Notebooks -- Engadget

notebooks posts

Fujitsu P Series notebooks announced, said to be 'snazzy'

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Oct 16th 2009 at 4:23PM

Fujitsu has just announced two "stylish" P Series LifeBooks, and we have our hands on the PR drivel to prove it. This affable pair of machines come in "charming" colors that "endow both notebooks with a premium yet snazzy feel, for standing out effortlessly in a corporate jungle or a social playground setting." To be honest, we're more interested in things like the 11.6-inch (1366 x 768) display, battery life (6.7 hours under normal use, 7.2 hours in power saving mode -- which can be selected by hitting the ECO button), multitouch, the DVD Sharing application for glomming onto optical drives over your LAN, and the fact that they're both a mere 3.5 pounds light and just over an inch thin. The Fujitsu P LifeBook P3110 features a Pentium SU4100 (1.30GHz / 800MHz / 2MB L2 Cache) and is available in Glossy Black, Glossy Silver, and Glossy Ruby Red. The Fujitsu P LifeBook P3010, however, sports an AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 (1.6GHz / 512KB / L2 cache) and is available in Glossy Black and Glossy Ruby Red. No word on a release date, or on a price -- but, to paraphrase Godard, whenever someone mentions "style," we reach for our checkbooks. PR after the break.

Continue reading Fujitsu P Series notebooks announced, said to be 'snazzy'

Sony VAIO X announced, starts at $1,299

by Nilay Patel posted Oct 7th 2009 at 6:32PM

Sony's just started a laptop-oriented event in NYC, but we just got our hands on what look like unpublished web pages for the new VAIO X and VAIO CW and an updated VAIO L machines. All of 'em now run Windows 7, of course, but the big news is apparent confirmation that the VAIO X will indeed have a 2GHz Atom -- although it's listed at a "2GHz Intel Processor," the 533MHz bus speed also listed pretty much gives it away. And no, you're not getting an Ion in this deal to make up for that starting $1,300 price tag -- it's Intel GMA500 graphics all the way. You're also getting an integrated Verizon 3G card and both the standard and extended batteries, however. Still is that insane? It's probably insane.

We'll keep you updated as the event goes on, stay with us!

Dell adds Inspiron 17 laptop to its lineup

by Laura June posted Jul 16th 2009 at 9:54AM

Good news, lovers of giant laptops: Dell's just added a 17.3-inch option to its Inspiron lineup. The Inspiron 17 -- which has a backlit 16:9 aspect ratio, 1,600 x 900 resolution LCD -- will boast options for Intel Pentium Dual Core as well as Core 2 Duo processors, up to 3GB of RAM, an up to 320GB SATA hard drive, and an up to 9-cell battery (the base model comes with a 4-cell). Other optionals include a Blu-ray drive and a 1080p display. You can order this puppy now -- the base price is a pretty sweet $499 -- and it should ship sometime in August. One more shot after the break.

[Via Electronista]

Continue reading Dell adds Inspiron 17 laptop to its lineup

Asus, Intel launch WePC website, ask community to design PCs for them

by Samuel Axon posted Oct 29th 2008 at 4:42PM

True power is derived from the people, yes? Asus and Intel know this well, so they've launched a website called WePC, where users can draw up concepts and specs for new netbook and notebook models then argue about how fantastic or utterly impractical they are. In a sense cooperative laptop design is not new -- we've seen groups of companies work together to develop products, and Best Buy's Blue Label is somewhat similar to this -- but Asus and Intel are going full-on populist (or at least the appearance of it) with WePC. The promise is that designers will lurk on the site and implement some ideas -- probably (and thankfully) not including the ones that are completely whacked.

Laptop shipments exceed desktops in US for the not-exactly-first time

by Darren Murph posted Oct 28th 2008 at 9:24AM

Hope you're eager to break into that Halloween candy early, because you've got some (re)celebrating to do. If you'll recall, we first heard that laptops accounted for over half of US retail computer sales back in 2003, and in June of 2005, we found that it was somehow worth getting jazzed over once more when it happened again. Here we are in the latter half of 2008 shaking our heads in disappointment, as IDC has amazingly discovered that notebook shipments into the US market have exceeded the 50% threshold for the first time ever. Go ahead and stock up on rave supplies early -- we get this weird feeling that we'll be doing this same song and dance in 2010 or so.

[Image courtesy of DayLife]

Dell pre-loading music mixes, CinemaNow movies, world again asks "Why?"

by Samuel Axon posted Oct 25th 2008 at 1:35AM

When Dell started pre-loading digital copies of Iron Man in new systems for $19, we didn't think that was very enticing, but at least it was a pretty good movie, right? Quite possibly encouraged by thousands of accidental purchases (we kid, sort of), Dell's announced two new content pre-loading partnerships -- Universal Music Group and CinemaNow. The music comes in 50 and 100 song bundles starting at $25, but at least it's DRM-free, so if you don't mind a mega mix chosen entirely by Dell it's not all evil. CinemaNow, though, offers $25 and up bundles including (among other flicks) world-renown classics like The Fast and the Furious and the Matrix sequels. Fear.

Read - Universal Music Group
Read - CinemaNow

GeForce 9400M to hit notebooks from five major vendors, mock Intel

by Samuel Axon posted Oct 23rd 2008 at 1:01AM

Now that NVIDIA's GeForce 9400M has made its debut in Apple's new MacBooks, Technical Marketing Director Nick Stam says that five major notebook vendors are planning to ship systems with the chipset -- though we don't know if that includes Apple or not. Stam expects NVIDIA will carve out 30 percent of the integrated graphics market for itself, partly by improving other experiences besides games -- Google Earth, photo editing, day-to-day video encoding, and other activities performed by people who use keys besides W, A, S, and D. Frankly, we're just thankful we've evolved past the days when we needed a 19-inch monster to perform high-impact 3D tasks without sacrificing to the sinister gods of screen tearing.

Intel's Clarksfield to begin production in second half of 2009

by Samuel Axon posted Oct 21st 2008 at 12:54AM

Penryn-based Montevina just hit the streets a few months ago, but hardware geeks are fickle fellows, so Intel said today that Clarksfield, its Nehalem-based mobile CPU, will go into production in the second half of next year; sadly, there was no word on when the chips will actually be available to consumers in the Calpella platform, which (rumor has it) will have built-in WiMAX. Clarksfield will include an onboard memory controller and a bunch of other new techs like its desktop brethren, so the promise of performance gains comparable to what we've seen in the desktop benchmarks is there -- we'll just have to wait at least a year to enjoy them, so get comfy.

OLPC America will bring XO to the US

by Evan Blass posted Jan 13th 2008 at 1:18PM

Proving once again that he's still got love for the home team, Nick Negroponte has announced the impending launch of OLPC America, a division of the organization with its own director and chairman that will bring low-cost laptops to US students. According to an IDG interview with Negroponte, distributing the XO stateside has always been in the plans, arguing that "to have the United States be the only country that's not in the OLPC agenda would be kind of ridiculous." Besides helping out kids at home, NickNeg anticipates that a domestic deployment will accelerate the project to critical mass in terms of adoption, software, and developer support. OLPC America will reportedly work with individual state governments to handle the details of the disbursement, although specifics of the plan will remain under wraps until the official launch later this year.

[Via Slashdot]

Asus M70S and M50S notebooks boast 1TB of storage

by Evan Blass posted Jan 3rd 2008 at 10:37AM

As you may have read in our coverage of Hitachi's new 5K500 2.5-inch 500GB drive, Asus will be the first manufacturer to pack a pair of these capacious components into a set of upcoming widescreen models, giving the 17-inch M70S and 15-inch M50S the distinguished honor of being the world's first one terabyte laptops. Besides those oddly-sized drives (which can configured in either RAID 0 or RAID 1), these machines will also offer up to WUXGA or WSXGA+ resolutions (for the M70 and M50, respectively), 2.4GHz T7700 Core 2 Duo processors, AMD ATI Radeon HD 3650 graphics, and a fingerprint reader, along with an optional hybrid TV tuner and remote. As usual, the good stuff (pictures, pricing) will be coming in a few days at the Show of Shows.

Dell releases Inspiron 1525 in the US

by Evan Blass posted Jan 3rd 2008 at 9:20AM

Well it missed a 2007 release by just days, but now Dell's Inspiron 1525 -- upgrade to the 15.4-inch 1521 -- is finally available for purchase in the US, starting at just $500. Of course, it'll cost quite a bit more to configure one of these colorful rigs to a power user's specifications, and even then, you're capped off at a 1,200 x 800 screen resolution being pushed by integrated graphics. Still, even the starter model provides quite a few nice features, including integrated 2 megapixel webcam, travel remote, HDMI port, and perhaps most exciting of all, built-in Wireless USB. You can hit up the Read link for more info and instructions on how to order.

Acer finally gets sucked into Sony battery recall

by Evan Blass posted Apr 25th 2007 at 2:38PM

You've got to hand it to Acer for holding strong while lesser manufacturers folded in the face of cries over "consumer safety," but the Taiwanese giant has finally caved and issued a voluntary recall of about 27,000 Sony-made laptop batteries over eight months after Dell pulled back the first four million,and half a year following its initial consultations with Sony. Affected models include a slew of TravelMate and Aspire notebooks sold between May 2004 and November 2006, so Acer owners should hit the Read link to match up serial numbers -- and then shutdown immediately in favor of AC power if they do happen to sport one of the explosion-prone packs. As usual, the company will replace your battery for free as long as you visit the proper site or dial the toll-free blah blah blah...can we finally put this meme to bed already?

HP releases no-frills HP 510 notebook

by Evan Blass posted Mar 29th 2007 at 4:27PM

Not everyone is down with latest and greatest hardware -- or they just can't afford it -- and it's definitely not the dual-core-and-SLI crowd HP is targeting with its new HP 510 laptop. The 15-incher features just about what you'd expect from a $565 notebook computer, so specs like 'Celeron M.' 'integrated graphics,' and '1GB max RAM' should come as little surprise. You're still getting all the basics here, though, including a 60GB hard drive, b/g WiFi, a passable WXGA resolution and 512MB of RAM, and a DVD combo drive. Not one we'd show off to the ladies or anything, but it'll get the job done, and it's available immediately.

[Via PC Launches]

BenQ Joybook R42: first laptop without RAM and a hard drive?

by Evan Blass posted Mar 16th 2007 at 12:21AM

So we're all for brevity when it comes to press releases, but you'd think that if BenQ actually wanted people to buy its new Joybook R42, it would at least advertise such nontrivial features as the machine's RAM, hard drive capacity, or -- and this is a biggie -- the darn thing's screen size and resolution. We can only assume that all of the company's writers have been locked up in this insider trading nastiness, because how else to explain a three paragraph release that wastes two-thirds of the space extolling the virtues of the "sophisticated" cooling system and "vibrant" display whose measurements shall not be spoken? Despite BenQ's stinginess with the deets, we can extrapolate from past models that the R42 features a 14.1-inch LCD, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, dual-layer DVD burner, probably 1GB of RAM, maybe 160GB of storage max, and -- the only thing we learned from the crummy PR -- some variety of Core 2 Duo processor with Via integrated graphics. As for price and release date? Ha, that's rich; right now BenQ execs are probably more worried about posting bail than getting this into your hands.

Update: No, we're not complete idiots: that specifications table really did show up after this post was published. The big news, however, is that our initial guesses were almost right on the money; the only extra info we've gleaned is that the screen resolution is 1,280 x 800 and your hard drive options max out at 120GB, not 160GB.

[Via PC Launches]

Everex's StepNote VA7500J: another cheap Vista laptop

by Evan Blass posted Feb 23rd 2007 at 6:12AM

If you're looking for a Vista laptop on the cheap, but Everex's $500 StepNote VA4101M actually slides in under your budget, the company has released a new model with all the upgrades that $70 can buy. Specs on the StepNote VA7500J are almost identical to its recent sibling, including a 15.4-inch, WXGA display, 512MB of RAM, a 60GB hard drive, integrated graphics, and 802.11b/g. In fact, the only difference between the two units seems to be the CPU, with the 4101M rocking a 1.46GHz Centrino M while the 7500J sports a 1.5GHz VIA C7-M. Not much else to say about this bargain basement notebook, other than the fact that's it's only available in Japan for a cool 69,800 yen ($570).