploration of why.%Gallery-158982%
Fujitsu outs a trio of similar looking Lifebooks that carry Ivy Bridge over troubled waters
Fujitsu has whipped out three matching Ivy Bridge laptops of various sizes for the business-end of your life. Each of the trio comes with either Core i5 or i7 processors, optional SSD and a nifty modular bay that lets you swap in batteries or optical drives depending on need. The 15-inch E752 desktop replacement will set you back $879, while the 14-inch thin-and-light S752 is aimed at business pros on the go, costing $899. Finally, the 13.3-inch subcompact S762 will blow a $999-sized hole in your departmental purchasing budget -- which you can start doing from today.
Dell gives a peek at a revamped XPS 15 in Romania
Dell showed the heart of its 2012 laptop design language in the XPS 13 just as the snow started melting, but it's been mostly silent or conservative ever since. The company must want to close out the spring the same way it entered: Dell and Romania's Asesoft Distribution have just previewed a larger XPS 15 at an event B1 attended at the Bucharest-based Romanian Aviation Museum. Based on the early look, Dell isn't going to stretch the Ultrabook definition across the whole XPS range. There will still be full-power, 2.5GHz dual Core i5 and quad 2.1GHz Core i7 chips from Intel's Ivy Bridge family, and NVIDIA is supplying some modestly ultraportable GeForce GT 630M and 640M video. Although there's no special tricks that we can see so far, the 15.6-inch system is reportedly due to show in at least Romania by the end of the spring, which leaves just weeks to wait if you prefer your mid-size performance laptops designed in Texas.
Velocity Micro relaunches Overdrive gaming desktop: overclocked to 4.6GHz, with trio of GeForce graphics
After furnishing its latest machines with fresh Ivy Bridge processors, Velocity Micro has decided to tend to its high-performance gaming machines. The desktop's Overdrive BigBlock GTX promises to be "the new benchmark for extreme speed and luxury." It reckons it accomplishes this with a Core i7 3960X processor, "hyperclocked" to 4.6GHz, 32GB of quad-channel memory, three (yes, three) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 graphics cards in Tri-SLI and two SSDs backed up with a weighty 2TB hard drive. The machines will also get treated to a splash of sports car-style paint, aiming to mirror the likes of Ferrari and BMW. Naturally, all that top-drawer tech corresponds to a similarly top-drawer price tag. The gaming rigs start from $8,000, which helps soften the blow of another recent product launch.
Apple unveils new MacBook Pro with Ivy Bridge at WWDC
Apple is certainly making WWDC a hardware conference this year -- it just unveiled a refresh of the existing MacBook Pro running Intel's newer Ivy Bridge processors on the San Francisco gathering's opening day. The 13- and 15-inch portables run up to 2.7GHz quad Core i7s (turbo up to 3.7GHz), carry up to 8GB of RAM and have GeForce GT 650M-based graphics 60 percent faster than the previous generation. Like the new MacBook Air, they tout USB 3.0 ports. If you're more comfortable with Apple's conventional MacBook Pro design than the new variety, Apple will ask $1,099 for the base 13-inch version and $1,799 for a 15-inch version, with an upgraded 15-inch model going for $2,199. All of them are shipping today -- we're not seeing any mention of an updated 17-inch version, so it may have been cast aside. For more coverage of WWDC 2012, please visit our event hub.
Lenovo IdeaPad Y580 goes on sale melding quad-core Ivy Bridge and GeForce GTX 660M
The Y580 led the avalanche of Lenovo IdeaPads unveiled at CES; its dependence on both Intel Ivy Bridge processors and Kepler-based NVIDIA graphics kept it out of the spotlight for some time, but it's now ready to ship out. The finished 15.6-inch laptop skews very clearly to gamers and other performance mavens. The range starts off with a quad 2.3GHz Core i7, a GeForce GTX 660M and 8GB of RAM. Any heavier outlays of cash upgrade the display resolution, optical drive and storage to as much as a 1080p screen, a Blu-ray combo drive and a 1TB hard drive with a companion 32GB SSD for good measure. None of them will win a contest for sheer portability, but a tight official price spread between $1,299 and $1,549 ($1,039 and $1,239 on sale) guarantees that it won't be hard to get exactly the PC you need to play Spec Ops. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
HP updates Envy 15, 17 and 17 3D to Ivy Bridge, game and media fans rejoice
HP has been very eager to take the Envy line in an Ultrabook direction, leaving performance hounds a bit wanting. Much to their (and our) relief, the full-fat Envy 15, Envy 17, and Envy 17 3D have all made the leap to Intel's latest round of Ivy Bridge processors. Along with the 2.3GHz to 2.7GHz quad Core i7 chips we all know and love, the Envy 15 and regular 17 can get a dual 2.5GHz Core i5 to keep the price slightly closer to Earth. All of them ship with equally upgraded AMD Radeon HD 7750M or 7850M graphics to give games that extra jolt of energy, and you won't find one with less than 6GB of RAM and a 750GB hard drive. Should you like the Envy's current formula and just wish it had that much more oomph, you can pay a post-discount $1,100, $1,250 or $1,530 to bring one to your door. [Thanks, James]
HP takes EliteBook W-series on a trip to Ivy Bridge, throws in Z220 Xeon workstation for good measure
HP has been rolling out a steady stream of Ivy Bridge-based upgrades over the past few weeks, and now it's the turn of the pro-oriented EliteBook W-series to get the long-awaited upgrade. The 8470W, 8570W and 8770W draw on Intel's faster dual Core i5 and quad Core i7 chips with respective choices of 14-, 15.6- and 17.3-inch screens. All of them pack AMD's FirePro for video duties, although big spenders at the larger two sizes can opt for one of NVIDIA's Quadro K-series graphics chips as well as an IPS-based display for color-sensitive work. Options will get you niceties such as a 24GB SSD cache, 3G and up to 16GB of RAM, although the EliteBooks' signature military-spec resistances to dust, shock and temperature are thankfully par for the course. The range costs $1,329, $1,449 and $1,699 as you move up the screen size ladder, and all three will be available before June is over. If you prefer your workstations to be more powerful but slightly more stationary, you're still welcome in HP's world: the equally fresh Z220 desktop carries Intel's new quad-core Xeon E3 processor or, if that's a bit too rich for your blood, a Pentium or quad Core i7. AMD FirePro and NVIDIA Quadro video cards are both made-to-order upgrades, and the modern underpinnings add both USB 3.0 as well as headroom for up to 32GB of RAM, if the fear of paging to disk keeps you awake at night. HP has both tower and small form factor versions of the Z220 starting off at $699, and they too will be ready to stretch IT budgets later this month. %Gallery-156730%
MacBook Pro, iMac with new Ivy Bridge processors show up on benchmarks
As Chris Rawson noted in today's rumor roundup, there are some fascinating indications that new Macs may be on the way to an Apple Store near you. Geekbench is a cross-platform processor benchmarking tool that is used to provide numbers on the relative capabilities of computers with various CPU / GPU combinations. The results end up being posted on the site and are available for browsing, so it was a bit of a surprise when figures showed up for what appear to be a new MacBook Pro and iMac powered by Intel's new Ivy Bridge processors. The MacBook Pro is listed on Geekbench as a previously unknown "MacBook9,1" with an Ivy Bridge Core i7-3820QM running at 2.7GHz. The benchmark number of 12252 is about 17 percent better than the number generated by an existing Core i7 MacBook Pro. The "iMac13,2" shows a Core i7-3770 desktop chip clocked at 3.4GHz pumping out a Geekbench score of 12183 -- probably lower than it should be due to only having 4 GB of 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM installed. Engadget notes that the scores are roughly equivalent to what they've seen for benchmarks on other platforms running the Ivy Bridge processors -- a bump in the speed, but nothing earth-shatteringly big. While benchmark results can be faked, MacRumors says that the various motherboard identifiers and special Mountain Lion build number are consistent with past practices. MacRumors also points out that premature benchmark results have shown up in the Geekbench database before, just prior to the release of new equipment from Apple. While all rumors should be taken with a very large grain of salt, there's a possibility that the next-generation MacBooks and iMacs are just around the corner. Another Mac site, 9to5Mac, is also stating that they've pulled code from the latest Mountain Lion beta that appears to show that the Ivy Bridge MacBook Pros will come with USB 3.0 complementing the Thunderbolt high-speed external bus and a new NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M GPU. 9to5Mac also postulates that a new 15" MacBook Pro will arrive complete with a Retina display. Whatever the truth may be, it's refreshing to see that some glimmer of new Mac models is beginning to excite the Mac faithful.
Best Buy Mac discounts hint at clearing inventory, Ivy Bridge revamp coming soon?
Cupertino is unsurprisingly tight-of-lip on when it plans to add Ivy Bridge to its desktop and laptop line, but we think that's not far off: we've even seen some benchmarks. Now, in a move that smacks of inventory clearing but could equally mean nothing, Best Buy has hacked between $20 and $200 from its Mac Mini, iMac, Mac Pro and MacBook Pro offerings. If you're into a bargain, then head down to your nearest big blue-and-yellow store -- and we'll let you know as soon as we see the yellow sticky-note.
Panasonic outs Let's Note B11 laptop series in Japan, Ivy Bridge in tow
Okay, it may not be one of the sleekest laptops we've seen of late, but Panasonic's B11 is packing a hefty amount of horsepower underneath that beastly shell to make you forget its looks. This Let's Note B11 is a worthy refresh to the B10 series we showed you a while back -- although aesthetically it didn't change much. Inside the Japan-bound B11 is Intel's latest Core i7-3615QM chip, which you can pair alongside a 750GB hard drive or a 256GB SSD. You can also choose up to 16GB of RAM if you go the quiet route, while the HDD configuration only allows a maximum of 8GB of memory. The 15.6-inch (1920 x 1080) B11 is set to hit Japanese shelves on May 18th, with pricing ranging from a whopping 170,000 to 250,000 yen (around $3,100) depending on how you set it up.
Samsung's $1,500, 17-inch Series 7 Chronos arrives, UPS employees check their spine insurance
Samsung's outed its massive 17-inch Series 7 Chronos desktop-killing laptop. The portable behemoth arrives packing a 2.6GHz Core i7 Ivy Bridge CPU, 8GB of RAM and NVIDIA's GeForce GT650M with a further 2GB of memory to itself. You'll be able to relax in front of that 17.3-inch, 300 nit, 1920 x 1080 display and listen to 2.1 surround thanks to some JBL speakers and a subwoofer. The seven-pound device is rated for up to eight hours of battery life and will comfortably hold 1TB of storage, depending on the size of your spreadsheet. It's available from today from all good retailers (and most of the bad ones too) for $1,500.
Samsung outs new Series 5 550P notebook in the UK, Ivy Bridge and numeric keypad onboard
We saw a lot of things back at CES, and from the PC makers, it was mainly new Ultrabooks. Samsung, however, did present a pair of "regular" notebooks, and it looks like they're just about to stretch their legs in the UK. The Series 5 550P is available in 15- and 17-inch varieties, sporting 1366 x 768 and 1600 x 900 displays respectively. Calling the shots will be quad-core Ivy Bridge Core i7 chips supported by 8GB of RAM. Graphics are dished up by a 2GB GeForce GT 650M, and there's a Blu-ray optical drive plus capacity for up to 2TB of storage. Like the Series 7, sound is handled by integrated JBL speakers complete with "Max Bass Boost" subwoofer -- crikey! Lower specification models will also be available (swapping the Blu-ray for DVD, and using shared graphics) when they hit UK stores this month.
Lenovo swings out diminutive ThinkCentre M92p Tiny, bevy of all-in-ones and VoIP-ready ThinkVision display
Lenovo's going all-out on Ivy Bridge-based ThinkCentre pro desktop updates this evening, and the centerpiece is the smallest of the lot. The ThinkCentre M92p Tiny -- yes, it's officially nicknamed Tiny -- is about as thick as a golf ball at 1.4 inches and ready to tuck behind your display, but packs up to a third-generation Intel Core chip, vPro for IT control and your choice of spinning or solid-state hard drives. The M92p Tiny and a lower-end M72e should arrive in June, although what the respective $799 and $499 prices will get you are still mysteries. There's no shortage if you prefer your desktops slightly more upsized. The all-in-one pack is topped by the 21.5-inch ThinkCentre Edge M92z, an uncommonly thin (2.5 inches) desktop using an IPS-based LCD with optional multi-touch that's due in July for $699. The 20- and 23-inch M92z AIO models start off at $799 for their June releases and pack up to 1TB of storage and dedicated AMD Radeon HD graphics, while a more modestly equipped, 20-inch M72z AIO will appear the same month for $599. And if you've just got to have a traditional box, Lenovo will gladly sell you the budget ThinkCentre Edge 72 ($439) or slightly uprated ThinkCentre M82 ($599). Everyone has the option of the 23-inch ThinkVision LT2323z display, which touts an IPS-based LCD and a webcam with Lync VoIP-certified, noise-cancelling microphones. The screen's price hasn't been set, but it does have a locked-in June release. You can delve into the full details of Lenovo's massive ThinkCentre revamp in the releases after the break.
Packard Bell EasyNote LV, TV laptops bring Ivy Bridge to speed-hungry Europeans
Most laptops being updated to Intel's Ivy Bridge processors have come from international brands, so it may be some relief to European PC buyers that Acer's local Packard Bell badge has made the leap as well. The 15.6-inch EasyNote TV and 17.3-inch LV will each use the new 22-nanometer processors both to push performance that little bit farther as well as get a middling five hours of battery life. NVIDIA graphics in GeForce GT 620M and 630M flavors will spruce up the gaming side, however, and Packard Bell is delivering a 20 percent more responsive multi-touch trackpad, dedicated music / social keys and a bamboo-like lid pattern to add a little dose of style. The duo will surface in Europe during June at prices starting from €499 ($656). Acer has sometimes brought Packard Bell PCs to the US as roughly equivalent Gateway models and vice versa, so Americans shouldn't be surprised if they get counterpart laptops before long.
Dell spreads the Ivy Bridge love to new XPS 8500, Vostro 470 PCs (video)
Not willing to let the new Alienware lineup have all the fun with Intel's Ivy Bridge rollout, Dell has seen fit to trot out a pair of new desktop systems using the new 22-nanometer chips. The XPS 8500 is arguably the center of attention here and comes with your pick of the third-generation, quad-core i5 or i7 processors, along with a new choice for a 32GB or 256GB solid-state drive to cut down on those pesky loading times. The more sober-minded among us can opt for the Vostro 470 business desktop, which skips over the raw video prowess of its rebellious XPS cousin in favor of supporting up to 32GB of RAM, not to mention stacking up the extra security and support that makes IT administrators happy. Should you want to take the plunge, $750 will get you into the XPS 8500 fold, while $550 is all it takes for the Vostro 470 line. Head in past the break for a video peep at both PCs. Update: we've included the full press release after the break.
