notebook
Latest
Panasonic refreshes Let's Note lineup, says LX is world's lightest 14-inch notebook
Though Panasonic's Let's Note laptops are only sold in Japan, it's nice to know how the other half lives, isn't it? The company just updated three models in the lineup, including the 12.1-inch SX and NX, along with the flagship 14-inch LX. Panasonic claims the latter is now the world's lightest 14-inch notebook at 1.14kg (about 2.5 pounds), provided it's equipped with a 256GB SSD and lightweight batteries. Despite that lack of heft, it still manages to pack an Intel Core-i7 CPU, a 1,600 x 900 display, 4GB of RAM, and an 11-hour battery into the boxy case. The 12.1-inch SX and NX are similarly spec'd, but have a Core-i5 processor option as well (the NX can only be had with a Core-i5). Those models will power along for 15 hours with the lightest batteries, while also tipping the scales at around 2.5 pounds. While excellent, that's still far from the 1.9 pound. 13-inch Inhon Blade carbon -- and let's not even discuss thinness. Pricing and availability have yet to be disclosed.
Toshiba adds Haswell to refreshed Satellite U and M laptops
While Toshiba already outed its Haswell plans, the company has chosen today to unveil a few more PCs. The outfit's refreshing its Satellite U and M range in the UK, with the U50t being equipped with a 10-point touchscreen and Windows 8 onboard. The Satellite M50D and M50Dt, meanwhile, boast AMD's latest APU processors and Radeon graphics. The whole line (which is slated for dispatch in Q3) ships with Intel's fourth-generation processors and HD 4400 graphics, while those needing a bit more oomph on the pixel pushing side can opt for NVIDIA's GeForce GT 740M. As you'd expect, Intel's WiDi and Miracast technologies are infused, and each machine arrives with a full-size HDMI port, Bluetooth 4.0, an SD card slot and a pair of USB 3.0 sockets. Tosh isn't talking pricing just yet, but you can dig into the specification list just after break. %Gallery-194886%
Corning introduces Gorilla Glass NBT for touch-enabled laptops, coming this fall
While we love our gadgets for their glass-capacitive touchscreens, they can be sensitive to scratches and fingerprints. Corning, best known for protecting our phone and tablet displays, is introducing Gorilla Glass NBT for touch-enabled laptops. This new ultra-strong covering promises enhanced scratch resistance, reduced flaw visibility and better retained strength once a blemish occurs -- basically, the same benefits as GG3. Dell is the first manufacturer to jump on-board with NBT and plans to use it on some notebooks this fall. Does this mean you wont have to be nearly as careful when schlepping your computer in a messenger bag? Probably not, but at least your precious displays will be safer from errant kitty paws. PR after the break.
Dell officially unveils Precision M3800 workstation at SIGGRAPH, gives rumored specs a nod
Remember that Haswell-powered Dell workstation that popped up last week? The company is officially ready to acknowledged its silicon, announcing on its corporate blog that the machine is being unveiled at SIGGRAPH this week. Dell is still reluctant to get into specifics, but confirmed on a teaser page that the Precision M3800 would contain a 4th Generation Intel Core-i7 CPU, NVIDIA Quadro graphics and a 3,200 x 1,800 QHD+ multi-touch IGZO display. Even better, all that is set to fit into a tight 0.7-inch chassis that weighs in at 4.5 pounds. Mum's still the word on specifics, but previous leaks assigned the machine 15GB of RAM and either a 1TB HDD or a 512GB SSD. Dell hasn't let the workstation's price slip either, but we don't expect it to be cheap -- nothing thin and powerful ever is.
Report: Dell Precision M3800 workstation to launch with 3,200 x 1,800 display option (updated)
According to a source speaking to Dutch site Tweakers.net, which has been spot on with a previous Dell leak, a new laptop known as the M3800 is set to join Dell's Precision range of workstations. An Intel Core i7-4702MQ (Haswell) processor will reportedly power the M3800, with a 2GB NVIDIA Quadro K1100M GPU taking care of graphics. It's expected to come with up to 16GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive or 512GB SSD and two options for the 15.6-inch screen: a 3,200 x 1,800 resolution or a 1080p panel as the base option. The workstation is said to measure 18mm (around 0.7 inches) at its thickest point, and tip the scales at 2kg (4.4 pounds). Integrated docking found on other Precision models is apparently not in the M3800's feature set; it's also missing an Ethernet port, so hard-lines will need to be connected via a USB intermediate. Tweakers.net lists an expected price range of $1,699 to $1,999, but now comes the part where we wait for the M3800 to go official and see how correct all this leaked info is. Update: Dell has now provided us with a statement that confirms that the M3800 is indeed coming later this year, although it's not yet confirming all of the specs. More information is promised in the coming weeks. Dell is introducing the thinnest and lightest workstation ever later this year. The Dell Precision M3800 is the first mobile workstation that is less than ¾ of an inch, at 18mm, weighs only 4.5lbs and offers certified performance and dependability for creative professionals. We are not releasing or confirming any additional details today but stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks.
Haswell-equipped 15-inch MacBook Pro appears in Geekbench report
It's hardly a matter of "if" -- it's simply a matter of "when." Now that Intel's Haswell CPU has found its way into the MacBook Air line, it's a given that Apple engineers are actively looking for ways to cram that very silicon into the rest of its laptop range. If a newly uncovered Geekbench report is to be believed, it looks as if the 15-inch MacBook Pro could be next in line. The report (pictured in full after the break) details a machine packing a 2.4GHz Core i7-4950HQ and 16GB of RAM, and while there's no discrete GPU shown, Primate Labs' John Poole has informed MacRumors that the benchmark may have simply missed it during testing. At any rate, the score itself isn't anything to write home about -- it's pretty much in line with the existing generation of MBPs -- but the real magic is apt to reside in the eventual battery life claims. If the next-generation Pro follows the Air, we'll see similar performance and nearly twice the longevity. Mission accomplished.
Maingear's Pulse 14 laptop: Haswell and a GeForce GTX 760M starting at $1,299
Haswell-infused devices have been stepping out from behind curtains for the past few days, and now Maingear's ready to unveil its latest gaming notebook with Intel's fresh silicon: the Pulse 14. Each configuration of the rig comes decked out with a quad-core Core i7 processor clocked at 2.2GHz, a GeForce GTX 760M graphics card with 4GB of GDDR5 memory, 2.1-channel speakers and a 14-inch, 1,600x900 resolution display. As for connectivity, an SD card slot, HDMI, VGA, Ethernet and three USB 3.0 ports all come standard with the machine. Extracting $1,299 from your wallet will net you a respectable 8GB of DDR3 RAM and a 500GB hybrid drive. Ponying up $1,399 will nab you a 1TB HDD with a 32GB caching SSD, while shelling out $1,699 brings in 16GB of RAM and two 128GB solid state drives in Raid 0 backed by a 1TB hard drive. Take a gander at the laptop in the bordering gallery or hit the break for more details in the press release.%Gallery-190358%
Acer brings options galore to new Aspire V5 and V7 laptops (hands-on)
Choice, you say? Acer's newest laptop duo is offering that in spades. At a gala this morning in New York City, the company rolled out quite the arrangement of new kit -- not the least of which was a revamped Aspire V5 and Aspire V7. The two lines ship with a 14- or 15.6-inch display, giving users the option of a 1,366 x 768 panel or a (highly recommended) 1,920 x 1,080 IPS panel; those seeking something even smaller will also find an 11.6-inch option in the V5 range, weighing just three pounds and measuring under an inch thick. The whole lot can be selected with dual- or quad-core chips from AMD and Intel, while select configurations are equipped with NVIDIA's GeForce GT7XXM series or AMD's Radeon HD8750 discrete graphics. In essence, the V7 only differs from the V5 by adding a "silky touch" finish on the bottom, the "latest Intel CPUs," optional SSDs and Intel's Wireless Display (WiDi) technology. Both ranges offer the new Acer Converter Port, which aims to make the act of connecting to an external display, HDD, router, etc. a lesson in simplicity. The newfangled V series will ship at the end of the month with prices starting at $499, but you can bet that the model you're really after will land far north of that. %Gallery-187475% %Gallery-187474%
Acer Aspire V5 11.6-inch notebook leaked with $450 price tag, unexpected AMD Temash chip
While AMD announced its new Temash APU (alongside others) at this year's CES, the only device we've seen sporting it was an intriguing reference hybrid that made the rounds at the show. Now, details of an Acer Aspire V5 notebook have emerged, indicating the company is preparing its first Temash-powered device for general consumption. Acer already has a trio of Aspire V5 models with Intel Core processors and NVIDIA handling the graphics, but a half-complete product page for an unannounced V5-122P-0643 swaps those components out for AMD's wares. Formally called the AMD A6-1450, the Temash APU combines a quad-core 1GHz processor -- or 1.4GHz in "Turbo" state -- with a Radeon HD 8280 GPU. When put into tablets, it has an unusually low, sub-5W power envelope that allows for passive cooling. While we don't know exactly what wattage this Acer notebook will have, the presence of Temash should bode well for battery life. Head past the break for more details.
Samsung leaks the ATIV Book 6: a regular Windows 8 notebook possibly headed to the US for $1,200
It's not a hybrid like the ATIV Smart PC, it doesn't run RT like the ATIV Tab or Windows Phone like the ATIV S, and yet the laptop above is apparently destined to become part of the family. The ATIV Book 6 hasn't been formally announced, but an accidental and promptly-pulled listing on Samsung's site suggests that it takes on the shape of a regular high-spec Windows 8 notebook with a 15.6-inch 1080p touch sensitive display, Core i7 processor, up-to-date Radeon HD graphics chip, 8GB RAM and 1TB HDD. In other words, it sounds very much like the equivalently priced Series 7 Chronos, apart from the non-metal casing, the model number and potentially other differences we don't know about yet, such as broader availability -- after all, the Chronos we first spotted in the States was something of a Best Buy exclusive. You'd think the ATIV branding would have to signify something, but history says otherwise.
Google Keep briefly teases note-taking utility for Drive, vanishes soon after
Another day, another leak from Google. As The Next Web reports, a note-collecting service called Keep was accessible on Google Drive for a short period of time last night -- and if your short-term memory is a bit cloudy, Drive itself got leaked in a similarly bizarre fashion before getting official last year. 1E100 had initially found source code, images and various links that seemed to point to Keep, which apparently went live soon after. Interestingly, while all of the links point to error pages, one redirects to a specific, unresolveable app url on Google Play. Android Police was able to snag some screenshots of the web app in action -- albeit disconnected from Drive at the time -- noting that it's reminiscent of Mountain View's late Notebook service that was killed in '09. Whether the likes of Evernote will have to worry remains to be seen, but the added functionality to Drive will certainly be appreciated -- now, how about letting us get at that Now app for iOS?
Moxtra app for iPad gives you binders full of shareable content
In the ultra-cloud, post-PC era, we do not lack for ways to share our stuff. Got a presentation deck to show? You can go full-on web meeting with Webex, GoToMeeting, Join.me or Fuze Meeting; to create the content and share it smoothly, Slideshare or Sliderocket will serve, as would either Google or Microsoft's online presentation framework. A document or a spreadsheet: Google Drive, Dropbox, Box.com, Dolly Drive or Egnyte. And if you're organizing your thoughts into notebook form, fan-favorite Evernote has your back. There's a bit of daylight between these platforms, though. If you want to build out a collaborative project book with the ability to include movies, sounds, PDFs, comments and annotations in an indexed "everything bucket" and share it selectively, you could do that in Evernote -- but you give up the ability to set a specific, front-to-back order and a solid presentation layer or web meeting front-end, or record your own narration to go with the show. If you go with something like Sliderocket, you get a slick presentation with powerful sharing options, narration, analytics and web meetings built in, but you are locked into the slide format; no arbitrary media and shifting content. Neither of those approaches provides a full annotation layer atop the content, with highlights and text notes in context rather than off to the side. That gap of daylight between pure presentation form and remember-everything functionality is where you'll find Moxtra, a new iPad app and suite of cloud services launching today. Founded by veterans of Cisco's WebEx division, the app is built around the concept of a shelf full of virtual binders, each one collecting whatever you need for that project, topic or area of interest. Moxtra's binders are digital portfolio cases, holding any document or media that you like. Binders are put together on the web or on the iPad -- an example of content curation, if not outright creation -- and you can easily narrate and share a slideshow edition that will play anywhere. %Gallery-177469% Adding pages of content to a binder is easy, with several pathways to get at your stuff. From the desktop, you can clip images or web pages right to the service; in fact, web pages can be "live" within a binder so that they'll always show the current version of the page. Cloud services like Box and Dropbox are accessible from the iPad app, so any of your files there in readable formats (PDF, images, movies, Office files and more) can be downloaded and converted to binder pages. You can take photos or video with the iPad camera, or access your existing photo library on the device. Most helpfully, there's a small desktop agent that you can install on your Mac or PC; it opens up your entire hard drive for remote access, so you can grab files at will as long as your machine is online. (One hopes Moxtra will add an extra security PIN or other challenge for users who have this access turned on -- yes, it's read-only, but it's still a lot of exposure if your iPad is stolen or compromised.) You decide whether to keep a binder private, share to the world (via Facebook) or selectively to invited guests/collaborators. You decide if they get view-only access, or the opportunity to edit and contribute to the binder with you. There's a full commenting and annotation layer, showing anything you choose to highlight or amend. In fact, if you record narration while you swipe through the pages in a binder, every annotation step will be recorded along with it in real time; the resulting movie is saved to your iPad photo album, and you can share that out as well if you choose. Just as you can share your binders to others, when other people share binders to you they'll show up on your binder bookshelf, with indicators showing how long they are, how many comments they have and how many people have access. Every action in every binder is logged to your Updates screen, so you can always track back and see what's been changed. It's a very personal news feed covering the things you're working on. The Moxtra team sees this product tacking back and forth between personal and team project management, with a lightweight client supported by several heavy-hitting cloud services. The Moxtra Cloud connectors pull in your files from your desktop or other storage providers; Moxtra Binder is the main iPad collection tool. Moxtra Note is the annotation and recording facility, and Moxtra Meet is the simultaneous web meeting tool. Did I not mention that already? Yes, you can deliver a WebEx-style presentation online right from Moxtra, including VoIP audio; participants can join from their desktop browsers with ease (and also presumably from the Moxtra app itself, although I wasn't able to test this). How would you use Moxtra? Home improvement projects, travel diaries, distance learning... the company's site shows a few other ideas, but you can come up with your own. Since Moxtra's editing facilities are limited to rearranging or replacing pages in the binder, you're not going to be creating your stuff directly within it; but when the task is to show and discuss what you're working on, it's got possibilities. The current version has some rough edges, but the company plans to evolve the product rapidly over the next few months. Moxtra is free for the time being, with the possibility of premium plans for high-demand users further down the road. You can download Moxtra in the App Store or sign up at moxtra.com.
Samsung teases Series 7 Chronos refresh with AMD Radeon HD 8870M graphics (video)
Samsung added a 17-inch model to its Series 7 Chronos laptop range last year, and updated the whole family with Ivy Bridge processors, to boot. Barely a breath into 2013, the company is at it again, teasing better hardware in the "new" Series 7. There isn't much information in between the scenes of advanced robotic predators (video embed below), but those snippets mention RAMaccelerator (which promises 50 percent faster app loading), a full HD display, JBL speakers and most importantly, a beefy new AMD Radeon HD 8870M GPU. Since the 17-inch model already has a 1,920 x 1,080 panel and JBL speakers, these could be improvements coming to the 15-inch model, or maybe it's a hint that RAMaccelerator and upgraded graphics are destined for the larger sibling -- we just don't know. As we're merely days away from CES, it's likely we'll get a clearer picture of what's what at the show, but we've also contacted Sammy for clarification in case beans are willing to be spilled beforehand.
ASUS TAICHI shipments reportedly pushed to at least December
'Tis the season for last-minute shipping updates, and not all of them justify some merrymaking. ASUS originally planned for its dual-screened TAICHI laptops to ship in November, but a company spokesperson tells PCWorld at the last minute that the Windows 8 showcase won't ship sooner than December, and could slip further still. The PC builder doesn't say why we'll be twiddling our thumbs that much longer. Online retailers certainly aren't waiting around for an answer -- they've simply listed the myriad TAICHI variants as unavailable for now. Yes, there's a definite sense of déja vu when ASUS is yet again delaying a touchscreen device during the holidays. We're just wondering if the trip down memory lane will lead to the same fine outcome.
Googler loads Ubuntu on an ARM-based Samsung Chromebook, gives solace to the offline among us
Samsung's ARM-running Chromebook is barely out of the starting gate, and it's already being tweaked to run without as much of an online dependency. By a Google employee, no less. Not content to rely solely on Chrome OS, Olof Johansson has loaded Ubuntu on the Chromebook by partitioning an SD card, mixing OS components and booting from USB. The technique unsurprisingly requires being more than a little comfortable with a Linux command line as well as playing fast and loose with the warranty. It also won't be cheap or quick -- commenters note that you'll ideally have a partitioning-friendly SD card, and running a desktop OS from a slower kind of flash storage creates an inherent bottleneck. Anyone who likes the Chromebook's $249 price, but isn't as enraptured with the cloud as most of the team in Mountain View, might still want to try Johansson's step-by-step process for themselves.
13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display reportedly seen with 2,560 x 1,600 LCD, dual Thunderbolt ports
We hope you didn't want Apple's little event next week to be a complete surprise. After promises of extra details for a prior leak, a WeiPhone forum goer has returned with photos of what's supposed to be the active screen and ports of the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display that might be on stage come October 23rd. If this is what we get alongside the similarly unofficial miniature iPad, we'll take it. The possible leak shows a 2,560 x 1,600 LCD (four times higher in resolution than the existing MacBook Pro) and, importantly, no sacrifices in expansion versus the 15-inch Retina model -- there's still the dual Thunderbolt ports and HDMI video that shipped with this system's bigger brother. Vital details like the performance and price are left out, so there's a few cards left off Apple's table, but the images hint at what could be a tempting balance between the 15-inch MacBook Pro's grunt and the MacBook Air's grace.
Hands-on with Google's $249, ARM-based Chromebook (update: video)
Google really impressed us in San Francisco here today with its 11.6-inch ARM-based Samsung Chromebook. The $249 laptop is 0.8-inches (20mm) thin and weight only 2.43 pounds (1.1kg). It features a 11.6-inch 1366 x 768-pixel matte display, a full-size keyboard, a button-less trackpad and a 30Wh battery for 6.5+ hours of operation. Specs include a fanless dual-core A15-based Samsung Exynos 5 Dual (5250) SoC, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of built-in flash storage, WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth. There's a full-size SD card reader and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack (with mic support) on the left, plus the power input, HDMI output, USB 2.0 port, USB 3.0 connector and SIM slot (currently unused) in back. First impressions? This is a solid machine -- build quality and materials are fantastic for the price. It's also pleasantly thin and light, a boon for people who are used to carrying a laptop around every day. We're happy with the display which is bright and crisp. Viewing angles could use some improvement, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a better laptop screen at this price. The keyboard and trackpad feel great (we're coming from an 11-inch Core i7 MacBook Air), and two-finger scrolling works like a charm. Performance is somewhere between the original Atom-based Chromebooks and the current Celeron-equipped Series-5 model. The system didn't have any issues playing back 1080p content in YouTube, but we didn't get a chance try Hulu or NetFlix. Ultimately, this is a phenomenal device for the price. If you're used to working in the cloud, you're basically getting 80 percent of the entry-level MacBook Air experience for a quarter of the price. Factor in the Google Now integration and 100GB of free Google Drive storage for two years and this latest Chromebook is a winner. Check out the gallery below and hit the break for our hands-on video.
Google launches 11.6-inch ARM-based Samsung Chromebook: $249, 6.5-hour battery, 1080p video
Google just launched the latest iteration of its Chrome OS-based laptop here in San Francisco -- the $249 (or £229, for those in the UK) 11.6-inch Samsung Chromebook. It's ARM-based (fanless), 0.8-inches thick, weighs only 2.43 pounds, runs 6.5+ hours on battery, boots in under 10 seconds and supports 1080p video playback. Pre-orders start today at Amazon and PC World, and the laptop includes Google Now integration using Google Drive as a transport and comes with 100GB of free storage for two years. It will be available for sale on the Play Store and featured prominently at retailers like Best Buy, and naturally, we're expecting this one to make a bigger splash than prior models based on the bargain bin price alone. Under the hood, there's a dual-core A15-based Samsung Exynos 5 Dual (5250) SoC, 2GB RAM, 16GB of built-in flash storage, WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth, all of which should act to give this Chromebook a lot more oomph compared to slower, earlier models. Other specs include a 1366 x 768 native screen resolution, a USB 3.0 port, a USB 2.0 socket, combo headphone / mic jack, an SD card slot and a "full-size Chrome keyboard." Hit up the links below for the nitty-gritty, or hop on past the break for a promo vid. Update: Our hands-on with the new Chromebook is live!
Razer gives away custom Star Wars-themed Blade, may turn friends Imperial Guard red with envy
Razer has been big on Star Wars gaming gear, but never quite like this. Enter a free contest and there's a chance to win a completely unique Star Wars: The Old Republic version of Razer's Blade gaming laptop. The winner sees the system's normally black shell replaced with a matte, laser-etched aluminum gray and the green backlighting dropped in favor of a subtler yellow matched to the MMORPG logo. Anyone who brings out this portable at a bring-your-own-computer gaming party is inevitably going to be the center of attention, although we have a feeling some would almost prefer the second-place bundle of peripherals -- at an estimated worth of $15,000, the Star Wars Blade might be too precious to carry for all but the most well-heeled of fans.
Apple, other thin laptop makers pass latest round of EPEAT tests after summer mini-drama
Apple gave eco-friendly computer fans a brief jolt this July after it backed out of EPEAT certification, only to restore most devices just days later. While we can't say we're completely shocked at the follow-up, EPEAT has confirmed that at least one "ultra-thin" laptop from Apple has just cleared the verification process. The as yet unnamed system is more likely to be a Mac that had already earned the recycling-friendly rating in the past, such as the MacBook Air, rather than a sudden turnaround for the MacBook Pro with Retina Display. The look wasn't exclusively devoted to the Mac side, though -- EPEAT cleared Apple's computer as part of a wider test that also greenlit extra-thin portables from Lenovo, Samsung and Toshiba. We've reached out to get a more definitive list, but the approvals should ease the minds of those worried that ever-slimmer laptops are forcing us to give up our green efforts.
