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Lenovo unveils 3000 V100 / C200 Core 2 Duo-powered notebooks
Joining the growing parade of manufacturers upping the innards of their notebook lines with Core 2 Duo chips, Lenovo is bumping the specs in its buget-minded 3000 series. While the N100 has already made the Merom leap, the newly-unveiled C200 now offers a 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 processor, 15-inch XGA display, up to 2GB of DDR2 RAM, 80GB 5400RPM hard drive, Intel's GMA950 integrated graphics set, 802.11a/b/g wireless, and a DVD Burner to boot. It also sports VGA / S-Video out, a 56k modem, Ethernet, 4-pin FireWire, four USB 2.0 ports, and a PCMCIA slot, but the 6.2-pound weight and 2.5-hour battery life may scare some away. On the ultraportable side, the 4-pound V100 now touts a 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 processor, 12.1-inch WXGA LCD, 100GB 5400RPM hard drive, 6-cell battery, and a dual-layer DVD burner, while sharing the remaining specs with its larger sibling. Lenovo also threw an ExpressCard slot, 5-in-1 flash card reader, and snazzy fingerprint scanner in the little guy, but yanked the S-Video output and one USB 2.0 port in the process. Both units will be available in a plethora of configurations later this month, with prices starting at $650 for the C200, and $999 for the V100. Read - Lenovo 3000 C200 Read - Lenovo 3000 V100
"The Best" budget line expands in Japan
The PSP's lineup of Greatest Hits games in America is relatively small, and hasn't grown in quite some time. (In order to qualify for Greatest Hits status, a game must sell more than 250,000 copies and be more than 9 months old.) Japan's "The Best" series in Japan, though, continues to grow. Sure, it features really ugly packaging, but at the low, low price of 2800 yen (about $25), it might be worth it. The latest additions to the budget lineup include: Metal Gear Acid 2, Sengoku Musou, Bleach Heat the Soul 2, and Harvest Moon Portable. If you're wondering how these titles are selected, don't: unlike in America, it doesn't appear the Japanese budget program actually has qualifications.[Via Siliconera]
LG's entry-level VX3450 now on Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless has announced that it is shipping the LG VX3450, an entry-level clamshell that replaces the VX3300. The low pricing -- $29.99 on a 2 year contract, or $79.99 on a 1 year contract -- reflects the phone's skeletal feature set (Verizon claims it's for people who "want to keep life simple"): for your money you get a basic blue flip-phone with an external antenna, a speakerphone, voice-activated dialing, an external mono-display, and wait for it... a custom ringtone composer! As you can probably tell, we're not too ecstatic about the VX3450, but as it's one of the cheapest handsets from Verizon Wireless you can probably expect to see a whole lot of them out and about from now on. So just consider this post as a friendly warning, m'kay?
Cash Money Chaos video interview
Gamespot has a new video interview with Cash Money Chaos' lead designer. While the video doesn't offer any new info on the game, it does provide plenty of in-game footage of the game's bloody carnage. The designer compares it to Smash TV and Robotron, but with a crazy alien 70s game show feel. Keep this one on your radar: it'll be a mere $30 when it launches in Q1 2007, and it'll feature 8-player online infrastructure play with stat-tracking.
Capcom Classics trailer travels through time
The retro hits just keep on coming today! This newly released trailer of the upcoming Capcom Classics Reloaded compliation shows off the game in action, and it gets a retro-loving gamer like myself pretty excited. Not only will it feature Street Figher II, and Ghouls 'n Goblins, it'll also come with game-sharing so that you and your friends can play using just one UMD. The compliation will feature more than 15 games, and will collect stats, and save things like cheats and music in galleries that you can easily access. Best of all, it has a nice budget price of $27 shipped on amazon.com. The game comes out October 24th.
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Medion offers personalized laptop on the cheap
If there were ever a jack of all trades in the electronics biz, Medion would be it. The company seems to make everything (or else their logo sure gets around), and this time the label appears by way of a new budget laptop. The MIM 2220 is a predictably average machine that sports a 15.4-inch WXGA display, a dual-layer DVD burner, WiFi, 256MB of RAM, 40GB HD, and a trio of USB 2.0 ports along with a FireWire connector. Surprisingly, the notebook is powered by a 1.7GHz Intel Pentium M processor, which is a notch above the Celeron we anticipated. But the run-of-the-mill specs are overshadowed by the bargain basement pricetag (just £400) and the option to have Medion (or whoever really makes this thing) emboss any picture onto the lid of the machine for another £45. While the uniqueness of the offering -- and the delightfully low price point -- may draw in a few customers, you may want to think twice about about completely ruining its (small) resale value by plastering your face on it. Might we suggest something a little more cheeky, perhaps? [Via Mobilemag]
eMachines releases five desktops for cash-strapped students
Even though summer has only barely begun, Gateway's eMachines is already looking ahead to the upcoming school year, having just announced five new Vista-ready desktops for the student on a budget. Starting at the "top of the line," we have the T6536 (pictured, with optional monitor) and T6534, which both feature Athlon 64 processors from AMD (3800+ and 3700+, respectively), nVidia GeForce 6100 graphics, and 250GB of storage, but the extra $90 you're spending on the $540 T6536 doubles the RAM from 512MB to 1GB and bumps the OS up to Windows XP Media Center Edition. Next in line is the T5046, which will set you back the same $450 as the T6534 but changes up the specs with a hyper-threaded Pentium 4 processor, Radeon Xpress 200 graphics from ATI, 512MB of RAM, a 200GB HDD, and the same dual-layer DVD burner found in both members of the 6000-series. Finally, the super-budget-conscious consumer has the option of either the $350 T3506 or $380 T3508, with the former machine offering a Celeron D352 CPU, Radeon X300-based graphics, 512MB of RAM, 120GB HDD, and a CD-RW/DVD combo drive, while the latter rig steps it up to a Celeron D356, Radeon Xpress 200 chip, 160GB hard drive, and that good old multi-format DVD burner. All of the new machines are available immediately, which gives you plenty of time to load up the software you'll need for surviving next year's vigorous academic schedule -- namely tunes, vids, and games.Read- T6536Read- T6534Read- T5046Read- T3508Read- T3506[All models via Yahoo]
Lenovo ThinkPad Z61m reviewed
Ok suits, listen up. It's time to pilfer the IT budget 'cause the business-class, Lenovo ThinkPad Z61m just pulled a stellar review over at NotebookReview. This Core Duo beast boasts a titanium lid which makes it, dare we say, attractive in that sisterly kind of way, but she's all ThinkPad underneath. The 15.4-inch widescreen model under review featured the 2.0GHz Core Duo T2500, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 5400RPM 100GB SATA disk, and a 128MB ATI x1400 graphics card which allowed the reviewer to blast through the performance tests and should keep Vista's GUI puttering along for at least the terms of your lease. Meanwhile, that 6-cell battery eked out a respectable 3 hours 20 minutes while under a typical workday load -- you know, bidding on eBay auctions, checking stocks, and hunting down ex-lovers all google style. Sure, it's built "like a rock" coming in a bit too heavy and thick for the reviewers liking, but your wage monkeys won't complain will they mister boss-man?
Samsung's 26-inch LE26R41BDX LCD TV Reviewed
While we were taking a peak at Samsung's summer line of HDTVs, TrustedReviews was busy testing, and ultimately falling deeply in love with, their budget-friendly LE26R41BDX 26-inch LCD HDTV. The 1,366 x 768 box sports all the usual inputs (HDMI, component video, PC and SCART) and an 800:1 contrast ratio, but also includes a surprising array of high-end features, such as a digital tuner and a slot for "pay TV" subscription cards, all for the low -- at least by UK standards -- price of £600 ($1100). Ultimately though, it comes down to picture quality and that's where the review gets the mushiest, raving about dark blacks, intense colors and an "unusually potent backlight." It sounds like a solid deal to us, especially when you consider the alternative.
Epson's budget slim-line tower, the Endeavor AT960
Japanese consumers looking for a slim-line tower PC on the cheap could probably do worse than Epson's latest Endeavor desktop, the AT960, which features a 2.53GHz Celeron D processor and 256MB of DDR2 RAM for $420. More yen lets you step up to a Pentium 4 chip as fast as 3.8GHz, up to 2GB of RAM and 250GB of hard drive space (compared to the sparse 40GB in the base configuration), WiFi, and a DVD burner -- but no amount of money can improve upon the ATI Radeon Xpress 200 integrated graphics. Likewise, there's not much you can do about the dearth of input options, so the four USB 2.0 hookups and serial and parallel ports are gonna have to stand in for the missing FireWire.
New budget slider from Alcatel
We don't talk much about Alcatels on this side of the pond, but that doesn't mean they aren't holding down the low to mid range, with a full 14 cellphones in their current lineup. Latest among them is the OT E260, a GSM 900/1800 no-frills slider that lacks a camera (gasp!). For its lowly market segment, the E260 is a looker, sporting a simple glossy black face and weighing in at a svelte 90 grams. Besides a straight-outta-2002 102 x 80 color screen, you'll get 16-channel polyphonic ringtones, and that's about it. [Via Mobilewhack]
MCJ's MDV-EXTREME 7530GX: the "budget" Blu-ray PC
Yeah, we know it hurts to read about those mega-spec'd and monster priced, Blu-ray Disc recording desktops when you're lean on the mean, mean, green. That's why we present you with the Mouse Computer Japan (MCJ) MDV-EXTREME 7530GX. For about $2,780, you get that BD recorder (which on its own will fetch about $1000), a 2.2GHz Athlon 64 X2 4400 CPU, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, 500GB of disk, and NVIDIA GeForce 7900GTX with 512MB of dedicated video RAM. Not bad. Oh, did we tell you these are shipping in Japan-only starting 29 May? Still kinda hurts, huh?[Via Akihabara News]
Medion's UK-bound MD 20099 32-inch LCD
While we can't vouch for the quality of a 32-inch LCD making its debut at Toys 'R Us locations around the UK for under $1,100, the specs on Medion's upcoming MD 20099 don't look half bad. The Medion offers a 1,366 x 768 pixel display, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 550cd/m² brightness, and even an HDCP-capable HDMI input, along with dual-tuner PIP, split-screen text, and built-in 20-watt sound system with five-band equalizer. Again, we're not sure what to expect from the performance of this model, but if you happen to be in a British Toys 'R Us at the end of the month when this model is debuted, make sure to leave your impressions in the comments.
Konami rides the budget wave
There's already a couple of Player's Choice titles on the GameCube and Gameboy Advance, and they happen to be some of the best titles on each of their respective platforms. Getting quality at a cheaper price is always a treat, so why haven't we seen Nintendo introduce this on the DS yet? Taito has already gone ahead and issued some of its games at rock-bottom prices for the DS over in Japan and now Konami is following suit with 3 games of its own. Ganbare Goemon (Mystical Ninja), Castlevania, and Survival Kids will all be released with a new price tag of 2940 yen, which comes to about $25 US, by Konami over in Japan on 6/29.
Quad SLI gaming for cheapskates
The guys over at destructoid.com weren't too impressed with Dell's $10,000 pricetag for the company's flagship Renegade system so they decided to take the matter into their own hands by collating the key components of a custom built Quad SLI gaming rig. Breaking their imaginary system down, they found that the main areas essential for building a machine comparable in performance to the Renegade were: Duh, the Quad SLI graphics cards. A budget of around $2800 should set you up with a 4 card bundle. A Gigabyte Quad SLI motherboard to stick those four cards in, $240. Pentium 3.73GHz Extreme, $1300. 10,000 RPM Hard Drive and 2GB of branded RAM, $450. Battlefield 2 at 1600x1200 with graphics on full, priceless. Chuck in a case, cooling, sound card, DVD drive and peripherals (keyboard, mouse and 2.1 speaker system) and you're looking at a budget of $6,000 for a well equipped Quad SLI system. That's around $2,000 less than the Renegade PC (sans the $2,199 30" widescreen monitor that Dell includes with their system) so you're not quite saving the $4,000 that the destructoid guys claim you will.The obvious downsides to building your own Quad SLI rig include: the hassle of constructing the system and installing Windows yourself (although we're sure most people could do a better job than Dell) and the lack of a warranty, but before you think about these problems ask yourself the question: is that red flame color scheme worth two grand?[Thanks, Franco]
2005's freeware gaming picks
If you're feeling the post-Christmas pinch and want to enjoy some quality games on the cheap, you don't need to look very far. There are many freeware games out there, in a wide range of genres--we've even covered a couple in the past.This roundup nominates the five best freeware games of the past year as: Mono, Gunz: The Duel, War Rock, Zak McKracken 2 and Advanced Strategic Command -- all games that are worth a close look if you want some extremely low-budget gaming. [via digg]
