ASUS N82 and N61 join the USB 3.0 laptop party

We’re kind of starting to figure out ASUS’ naming scheme — E is for Easy, and N is for eNtertainment, jolly good. In other self-evident news, Engadget Chinese is the place to go if you want the lowdown on happenings in China and its nearby states. Joining HP’s Envy 15 in the USB 3.0-sporting ranks will soon be the familiar 16-inch ASUS N61 and the seemingly brand spanking new N82 14-incher. See the galleries below for the eye candy, but keep it here for specs. Core i5 and i7 CPUs will populate the role of orchestrator inside, while ATI and NVIDIA discrete graphics options will also be made available when these make their imminent Taiwan debut. In live demonstrations, the one USB 3.0 port (yes, you only get one) was shown to be three times as fast as USB 2.0, so not quite reaching its theoretical superiority, but hardly an unwelcome improvement. Let’s hope for quick global distribution following the Taiwanese launch, which is slated for the middle of this month.

ASUS N82 and N61 join the USB 3.0 laptop party originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony busts out colorful VAIO E Series laptops

Hey there, what’s this little surprise? Sony’s colorful VAIO E Series laptops have arrived to cheer us up — and it looks like they’re going to do the trick, we have to tell you. These 15.5-inchers come in a wide range of colors, and you can mix and match lid and keyboard shades, if you dare. Inside, you get a 2.13GHz Core i3 CPU, 4GB of RAM, a DVD burner and a 500GB hard drive. A Core i5 version is also right around the corner. You can pre-order one of these bad boys now for shipping in March — but it’ll cost you about $800. Hit the read link to check them out. There’s one more shot after the break.

[Thanks, Paul]

Continue reading Sony busts out colorful VAIO E Series laptops

Sony busts out colorful VAIO E Series laptops originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell Mini 10 with Broadcom Crystal HD Accelerator review

Michael Dell may not be a fan of netbooks, but you wouldn’t know that from the newest Mini 10. Joining the current Mini 10v, Dell’s completely overhauled the chassis and added Intel’s new Pine Trail processor. But that’s not all: come February the little laptop will be available with Broadcom’s Crystal HD accelerator, which promises full HD playback on a high-res 1366 x 768 display. But does the $425 package rid us of our tireless complaints that Atom can’t handle HD, and does it rival netbooks based on NVIDIA’s Ion platform? And perhaps more importantly, can we count on the Mini 10 to be a valuable member of the growing Pine Trail netbook fraternity when it comes to battery life and ergonomics? Read on to find out!

Continue reading Dell Mini 10 with Broadcom Crystal HD Accelerator review

Filed under: Laptops

Dell Mini 10 with Broadcom Crystal HD Accelerator review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Core i5 / i7 roundup: Panasonic fits Core i7 in netbook chassis, Dell and HP machines spotted at Staples

What we know as the astronomically expensive Toughbook laptops over here, the Japanese know as the wildly spendy Let’s Note machines over there. Their nomenclature is today getting upgraded by one, as the F9, N9, and S9 Let’s Notes make their debut housing a Core i5-520M processor. We like the F9’s 14.1-inch display and 1440 x 900 resolution best — those are pretty much ideal dimensions for a portable workhorse — but the real new hotness is the R9, which crams a Core i7-620UM into essentially the size of a netbook. 2GB of DDR3 RAM and 250GB storage drives are standard across the range, and the Japanese release is scheduled for February 17. In other news, a 17-inch Dell Inspiron with Core i5-430M guts is now up for sale on Staples for a measly $649, while a similarly specced HP dv4 can also be found for a Benjamin more. Hit those source links for more.

Core i5 / i7 roundup: Panasonic fits Core i7 in netbook chassis, Dell and HP machines spotted at Staples originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 06:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI outs exceptionally exquisite X-Slim X420 laptop

MSI outs exceptionally exquisite X-Slim X420 laptop originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel profits recover to $2.3 billion in Q4 2009, company describes it as 875 percent jump

Yo Intel, when your 2008 fourth quarter was one of the worst you ever recorded, it’s slightly, just slightly, facetious to go trumpeting an 875 percent improvement in your 2009 fortunes. The self-appointed chipmaking rock star has clocked up $10.6 billion in revenues for the last quarter, which filters down to $2.3 billion in pure, unadulterated, mother-loving profit. That’s good and indeed technically nearly nine times what the company achieved in the same period the previous year — we’d just appreciate this to be represented as the recovery it is, rather than some major leap forward in the face of a global financial meltdown. Either way, the Santa Clara checkbook is now well and truly balanced, even if it would’ve looked fatter still but for the small matter of a $1.25 billion settlement reflected in last quarter’s results.

Intel profits recover to $2.3 billion in Q4 2009, company describes it as 875 percent jump originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 02:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NVIDIA outs 300M mobile graphics series, causes little excitement

Many a mind might’ve strayed from all the CES crazy-talk about future tech and wondered as to what exactly is going on in the war against bad graphics on otherwise totally sweet laptops. The answer from NVIDIA is, disappointingly, not much. The green giant of GPUs quietly snuck out its 300M mobile GPUs over the turn of the year, and there was good reason for the lack of fuss — the top tier GeForce GTS 360M sports the same number of processing cores as its 260M predecessor, accompanied by the same 2GHz memory clock and identical 128-bit memory interface. But don’t despair yet, sailor! There’s the stark omission of any GeForce GTX models among the new 300Ms, which should fuel hopes that this gap in what NVIDIA calls the enthusiast market will be filled by Fermi-shaped chips come March of this year.

NVIDIA outs 300M mobile graphics series, causes little excitement originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 06:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS UL80JT spotted with automatic switchable graphics, brags 12 hour battery life

How we missed this at the ASUS booth is beyond us, but leave it to the eagle-eyes at Ars to hone in on the ASUS UL80JT with an overclockable Core i7 processor and NVIDIA GeForce 310 graphics. So it’s just a run-of-the-mill gaming rig, right? Wrong. The 14-inch laptop has switchable graphics like we have never seen before; the laptop automatically switches, “second-by-second” between the NVIDIA card and the integrated Intel one, instead of the “standard” switchable graphics we’ve seen on laptops like the MacBook Pro 15 or ASUS UL80Vt which require users to switch manually. The major foreseeable benefit of this is longer battery life even when the system is using the discrete card, and ASUS touts 12 hours with the automatic solution turned on. No word on price or availability, but we’re guessing ASUS will have more details soon and that we’ll start seeing this this in more and more laptops as NVIDIA spreads the love around to the rest of the industry.

ASUS UL80JT spotted with automatic switchable graphics, brags 12 hour battery life originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shuttle laptops hands-on

Shuttle’s press announcement of its new mobile platform was accompanied by a booth’s worth of demonstration units and we went over for a quick peek. What we saw was a selection of rather conventional looking machines — certainly the new internal layout is not going to affect the way machines will look on the outside. There was an Atom N450 netbook in among the chunkier devices, which — though they sported Shuttle branding and model names — seem to be just sample machines to entice OEMs into picking up the Shuttle design. This was demonstrated best by the ridiculously creaky keyboard on one of the laptops and its hapless monitor frame. Closing and opening the lid led to the display casing splitting open (see here), which was as damaging to our love of Shuttle as it was to the unfortunate plastic.

Shuttle laptops hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lenovo ThinkPad T410s, T510 and W510 now sniffing for your wallets

Lenovo ThinkPad T410s, T510 and W510 now sniffing for your wallets originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gateway pumps out EC Series ultraportables

Gateway might want us to refer to its new EC Series laptops as ultraportables, but we’re calling this one like we see it… it’s almost a netbook, but not quite. Regardless, the just announced EC14D boasts and 11.6-inch display and, oddly enough, an integrated DVD drive. Weighing in at just around 3 pounds, the EC14D is light and thin… just like a small laptop should be. Internally, it’s got an Intel Ultra Low Voltage Pentium Core CPU, a 320GB hard drive, up to 8GB of memory (in two 4GB modules), a multicard reader, and Windows 7 Home Premium. If you’re filled with anticipation at the thought of this one, well, you won’t have to wait long. It’ll be available by the end of January for a starting price of $629.99. Full press release is after the break.

Continue reading Gateway pumps out EC Series ultraportables

Gateway pumps out EC Series ultraportables originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 02:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid hands-on and impressions

There’s no hiding the fact that the first images of the Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid amazed us, and now after seeing the device we can say the feeling was well-founded — the detachable resistive multitouch display worked better than we ever expected for such an early preproduction unit. Check the mouthwatering gallery below and then head over the break for full impressions and a few videos showing off the U1’s finer points.

Continue reading Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid hands-on and impressions

Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid hands-on and impressions originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell, Toshiba and Gateway Core i3 laptops get revealed early, joined by Pine Trail netbooks

And just like that, the CES 2010 on-switch has been well and truly pressed. After HP, Sony and Lenovo all exposed their hardware to the world prematurely, it was inevitable that other companies would “accidentally” follow suit. Thanks to CNET’s snooping, we’re now staring at a trio of new Core i3 models from Dell, Toshiba and Gateway — highlighted by an unannounced ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 powering a 1600 x 900 15-inch display on the Gateway, which also squeezes 500GB of storage under a shockingly low $692 price tag. On the Atom front, the Mini 210 is joined by a Toshiba NB305 — sporting the N450, 250GB HDD, up to 11 hours’ claimed battery life, and a $438 sticker — as well as Gateway’s effort with a smaller 160GB HDD but also suitably reduced $285 asking price. Hit the links below to get freshened up on all the juicy details.

Read – FutureShop.ca (Gateway NV5905H)
Read – FutureShop.ca (Toshiba Satellite L500-00F)
Read – Costco (Dell Inspiron 15)
Read – FutureShop.ca (Gateway LT2102H)
Read – FutureShop.ca (Toshiba NB305-00F)

Dell, Toshiba and Gateway Core i3 laptops get revealed early, joined by Pine Trail netbooks originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 03 Jan 2010 20:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13 review

Lenovo has always had a certain knack for producing some of the most reliable, ergonomic and slender ultraportables on the market (see ThinkPad X301 and ThinkPad X200). But they’ve always had one issue: prices that ring up at well over a grand. Where’s the killer ThinkPad ultraportable for the rest of us been? Well hello, ThinkPad Edge 13 – a thin, light Intel ULV powered laptop with an entirely new design that starts at $549. Yes, $549. But at that price point and with some serious changes to some traditional elements can it live up to the ThinkPad quality that we’ve been accustomed to for years? And can it stand out in the overpopulated CULV-based laptop market? We spent a couple days putting a spec’d-up $899 model through our daily grind — read on for our full review.

Continue reading Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13 review

Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13 review originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 03 Jan 2010 18:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sheng T108 brushed aluminum netbook appears

Hey, now this isn’t your average, everyday, boring netbook now is it? Well, at least not in looks, anyway. The Sheng T108, which has recently been spotted in Shenzhen, China, has a brushed aluminum chasis that makes it stand out from the crowd, to be sure. Internally, you’ll find this 10.1-incher boasting an Intel Atom N280 CPU, 2GB of DDR2 memory, and a 250GB hard drive — nothing volcanically surprising, but not too shabby either. It’s also got a 3-cell battery, a VGA port, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi support, a built in webcam, and a SIM card slot for 3G connectivity. The pricing is said to be somewhere in the realm of $300, and while there’s no word on availability of this puppy outside of China, we’ll certainly keep our eyes peeled for you. One more shot after the break.

Continue reading Sheng T108 brushed aluminum netbook appears

Sheng T108 brushed aluminum netbook appears originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer busts out TravelMate Timeline laptops for the business type

Acer’s just outed a new line of laptops, the CULV TravelMate Timeline series. Aimed at business customers, the TravelMate Timeline 8571, 8471 and 8371 are 13.3, 14.1 to 15.6-inchers, respectively, with a range of Core 2 Duo CPU options, Intel GM45 Express chipsets, up to 4GB of SDRAM, also boast 802.11a/b/g/Draft N WLAN, Bluetooth and gigabit LAN. These Windows 7 bad boys also come with Acer’s Bio-Protection fingerprint security, which might furnish you with some small peace of mind on the road. The TravelMate Timeline series range in price from $899 to $999, and are available now. For full specs, check the press release after the break.

Continue reading Acer busts out TravelMate Timeline laptops for the business type

Acer busts out TravelMate Timeline laptops for the business type originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS Eee PC 1201N review

We’ll stop there with the Netbook 101, but looking at the past is necessary in realizing what a game-changer the ASUS Eee PC 1201N really is. The 1201N’s dual-core Intel Atom processor, NVIDIA Ion graphics, Windows 7 Home Premium, and 2GB of RAM make it the most powerful netbook to ever grace the purchase pages of Amazon. But does the $500 machine fix all the issues and frustrations we’ve ever had with netbooks when put to the test? Can it make us forget about cramped keyboards, strained eyes and sluggish video performance? Find out in our full review.

Continue reading ASUS Eee PC 1201N review

ASUS Eee PC 1201N review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP Envy 15 review

There are laptops and then there are laptops. The Envy 15 has fallen into that second category ever since we got our hands-on: it’s the first PC we’ve seen that really equals the MacBook Pro’s unibody design and it packs a scorching-fast Intel Core i7 processor, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4850 graphics and Beats speakers. On paper, this is easily the hottest laptop we’ve seen in some time, but has HP really managed to deliver on that promise? We spent a few days with this $1,800 monster, so read on to see if it lives up to the hype.

Continue reading HP Envy 15 review

HP Envy 15 review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EVERKI Camber is a netbook bag with a degree in ergonomics

The EVERKI Camber netbook case must have an inferiority complex. Why else, when every other netbook sleeve is designed to take up minimal space, does the Camber sport a large, bulging protrusion from one side? Well, you might say, it’s designed to raise your netbook or ultraportable up to a more ergonomic 30 degree angle away from horizontality, but when was the last time you really regretted not owning a CushionSpeaker or a CushDesk? The more useful feature here, for us, is the space that bulge provides for storing your charger and AC plug (which can be horrifically huge in the UK), though whether the $49.99 price is justifiable, we leave up to you. Video demonstration awaits after the break.

Continue reading EVERKI Camber is a netbook bag with a degree in ergonomics

EVERKI Camber is a netbook bag with a degree in ergonomics originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 06:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell, HP, and Lenovo bringing SDXC to laptops alongside 32nm Intel chipsets?

Those incredibly sexy (as far as portable storage capacities are concerned) 64GB SDXC cards coming on the horizon? You’re gonna want some hardware to work with it, and according to DailyTech, three of the largest computer manufacturers are looking to bring the upgrade with Intel’s forthcoming Arrandale CPUs. Lenovo, HP, and Dell are reportedly working on new designs that’ll contain both the new 32nm chipsets and SDXC readers. Not that we’re surprised to see new SDHC’s time running out, but it does give you something to look forward to.

Dell, HP, and Lenovo bringing SDXC to laptops alongside 32nm Intel chipsets? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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