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LG reveals Z330 / Z430 Ultrabooks, P535 / A540 laptops and 3D-enabled V300 all-in-one PC
Woo, boy. The Ultrabook flood has officially begun, and LG's marching into CES with a fresh pair of the things. Four new laptop models and an all-in-one PC will be making their way to Vegas, with the Z330 and Z430 Ultrabooks leading the way. The P535 and A540 take a more traditional approach, while the V300 steps in as a 23-inch AIO for those who still haven't found solace in mobility. If you'll recall, we'd actually heard about a few of these last month, but now the company's getting official with the parts within. The Z330 -- which looks a little too much like something else we've seen making the rounds -- will house a Core i7 processor, a 13.3-inch HD display, an SSD and an enclosure that weighs but 2.66 pounds. The 14-inch Z430 is outfitted similarly, sitting in a 19.9mm chassis and boasting a metallic cover with a "gyro-brush line finish." The 15.6-inch P535 gets a Core i7, GeForce GT 630M and a wide-angle display, while the A540 grabs a GeForce GT 555M and a glasses-free 3D display. Closing up the loop, the revised V300 gains a 1080p Film Patterned Retarder (FPR) 3D panel, which should entice just about one in every eight hundred average Joes you know. The whole lot is expected to ship in Q1, but pricing remains a mystery.
Samsung Series 5 Ultrabook listed at US retailer for $900, 'coming soon'
Looks like that 13.3-inch Samsung Series 5 Ultrabook we saw honeymooning with a 'friend' in Korea is almost ready to head over to the States. JR.com has listed it as "coming soon" for $899.99 along with a spec sheet that details the same 500GB/16GB hybrid drive we saw previously, along with a Core i5-2467M serving up CPU horsepower and graphics, 4GB of DDR3, 1366 x 768 LED backlit display, a single USB 3.0 port and WiDi. The weight and dimensions seem slightly chunkier than last reported though, with thickness reaching a maximum of 0.69-inches and a weight of 3.24 pounds -- still, it's a lot more shapely than the 1TB 14-incher it left behind. [Thanks, Deron]
Engadget's CES 2012 Preview
Though the holidays are once again coming to a close, we now find ourselves just a week away from every geek's ultimate holiday -- the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, arguably the biggest event of the year for the tech world. Thousands of companies gather in the Nevada desert to show off their latest innovations, setting the stage for what will no doubt be another stellar year in electronics. In anticipation of the onslaught we're about to experience, we want to offer up our predictions of what you can expect at the show. There's always a few wondrous surprises that nobody could ever see coming -- part of what makes CES fun -- but aside from those jaw-dropping moments, we have a pretty solid idea of what will take place next week. So join us as we break down CES 2012, one category at a time.
HP Spectre teaser video: fantastically thin laptop, shrouded in mystery
Why, what's this? Funny you ask -- we're wondering the same thing. A source at HP just dropped us a mysterious teaser video of a so-called Spectre laptop, a heretofore unannounced lappie that looks to be the company's next Ultrabook. In our wildest dreams, this rig has a dual-LCD setup -- similar to Toshiba's Libretto W100 and Acer's Iconia-6120 -- but perhaps the creators here were just coincidentally interested in showing us lots of glass panes. We'll be digging for more details (we're told that an official produce portal should surface tomorrow), but for now, lose your mind in the video just past the break. Update: If we had to guess, we'd say it's the Envy Spectre -- a machine that passed through the FCC's database around a week ago. %Gallery-142760%
Intel's Ultrabook portal jabs at limited functionality of tablets
Love 'em or hate 'em, there's no question that tablets aren't capable of handling the same rigors (with the same efficiency levels) as a full-on laptop, and Intel's using that very point to promote the Ultrabook category as a whole. Given that we're just days away from seeing what's apt to be a flood of these things at CES, Intel's new Ultrabook portal (and linked "Ultra Excited For Ultrabooks" preview paper) is priming the masses for what to expect. In the note, Intel Technical Marketing Engineer Shirley Chen notes the following: "Tablets have introduced some great features that support some of these use cases with longer battery life and touch capabilities in order to provide a more enriched experience. However the screens are still small, local storage is generally miniscule and restrictive, and tablets lack performance compared to that of a traditional PC. At the other end of the portable scale there are laptops, which for many are just too big, and place power and performance above user experience, which both hardware and software play a part in. Ultrabook systems marry thin and light with the best in performance, responsiveness, security and battery life – filling the gap between desktop/laptop and tablet. We are reinventing the PC again. An Ultrabook device is ultra-responsive and ultra-sleek." Nothing here is truly groundbreaking, per se, but it's the first time that we've seen such a giant company take a meaningful swing at a product sector that has caught fire for myriad reasons. 2012 is shaping up to be the year of the inexpensive tablet, but if Intel has its druthers, you'll be shaking off the hype and picking up a full-fledged computing tool instead. Have a look at the rest in the PDF sourced below.
HP Folio 13 review
By the time HP unveiled its first Ultrabook, the Folio 13, other heavyweights like Acer, ASUS, Lenovo and Toshiba had already gotten a head start of up to several months. But being fashionably late to market may have worked in Hewlett-Packard's favor: the Folio 13 ($900 and up) is temptingly priced for what it is. Even the base model comes stocked with a 128GB SSD, backlit keyboard, HDMI port and Ethernet jack -- specs that undercut the ASUS Zenbook UX31 and 13-inch MacBook Air, and render the $900 Acer Aspire S3 nearly irrelevant. Not to mention, it brings business-friendly features like TPM that other Ultrabook makers have omitted from their 1.0 products. But surely HP cut some corners to get here, no? Is this really as sweet a deal as it seems? Funnily enough, the answer is "yes," on both counts.
Intel enters licensing deal with Inside Secure for NFC tech
Intel's NFC aspirations are hardly a secret. The company showed off a Medfield-powered tablet at IDF sporting the tech and it's partnered with MasterCard -- promising to bring PayPass checkouts to Ultrabooks. Now Chipzilla is putting the final pieces of the equation in place by landing a licensing deal with Inside Secure. The company specializes in contactless payment systems and will be lending its Microread, Securead and Open NFC products to Intel for future chips. While it's a safe assumption that we'll be seeing NFC pop up in Ultrabooks, it's also going to be an essential ingredient if the Santa Clara crew ever hopes to make x86 a player in the smartphone scene. We've still got a while to go before near field communication becomes truly ubiquitous, but this is one more step in the right direction. Check out the PR after the break.
Lenovo IdeaPad U300s ready for online pre-order, price puts on some winter weight
Lenovo's been keeping itself busy in the battle of the Ultrabooks, and now its 13-inch IdeaPad U300s is up for pre-order. Unfortunately, since our review, the price tag looks to have been burdened by an extra $200 so that it's now just under $1,300 -- and that includes a special online discount. With the likes of the MacBook Air and ASUS' Zenbook UX31 jostling for your skinny laptop affections at lower entry-level prices, that extra chunk of change could make the U300s' shortcomings -- like the lack of an SD slot -- even more of an issue. If you're willing to overlook those and hold on until the December 19 shipping date, you can stake your claim to an IdeaPad at the pre-order link below. [Thanks Jay] Update: We're seeing Lenovo has made changes to the product page, with only the top-end U300s appearing on the site at the moment. Having covered Lenovo for years, we know the company has a habit of removing models that have sold out, and re-listing them when more are available, so we wouldn't be surprised if that lower-end model surfaces again in the near future.
Samsung outs two new Series 5 laptops in Korea, claims they're Ultrabooks
Is there room on the Ultrabook wagon for two new models from Samsung? There's a 13-incher and a 14-incher, which both reportedly come under its Series 5 branding (previously used for Chromebooks), but at first glance only the smaller model might deserve its seat: it has the requisite Sandy Bridge processor and a perfectly compliant 0.59-inch thickness, but it adds 500GB of HDD storage on top of a 16GB SSD, which brings its weight right up to the 1.4kg (3.1 pound) limit. Meanwhile, the 14-inch variant scrapes through the 0.83-inch thickness criterion, but its 1TB HDD and discrete AMD graphics lead to a 1.8kg weight that seems well overboard. The pricing looks acceptable, with both models starting at the equivalent of around $1150, but we can't wait to see what happens when Intel inspects their tickets.
Acer will stop making cheap crap, but keep selling netbooks. Discuss.
Here's a bit of a head-scratcher: Acer has said it will stand by its man, which in this case is the netbook, but CEO J.T. Wang also recently told Dow Jones that his company will stop making "cheap and unprofitable products." So, which is it? Will the manufacturer keep churning out the low cost (and even lower specced) machines that it managed to sell 1.7 million of last quarter? Or will it stop "[blindly] pursuing market share" with affordable, but poorly made crap? Wang specifically said that Ultrabooks would become the company's "key growth driver next year" and hopefully return Acer to profitability. If that fails, we're sure there's plenty of room for some of its pastel wares over at the Home Shopping Network.
LG reveals X-Note Z330 Ultrabook, claims it cold boots in ten seconds
Not to be confused with the bulkier P330 13.3-incher we saw last month, the new X-Note Z330 looks to have toned up to gain membership to the mwah-mwah Ultrabook clique. It's a mere 14.7mm (0.58-inches) in thickness, 1.21kg (2.67 pounds) in weight and sports a solid state drive to help it boot up in under ten seconds. What's not so Ultrabookish, however, is the price: the Z330 has been announced in Korea starting at ₩1,700,000 ($1,500) for the Core i5 variant with 4GB RAM, a 120GB SSD and a fairly usual range of connectivity, including HDMI, USB 3.0 and Intel WiDi for streaming content wirelessly to your HDTV. Opting for a Core i7 and a 256GB SSD will add a hefty ₩900,000 ($800) on top of that. We've duly prepared a rant about value for money, but we're going to save it until there's an official US price tag instead.
DigiTimes: Acer eyes Ultrabook price drop for next year, bigger cuts coming in 2013
Having recently affirmed its commitment to the netbook, Acer is now reportedly looking to boost its Ultrabook sales, with the help of a handsome price cut. Citing company president Jim Wong, DigiTimes reports that Acer will slash the price of its Ultrabook offerings by as much as 20 percent next year, dropping them from around $1,000 to between $800 and $900. The cut, expected to go into effect during Q2 2012, will be followed by a subsequent reduction to $500 in 2013, when Acer expects more vendors to enter the market. The hope is that the manufacturer will be able to reclaim some of the ground it's lost to competitors in recent months, though it remains to be seen whether or not the strategy pays dividends.
Samsung's mSATA PM830 is eight grams of pure SSD
The newest member of Samsung's 6Gb/s PM830 family of SSDs is designed to sit inside the Ultrabooks of 2012, which means it's had go through some slimming down. The mSATA drive uses 20 nanometer NAND for face-melting speed, but is crammed into a 50.95 x 30 x 3.8mm package, weighing only eight grams. The drive will comfortably read 500MB/s and write 260MB/s on a clear day, six times faster than a comparable HDD. It'll allow Windows to boot in under ten seconds and transfer "five DVD files" (roughly 45GB) in around a minute. The drives also come with 256-bit AES for those moments when your Ultrabook gets stolen, or more likely, floats away in the wind. 64GB, 128GB and 256GB variants will roll out to OEMs shortly but we expect a consumer version to be announced shortly for everyone with some courage and a screwdriver.
Is Samsung giving up on netbooks next year?
An email sent by Samsung to its trading partners appears to shut down any prospect of the manufacturer producing new netbooks after the first quarter of 2012. The email is quoted by French site Blogeee and says that Samsung will switch its focus to 11.6- and 12-inch ultraportables as well as Intel Ultrabooks. The quote does not preclude some of those ultraportables running cheaper processors such as Cedar Trail, which would arguably just make them slightly larger next-gen netbooks, but it does specifically mention the abandonment of the 10.1-inch form factor. Here's our translation: "Following the introduction of our new strategy in 2012, we will discontinue our 10.1-inch (netbook) product range in Q1 2012, in favor of ultraportables (11.6 and 12 inches) and ultrabooks to be launched in 2012." [Thanks, Marco]
Toshiba Portege Z830 Series Ultrabooks now up for sale online
If we got you interested in the Tosh's Portege line earlier this week, you can now snag a Z830 of your own without leaving the house. Depending on your preference of internals, you'll be able to choose between four models ranging from $929 up to $1,429, or opt to build your own ultraportable starting at $1,099. Of course, you can grab a Z835 direct and avoid Best Buy's guerilla marketing we encountered during our time with the lightweight -- but you'll miss out on the exclusive $800 model. If you're looking to place an order for the holidays, hit that source link below and get ready to part with a good bit of that Black Friday fund.
Ultrabook manufacturers look to plastic as Apple commandeers supplies
Intel's new "Ultrabook" initiative designed to help PC manufacturers churn out MacBook Air clones has hit a snag. According to Digitimes, Apple has gobbled up almost all of the available capacity for producing unibody aluminum parts, which it uses to build the chassis for its notebooks. Production capacity for these parts is so constrained that PC manufacturers are reportedly only able to produce one chassis every three hours. In order to maximize production and cut costs, Ultrabook manufacturers are being forced to fall back on tried and true (and chintzy) production methods. High-end Ultrabooks will still have an all-aluminum chassis like Apple's notebooks, but the mid-range products will only feature aluminum on the outside; internally, it'll be plastic parts glued to metal. Low-end Ultrabooks designed to get under that magic $999 price barrier will be constructed from high-density fiberglass. Sounds charming. Stories like this certainly show how the tables have turned in the past ten years. Today, PC vendors who try to compete with Apple on both features and price almost inevitably find they have to sacrifice one or the other. Ultrabooks are no exception; Apple's supply-side savvy has allowed it to lock up a significant portion of manufacturing resources, leaving less and less for the rest of the industry.
Toshiba Portege Z835 review
Toshiba should know a thing or two about skinny, featherweight laptops. Back in 2007, the company unveiled the Portege R500, a 2.4-pound laptop measuring what was then an anorexic 0.77 inches (19.6mm) thick. Much to everyone's disbelief, it managed to squeeze in an optical drive. Fast forward four years and it's entering the Ultrabook market with the Portege Z830 (that's the Z835 if you get it at Best Buy). And here comes the déjà vu: it's even lighter than the competition, at 2.47 pounds, but still houses a full suite of ports, including USB 3.0 and 2.0, HDMI and Gigabit Ethernet. It also promises more than eight hours of battery life, besting claims made by the likes of Apple, Acer and ASUS. Not to mention, with a price of $800 (Best Buy only), it undercuts competing models -- and at a time when every other Ultrabook seems to have some fatal flaw, whether it be a flaky touchpad or skimpy battery life. Clearly, there's lots of room here for something more carefully thought-out. So is Toshiba's Portege know-how just what the market needs? Let's see. %Gallery-139801%
Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook with Intel Core i7 can be yours now, SSD in tow
If we got your Spidey senses tingling when we put the Core i5 powered Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook through the wringer, you can now snag an i7 model. Need a quick refresher? The 13.3-inch beaut tips the scales at just about 3 pounds, awakes from naps with haste (in about two seconds) and features a 240GB SSD. Should you splurge for this speedy Intel Core i7 model, prepare yourself to part with $1,299. If you're looking to spend a little less -- it is the holidays, after all -- you can opt for the version we reviewed for a mere $899. Head on over to your favorite retailer to grab yours now, but don't go far without your charger... that battery life is nothing to write home about.
HP Folio 13 Ultrabook official: starts at $900 with a 128GB SSD and backlit keyboard (hands-on)
And just like that, HP joined the Ultrabook party. After announcing the Folio in Australia yesterday, the company went and made it official here in the states too. And man, do we get the feeling the outfit's been watching the competition very closely: this guy starts at $900 and comes standard with a 128GB mSATA SSD and a backlit keyboard. Provided it comes close to matching its promise of nine hours of battery life, it could give the identically priced Toshiba Portege Z830 a run for its money. Not to mention, it undercuts the MacBook Air ($1,299 and up), along with the ASUS Zenbook UX31 and Lenovo IdeaPad U300s, both of which start at $1,100 with a 128GB SSD and no backlit keyboard. Good on ya, HP. What's that, you say? You want more specs? Rounding out the list, the Folio has a 13.3-inch (1366 x 768) display, optional TPM circuitry and comes standard with a Core i5-2467M processor, 4GB of RAM, a six-cell battery and HP's CoolSense technology. Additionally, it offers a fairly robust selection of ports, including HDMI, Ethernet, USB 2.0 and 3.0, a memory card reader and a combined headphone / mic socket. The trade-off, though, is a slightly thicker chassis than what other Ultrabooks are offering: 3.3 pounds and 18mm (0.7 inches) thick. It'll be available in the US starting December 7th, but we've already managed to snag a few minutes with it, which means we've got photos, video and impressions for you to peek now. So what are you waiting for? Meet us after the break for our hands-on preview. %Gallery-139515% %Gallery-137707%
HP Folio Ultrabook shows up early Down Under
What's this? Looks like another Ultrabook is coming our way. An upcoming ultraportable from HP has apparently made its way into the hands of an Australian blogger, courtesy of the company's wing in that country. The 13.3-inch Folio crams in a 1.4GHz Core i3 or 1.6GHz Core i5 processor, 128GB of solid-state storage and 4GB of RAM (expandable to 8GB), according to the site. HP's also tossing in a backlit keyboard and some ruggedized construction. Those in-the-wild shots also show a 1366 x 768 display, USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports, HDMI and Gigabit Ethernet. All in all, this thing is looking mighty solid -- after all, the ASUS Zenbook UX31 and Lenovo IdeaPad U300s don't have backlit keyboards, nor that robust a selection of ports. Look for it before the end of the year -- in Australia, at least. More information and some glamor shots in the source below.
