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Acer Aspire 8943G hits US retailers, less glorious laptops in tow
Hoping to get your hot little hands on those brushed metal keys and gorgeous LED touchpad? You're in luck, as the 18.4-inch Acer Aspire 8943G (aka Ethos) has finally arrived stateside. $1,549 buys you a 1.6GHz Core i7-720QM and 4GB of RAM, plus a 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 and Blu-ray drive to power that 1080p LED-backlit screen. If you'd rather not lug around a 10.1 pound desktop replacement, though, or if the 8943G's a little too rich for your blood, Acer's got some other machines that might better match your style. The Acer Aspire AS7745 and AS5745 -- incremental updates to these puppies -- bring home Core i5 and Core i7 processors, with the $1,399 17.3-inch AS7745G boasting Radeon HD 5650 graphics and Blu-ray while the $899 AS5745PG comes with a 15.6-inch multitouch screen. There's even a budget lineup starting at $429 next month if you're looking for a netbook alternative. No matter which you choose, you'll find details in the press releases after the break... but since you know you really want that 8943G (see the gallery below) you might as well hit Amazon at our more coverage link. You didn't need that rent money, right?%Gallery-94344%
HP EliteBook 8740w specs begin to take shape, ATI FirePro M7820 revealed
You've been wondering, we know, why the newly unveiled 2540p and 2740p EliteBooks from HP weren't accompanied by their heavyweight compadre, the 8740w, but as it turns out the latter might be taking a bit longer to launch due to its inclusion of ATI's as yet unannounced FirePro M7820 GPU. Joining up with the earlier leaked M5800, this is likely to form the backbone of ATI's pro graphics refresh, with its innards based on the successful HD 5870, meaning it offers DirectX 11 functionality, 1GB of GDDR5 memory, and probably the most graphical horsepower your lap has ever seen. This is aided by the low-voltage, but highly potent Core i7-720QM CPU and four DDR3 slots for up to 16GB of RAM on the 8740w. You have until the end of the month to figure out what to do with all that power, which is when the rumormongers expect this machine to be announced. [Thanks, Reznov]
ASUS' $1,500 Core i7-equipped G51J gaming laptop gets reviewed
Here's hoping you held off on purchasing that Core 2 Duo G51 just a few months ago, 'cause ASUS has just pushed out the exact same laptop with a Core i7 within and a price tag that's $200 skimpier. The G51J-A1 was launched alongside Windows 7, and the crew over at Hot Hardware managed to toss it on the test bench to find out what kind of gains could be expected when going from Intel's last-gen CPU to the newly-announced Core i7-720QM. The long and short of it is this: the new CPU enabled this machine to smoke the C2D sibling in every test, with graphical performance being nothing short of astounding. 'Course, the omission of a Blu-ray drive was somewhat of a bummer, but for just $1,499, it's not like we really expected one to be included. Hit the read link for the full skinny, but only if you've got some disposable income that you don't mind parting with.
