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NEC Japan's twenty-six new laptops and all-in-one desktops
If there were ever any doubts as to our complete and total dedication to you, dear reader, let them be dispelled here and now, as we've just trudged through page upon page of horrible machine translation to bring you the relevant deets and specs on no less than 26 new computers from NEC -- for the Japanese market! This cornucopia of hardware comes in both laptop and all-in-one, media-centric desktop flavors, and can be further divided into their respective series: the LaVie 15.4-inch L, T, and 12.1-inch A laptops, and Valuestar W/X, L, and R desktops. More specifically, the W lineup come in four different configurations (VW970/FG, VW900/FH, VW770/FG, VW700/FG), with displays ranging from to 20 to 32-inches, either a 2.8GHz Pentium D or 3.06GHz Celeron D processor, and RAM and hard drive capacity ranging from 512MB to 1GB, and 400GB to 800GB, respectively, while the only X model, the 20-inch, 2.80GHz VX780/FD, seems to differ from the W's in that it utilizes a tower configuration and sports a nVidia GeForce video card (all the rest of the desktops feature integrated graphics). For pics and details on the rest of the desktops and all of the notebooks, keep on reading after the jump...
Strange app of the day: UnPlugged
I'm still scratching my head on this app, but I figured I'd post it and maybe you guys could help make sense of how an app like this would be useful. UnPlugged is a one-trick pony with the sole purpose of (drum roll please) notifying you when your Mac's power cable is unplugged. It can use Growl to notify you, or a simple alert window in case Growl isn't your cup of tea.Now, how is this useful? To double-check: If a desktop Mac's power cable comes unplugged either from the wall or the Mac itself, it just shuts off, right? As far as I know, Apple hasn't built any whiz-bang UPS technology into their recent desktops. So that leaves iBooks and PowerBooks. Is there some kind of an environment or fairly typical situations people are getting themselves into where they wouldn't know if a power cable became unplugged, given that it attaches right on the side of the machine they're working on? Sound off, if you could, and help make sense of this peculiar little app.UnPlugged is donationware, requires 10.3.9 or higher and is available from brik software.
SavRow AXEN-X1 notebook with dual GPUs but no WMCE
We got all excited thinking that the SavRow AXEN-X1 notebook would make a sweet mobile DTV solution, but as we dug a little more the disappointment set in. The $4,000 system sports dual NVIDIA Go 7800 GTX graphics cards paired with a 19-inch widescreen display capable of 1680 x 1050 pixels. Sounds promising for some expensive 720p high-def right? Then we hit the system configurator because if we're willing drop four-grand, why not go all in?Unfortunately, there's no option to upgrade from Windows XP Home Edition to Windows Media Center Edition, so it logically follows why we didn't see an option for a DTV tuner either. Clearly the AXEN-X1 is geared towards gamers, but at that price you can snag an Xbox 360 and have enough left over for three 34-inch widescreens from Sony. Maybe it's just us, but perhaps the DTV tuner inclusion rule should start applying to these monster notebooks and not just televisions.[via i4u]
Asus partners with Lamborghini on notebook series
Add another to the long and illustrious list of luxury car-themed laptops in Asus's new Lamborghini Notebook Series, the result of a partnership between the computer and automotive companies. The press release provides an overdose of flowery marketing lingo on quality, performance, speed, power, blah blah blah -- but is incredibly short on details pending its "official debut" tomorow. We do know the Lamborghini Notebook Series will be available in yellow and black, though, and we all know that in this world it's what outside that counts.
