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The SpursEngine chip In Qosmio G50 Laptop Trims the Web Video

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Qosmio laptops are the Toshiba’s flagship laptops and Qosmio G50 stand on the top of this range.

Qosmio laptops are heavy multimedia computers and Toshiba tries to develop the graphics processing and as the result delivering better quality of its Qosmio laptops.

For this aim Toshiba has developed a secondary SpursEngine chip, based on the Cell Broadband Engine microprocessor which is used in PlayStation 3 console to sharpen or clean up the video.

(The difference of these two processors come two the number of cores they use. SpursEngine comprises four "Synergistic Processing Elements" cores, while Cell Broadband Engine contains SPE cores double than the SpursEngline.)

The SpursEngine chip on Qosmio G50 works alongside an Intel Core2 Duo processor. The chip now only cleans up the Flash video that is played through Internet Explorer. While in the previous version of Qosmio laptop the SpurEngine was only able to spruce the video playing back with DVD drive.

Computer World explains:

When the cursor is brought over a Web video window, like that on YouTube, a SpursEngine logo appears in the top, left corner. Clicking on the logo launches the video full screen with the SpursEngine processing engaged. It's possible to run the system with the left-hand half unprocessed and the right-hand half of the screen processed so a comparison can be made and the improvements seen.

According to this source, the chip brings a noticeable improvement: “Edges are sharper, colors are a little richer and brightness and contrast are adjusted so that black areas of screen appear black and not grey.”

The result of this technology may not be important for ordinary consumers. But surely it is important for the users need more professional multimedia laptops and are ready to pay ¥340,000 (US$3,420) for Qosmio G50.

The laptop features 2.66GHz Core2 Duo processor, a 640GB hard disk, 18.4-inch widescreen full HD LCD display, and dual digital TV tuners. This laptop was launched in Japan last week. It will be available in international market later.

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$150 Connect Available in USA for Lenovo Constant

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In February, Lenovo announced providing a special facility for corporate users to keep their e-mail 24 hours access to them.

By the means of Lenovo Constant Connect, the user will be able to read its company emails of Lenovo ThinkPad in BlackBerry through Constant Connect ExpressCard which is a $150 accessory.


Users will not need to be worried about the Wi-Fi connection or the mobile broadband when they have Lenovo Constant Connect. For instance, the user just needs to type the email on ThinkPad notebook and sends it to Blackberry through Bluetooth. When he can not use the notebook, he will be able to send the email easily by blackberry. So the user will not need to think of the Wi-Fi or broadband access. The same way the user can send or read the email with the ThinkPad notebook when there is no access to Wi-Fi or broadband connectivity.


The good news is that now this service available from Lenovo’s Web site. It is also sold through Lenovo’s distribution partners in USA.


Source: laptop magazine

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HP ProBook 4510s (FM848UT) 15.6-in Laptop in First Two Reviews

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HP EliteBook, rugged business laptops for enterprises are nice laptops but not budget-friendly ones. HP has offered ProBook Notebook PC series recently which have inherited more feature-set and configurations of EliteBook laptops to solve this problem for small businesses that are with tied budget.

Among all the HP ProBook laptops only 15.6-inch ProBook 4510s and 17.3-inch ProBook 4710s are available for order at HP website now and other models will be debuted some later.

Fortunately, PC Magazine and laptop Magazine both could have their hands on the same model of ProBook 4510s with the price tag of $700. They had their in-depth look to this laptop and write nice reviews about it. Here I am mentioning a rundown of these two reviews briefly. I recommend you to read each of the reviews to get more precise idea about HP ProBook laptop series.



PC Magazine could have its hands on 4510s ($700 direct) featuring glossy finish, Intel Core 2 Duo T6750 CPU, 2GB of RAM, Intel GMA 500MHD graphics, 250 GB HDD, Wireless-N, DVD burner and 2 MP Webcam.

P.M. thinks that the laptop “gives IT managers some fashionable yet affordable solutions to choose from”.

The editors have given the rating of 4 out 5 meaning “Very Good”.


(Pros):

-Nice budget-friendly price

- Impressive battery runtime

- Security software bundle (for businesses with no IT staff),

- Wide, bright screen that is very usable in a work environment.

- Stylish comfortable Island-like keyboard that Numeric keypad included.

- Performance is very acceptable for the price

- Generous in features

- Availability of HP's QuickLook 2 button to let the user enter to its email without booting the OS and HP Spare Key to retrieve the passwords

- 3G modems are available.

- Very portable.


(Cons):

- Its glossy finish is fingerprint friendly!

- Frame seems hollow when you tap on it.


Benchmark result:

-MobileMark 2007 battery test: 4 hours and 36 minutes on 6-cell battery.

- The laptop gets GreenTech seal of approval from PCMag.

- P3 International Kill-A-Watt meter test: in sleep and shut down mode it consumes zero-watt




Laptop Magazine could have its hands on the same model with the same configuration. The folks of L.M. think that “HP’s entry-level brand for business users, its design is far from dull”.


(Pros)

- Polished design. The chassis has a mix of textures that makes it to look more stylish. And the availability of the merlot or red color for business line!

- Impressive battery life (4 hours and 31 minutes with 6—cell battery) with fast charging times

- Bright 16:9 display with matte finish provides good viewing angles

- Durable with useful security features

- Comfortable chiclet keyboard with number pad

- Ample ports and slots such as Four USB 2.0 ports, VGA and HDMI output, a 5-in-1 memory card reader and an ExpressCard/34


(Cons)

- The glossy finish is fingerprint-prone

-Awkward touch buttons

-No fingerprint reader for security



Benchmark results:

- PCMark Vantage Test: 2,784 meaning some below the average of the scores of mainstream notebooks

- Boot time test: 65 seconds with Vista business

- 3DMark 06 test: 831 meaning very weak gaming performance while the average score for main stream notebooks stand around 3000.

- The Intel WiFi Link 5100 802.11a/b/g/n radio delivering better than the average

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HP ProBook Budget Laptops Follow Apple Mac Pro Business Style

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Having a budget-friendly business style laptop that put together portability, good feature set as well as comfort with "chiclet" keyboard and 16:9 ratio LED-backlit display, constant network connectivity, enough security measures and media options for entertainment is a big bless in this economic recession.

HP has noticed to this demand in the market and smartly tried to fill this hole. HP has introduced a new Laptop line up called HP ProBook s- series notebook targeting small business professionals who want stylish, affordable laptops.


The HP ProBook s Series laptop includes 14-inch ProBook 4410s (Intel-based)and 4415s (AMD-based) laptops, 15.6-inch ProBook 4510s (Intel) and 4515s (AMD)laptops and 17.3-inch ProBook 4710s (Intel) laptop.


All the laptops come equipped with "chiclet" keyboards like Apple MacBook and Sony laptops. The laptops also sport LED-backlit displays featuring 16:9 ratio and Drive Encryption for HP ProtectTools. They are ENERGY STAR qualified, and are EPEATSilver registered.


14-inch Intel-based ProBook 4410s laptop featuring a GMA 4500 graphics and AMD-based 4415s laptop featuring Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics come with HDMI port standard and a Bluetooth option.

These two laptops will be available until June.


15.6-inch Intel-based ProBook 4510s laptop and AMD-based 4515s laptop are equipped with bigger keyboard providing numeric keypads optional 3G connectivity and dedicated graphics.

The 4510s is available for order in HP website. The basic configuration starts from $530.


The high configuration (4510s Notebook PC FM849UT) with the price tag of $800 sports a 15.6-inch LED-backlit HD BrightView 1366 x 768 display, Core 2 Duo Processor T6570 (2.10 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB), 3GB of RAM (800 MHz DDR2 SDRAM), 320 GB 5400 rpm SATA HDD, a LightScribe DVD burner and GMA 4500 integrated graphics.

It features Intel 802.11a/b/g/draft n (up to 300 mbps data rate) Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, VGA webcam, Up to 5 hours battery runtime and HP 3D DriveGuard.


The 17.3-inch Intel-based ProBook 4710s sports a 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo, 3GB of memory, a DVD rewriter and a 320GB hard disk.

It also features a Mobility Radeon HD 4330 for graphics, and a 1600x900 Display.


Sources: Electronista, HP

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Hands-on with T-Mobile’s 3G Sidekick LX

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Last night I had a chance to go hands-on with the Sidekick LX at a T-Mobile launch party, and I have to admit, it wasn’t what I was expecting. It was better.

While I’ve seen a few Sidekicks pass through our offices, this one left the best impression on me. Its large and high resolution display looked great, its keyboard felt awesome, and the 3G data speeds were the expected icing on the cake.

I was also impressed by the Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace applications. Each looked clean and was easy to navigate around using the trackball. T-Mobile says you can even send video directly up to MySpace, and that the same feature is expected for Facebook shortly.

I fired up the GPS application to check out the maps, which are powered by Microsoft’s Live Search Maps. It’s great for finding the nearest restaurant, but I would have been more impressed with a full Telenav installation to accent it.

The Sidekick LX will retail for $199 with a 2-year contract, which is what the current EDGE-only edition costs, so hold off on buying any other Sidekick until this hits store shelves.

Stay tuned for our full review as soon as we receive a unit, but overall we think Sidekick lovers will be blown away.


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Skytone Alpha 680 Android Netbook in Video: Only Pretty Fast!

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I love Google Search engine and I like Google chrome because, they are simple, handy, easy to use and pretty fast. Google Andriod is identical with last two Google’s products; it is simple easy to use and fast. For this reason I was so curious to see how Google Android OS which was made for mobile phones work on netbooks!


Well you can see the two videos after the break and experiment your first impression of this OS on a ARM- powered Skytone Alpha 680 netbook.

Well, unlike the nice impression that Google chrome had on me, I didn’t feel the same about Android running on a netbook.

Undoubtedly, the OS pretty fast. It is running on un-powered Skytone Alpha 680 netbook but it is much faster than any Windows-based netbook!

However, Android is an OS mobile phone on this netbook yet. It doesn’t act like an OS made for a computer. While watching the video, I just felt that I was watching the functionality of a smartphone with big 7-inch Touchscreen!

The big problem I felt immediately was that the presenter was able to run only one app. But on PC we need to run different apps at the same time.

In the end, I think the OS is not ready for netbooks yet but it has a bright future if like other Linux operating systems, it offers plenty of useful applications that computer users need to get.


This netbooks is priced at $250. Well yet this netbook is not cheap because, first of all Android is a free OS and the android on this netbook only provided very limited apps. This netbooks features only 7-inch display and ocmes with very short size 128MB of RAM, and 4GB of flash storage. Even the netbooks is as heavy as 1.5 lbs.

you can get a pretty 8.9-inch Acer Aspire One A150 running on windows with the price tag of $324.00 at Buy.com and operate standard computing like surfing, checking e-mail and using your SKype at the same time easily.

Well, Alpha 680 is not the only android-based netbook and surely at computex we will same many netbooks running on Android. At that time we can judge this OS better.







Via: Liliputing

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10 Hours Battery Life by Mugen battery for HP Mini 2140/ Mini 2133

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HP Mini 2140 – the laptop magazine’s editor’s choice, is among the fashionable sturdy netbooks in the market that tempts the business users. This netbook provides decent battery runtime with its standard 3-cell battery.

The default battery lasts for 3 up to 3.5 hours and the optional 6-cell battery lasts for about 7 hours.


Normally, consumers don’t need more than this. But they are the users who are most of the time on the go and need to have their portable laptops on for even 10 hours.

For this particular type of consumers, Mugen has made a special 7800mAh battery with the price tag of $163.95 for HP 2133 Mini-note. But the members of the MyHPMini forums have discovered that this battery can work with HP mini 2140 Mini-note too.

The battery can easily work up to 9-10 hours if you do the light tasks with the netbook and with a lot of stress it will last for 7 hours!

Although, thisbattery is expensive, it is a good alternative.


Source: Liliputing

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Dual-Screen Netbook from Sharp Coming to USA for Sub-$1000

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Netbooks are supposed to be cheap affordable and handy. However Sharp is bringing out a special netbook which is not cheap about $1000. So the netbook has to be handier than others in the market to be able to attract the consumers.

PC-NJ70A netbook comes with two LCD monitors: 10.1-inch (1024 x 600) main screen display and the small secondary screen located in the trackpad place. The small one is a 4-inch display that features 854 x 480 resolution and dynamical brightness. The user is able to do browsing files and running applications by it.


This pricey netbook features a 1.6-GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB RAM, 160GB hard drive, 3 USB ports, VGA out, Ethernet, EEE 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and a memory card reader and 1.3 MP Camera.


The netbook seems to be expensive in terms of specs. If the company had added 3G as a standard feature to this netbook or had used Express Card slot rather than media card reader to give the alternative of using 3G through Express slot, the price would have been more acceptable.

This netbook is on its way to the US market. It is available for pre-order.


Do you think many American consumers will consider of this netbook as one of their choices?


Via: Laptop Magazine

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Top 5 Security Suites of 2009

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Every year we feel more threats from Cyber criminals because every year they just produce new but more advanced malware, spyware, viruses and spams and add to the previous ones.


The same way Security vendors keep update their Suites and go for use new ways of protection. So, being updated with the good security suites is very important if you care of protecting your PC and data from modern and new threats.

However, along the advantages that Security suites provide for the users, slowing down the computers while boot up, file operations even the ordinary ones, installing process; unzipping files specially large groups, downloading mail etc is a big issue that makes every computer user annoyed. Users love protection but they don’t like interruption that is a why they are I always interested for the latest CPUs, faster and bigger memories and hard drives.


The security vendors have been trying their best to improve their Suites in terms of timing of operation (faster and improved functionality) and also appearance- having better visual effect and more simple main windows to be smoother, less confusing and easily-read for the users.


PC Magazine has done several important tests and rated 12 Security Suites individually such as Firewall, antivirus, antispyware, and performance and has counted the overall score for each Suite as well. For in-depth look I recommend you to read the entire article. Here I am just mentioning top 5 Security Suites out of the 12 ones were evaluated there.




1- Norton Internet Security 2009; (3-pack, $69.99 direct)

This Security Suite is PC Magazine’s Editor’s choice for 2009. It is the best application in terms of firewall, antivirus, and antispyware. Of course it archived the best rating (4.5 out of 5) for overall performance, as well.


2- Trend Micro Internet Security Pro 2009; (3-pack, $69.95 direct)

This Suite has impressive rating (5 out of 5) too and in each test stays just one step behind Norton.


3- ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite 2009; ($49.95 direct; 3-pack, $69.95)

This Suite get the same rating of 4 out of 5 like Micro, but with two big difference. In Firewall test it scores 5 out 5 like Norton but in performance test it is weaker than both above (2.5 out of 5).


4- BitDefender Internet Security 2009; ($69.95 direct; 3-pack, $79.95)

With the result of 3.5 out of 5 for overall performance, it records tits highest score for Antivirus test (4 out of 5). It scores the performance test 2.5 out of 5 similar to ZoneAlarm. It version of 2009 comes with “a ton of new features—online backup and remote configuration”.


5- Kaspersky Internet Security 2009; (3-pack, $79.95 direct)

Although it has the rating of 3.5 out of 5 for overall performance, it has impressive scores of 4 for each Antivirus and antispyware test and score of 4.5 for Firewall. Even for performance test it scores 3. This suite is weak in terms of antispam, privacy and parental control. In booting, unzipping files it doesn’t slow down the operation so much but, slows browsing by 64 percent!


Updated:

PC World has presented its top 9 Security Suites for 2009 too. Here I am just mentioning the top 5 of the list here:

1- Symantec Norton Internet Security 2009

2- BitDefender Internet Security 2009

3- Panda Internet Security 2009

4- McAfee Internet Security Suite 2009

5- Avira Premium Security Suite 8.2

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Panasonic, NEC unveil Linux phones

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NEC and Panasonic will unveil nine new cellphone models running the open source LiMo operating system, wireless Linux foundation LiMo said at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona.

The focus of the cellphone market has been shifting to software development since Google and Apple entered the mobile market in the past two years, with phone vendors and operators increasingly looking for open source alternatives like LiMo to cut costs.

The market for software platforms on cellphones is led by Nokia's Symbian operating system, but it has lost much ground over the last year to Apple and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion.

Computer operating system Linux has had little success in cellphones so far, but its role is increasing with the LiMo platform, and Google is using Linux for its Android platform.

Linux is the most popular type of free, or so-called open source, computer operating system, which is available to the public to be used, revised and shared.

Linux suppliers earn money selling improvements and technical services, and Linux competes directly with Microsoft, which charges for its Windows software and opposes freely sharing its code.

LiMo also said five firms, Aromasoft, CasioHitachi Mobile Communications, Marvell, Opera Software and Swisscom, had joined the not-for-profit foundation, increasing its membership to 55.

Google's Android camp has so far announced 47 members.

However, LiMo has been missing support from the largest cellphone vendors; so far only NEC, Panasonic and Motorola have unveiled phones using its software.

The world's second- and third-largest cellphone vendors, Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, are members of LiMo, but have not unveiled commercial models.

LG Electronics will provide technology previews of its sleek touch-screen handset at the trade show, LiMo said, while Samsung will show plans of two devices.

LiMo hopes to benefit from its focus on giving greater say over software development to telecoms operators.

Last week its key members, Vodafone, Orange, Japan's NTT DoCoMo, Korea's SK Telecom, US operator Verizon Wireless and Telefonica, pledged to introduce LiMo phones in 2009.
Source : mydigitallife

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Intel’ to Bring CULV to Heap up the market of Low-cost Laptops!

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Low-cost laptops are new-opened category in the crowded market of PC industry that was set up by AMD’s Athlon Neo processor which has been used in 12-in HP dv2 laptop.

Low-cost laptops are the budget ultra-thin laptops delivering better performance than netbooks and stay behind the standard ultra portable laptops. They are powered with new budget energy-efficient processors like Neo CPU or upcoming Intel’s CULV processor to enhance battery runtime meanwhile more powerful that Atom or VIA processors used in netbooks.


Intel’s upcoming CULV (consumer ultra-low-voltage) processor is a 22mm single-core chip based on Intel's mainstream Core 2 architecture but unlike these mainstream processors that consume 25W of power, CULV will only consumes 5.5W - slightly more than Atom CPU.


This is good news because the luxurious laptops like Mac Air or Dell Adamo will cut their price since they will be able to use this Intel’s processor. MSI X-slim 340 is an ultra-thin laptop to be powered by CULV processor. MSI has claimed that it is world’s lightest and slimmest 13-inch notebook and I should add that it is going to be the cheapest one in its own category too. According to Cnet, this laptop was launched in Japan last week and the higher-end version starts at around $1,000.

Lenovo is also considering making a ThinkPad low-cost laptop with Intel’s CULV processor.


By Intel’s CULV processor and AMD’s Neo processor the prices the laptops based on them will fall between $700 and $1300.

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The Most Expensive Netbook: Adorned Acer Aspire One for $3000

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We have already talked about the most expensive laptop in this blog, but what about the most expensive Netbook!

We always expect to see netbooks to become cheaper and cheaper but who will buy a netbook with the price of $3000?

At the first sight, it sounds crazy, (for me too) but when I saw the netbook in the following video, I fell in love with that!

UFO Hayashi- Japanese gadget artist has painted an Acer Aspire one and has made it a real artwork.

If this netbook has stolen your heart and you would love to have it, you can find it at eBay for $3000.


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AT&T to be First Wireless Company to Sell Upcoming ARM Netbooks

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ARM powered netbooks are supposed to be presented at Computex Show in June along many of them to run on Andriod OS. This is very interesting that AT&T wants to be the first company that will debut selling ARM powered netbooks along other Atom-based netbooks such as Acer Aspire one and Dell Inspiron Mini netbooks though its subsidizing program.

EE Times reports:

"There are a lot of people who will dive in and build netbooks, including folks like cellular or wireless OEMs who never built a computer before," said Lurie, president of emerging devices for AT&T's wireless group.

Lurie said AT&T expects to offer ARM/Linux netbooks in addition to this current x86/Windows models just as it offers Windows Mobile, Symbian and Apple smart phones today. He also expressed interest in cloud-based application services that some designers say will be an important driver for simple, low cost ARM/Linux netbooks.

ARM powered netbooks will be much cheaper than Atom-based laptops because of their lower-end CPU. ARM netbooks will be able to run on Linux OS, Windows CE, and Andriod very easily rather than Window XP or Win 7.

So far Microsoft has suffered a 16% revenue falloff in the first quarter 2009 because of 10% growth of netbooks and 17% reduction of traditional computers. The strong tempt of AT&T to sell ARM netbooks before launching them shows that This company predicts that this type of netbooks will have bright future. And surely it will bring a lot of opportunity for Android to improve and implement on numerous netbooks mainly next year.

Do you agree with me?

Via: liliputing

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Toshiba NB200 Hands-on; Many Nvidia Ion Netbooks at Computex!

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Toshiba NB200 netbook is a new 10.1-inch netbook which doesn’t have the big problems of NB100 such as cramp keyboard.

Toshiba has tried to impress the netbook fans with adding nice finish, spacious almost full-size keyboard and large touchpad, and integrated Wi-Fi and mobile broadband connectivity.


NB200 or also called Dynabook UX in Japan features 10.1-inch widescreen LED-backlit display with 1024x600, 1.6 GHz Atom N270/ 1.66GHz Atom N280 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive with 3D sensor protecting against shock and knock, three USB 2.0 ports (one of them comes with sleep and charge functionality), up to 3.5 hours battery run time with 3-Cell battery (up to 9 hours with 6-cell), and Windows XP Home OS. The netbook starts from $465 and in UK and will be available from next month.

In UK, Megawhat.tv could have their hands on this up coming netbooks and make a video about it that you can see in the following. The laptop looks pretty nice. It has got really a different design and look than other netbook from other key leaders. I like the design and the roomy keyboard it has. I hope that a gdetailed review of it comes soon.



Nvidia Ion platform has become familiar for everybody so far as numerous news items have been released time to time through web.

Ion platform is supposed to enhance the graphics quality with its GeForce 9400 graphics while keeping the low-end Atom CPU along.

The good news is that after long time waiting at last we are going to see a number of netbooks based on ION platform at Computex Show in Taiwan holding at the beginning of June. However, Acer has released its AspireRevo nettop which is the first ion-based computer in the market. You can see a video review of Ion here.

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Google Challenging Microsoft & Intel with Android-based Netbooks?

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Google's Android free operating system that first was made for mobile phones is finding its way in netbook laptops. Despite economic recession, netbooks had the fastest growth in the PC market last year because of their budget price, portability and usablity for any sort of consumers in any age and with any occupation.

Microsoft and Intel were the top leading companies in this market that have been able to make the most money from netbooks. MS earned more than 60% of its operating profit from netbooks last year and Intel earned $300 million revenue from its Atom CPU in Q4 2008 (an increase of 50%).

This attractive market segment has encouraged Google to offer its free Android OS to laptop makers to use on their netbooks.

Interesting thing is that Laptop makers have welcomed Google. Although, Andirod is not compatible with many popular applications yet and even it can not support drivers of some peripherals, laptop makers like HP-a major Windows partner is testing the OS, Asus and Dell are rumors to consider using this OS seriously on their netbooks and MSI is going to showcase its android-based netbook at Computex 2009 in Taiwan.

The reason is very simple and logical: all these laptop makers are trying to cut the price of their netbooks and bring them down about $200. Microsoft charges about $15 on each windows-based netbook unlike Google that offer its Android free of charge. The industry executives have also predicted that “hardware without Microsoft's software could sell for less than $200.”

This serious desire of laptop makers for the OS that many people have already been familiar with because of their cell phones is not only leaving Microsoft in a big challenge, but Intel- the world leading chipmaker will go under a lot of pressure if android becomes popular in netbook segment!

Android-based netbooks can only work with ARM chip designs rather than Atom processors. One Android-based netbook with the name of Alpha-680 Google Android netbook has already been spotted in China pricing about $100! And I am sure we are coming across many Android-based netbooks at Computex Show in June.

In the Q1 2009 , “Intel’s Atom processors and related chipsets experienced a sharper decline than Intel's overall CPU and chipset sales”. VIA Nano and AMD Neo have been launched recently and have started to steal some market share from Intel.

All these evidences show that Intel is going to face a big challenge in 2010 if various Android-based netbooks are released by top laptop makers and unknown companies.

I don’t think that the ruling time of Intel in netbook segment is going to finish but, Surely Microsoft will face serious problem in this segment even after releasing Windows 7. If a Windows is charged for about $400, an android-based will be priced around half of it!

Here, you have to remember two things. First of all, Microsoft gives Internet Explorer and Messenger free with Windows OS. So, many people automatically use these two things. If Google can seriously get some market share of netbooks then I can easily predict that Google will give Chrome and Google Talk free (they are already free) with its Android OS. I think that Google may opt for Open Office or try to build some kind of free Office program by extending its Google Doc facility. Right now, Google Doc is limited to only Internet users. So, I am hoping that with Android OS, Google may feel tempted to give us an offline version of Google Doc.

Last but not least, remember that the core business of Google is search engine. So, I am expecting that Google will give users better search facilities in the netbooks and naturally, Google will arrange that the netbooks’ default search engine will be Google search. This may cause some tension among Yahoo and Microsoft and they may even go to court to stop Google if Google does this kind of thing. Well, I cannot say these things for sure but I feel strongly that this kind of thing may happen as if Android becomes a market leader OS for netbooks then Google may become the Microsoft of laptop world.

Source : laptopcom

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Dell Studio XPS 13

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This thin-and-light notebook offers very good performance, hybrid graphics, and a luxurious design.

It oozes style and has plenty of substance. The $1,354 Studio XPS 13, the 13.3-inch sibling to the XPS 16, has an attractive design, complete with leather details, white LED lights, and responsive touch controls, not to mention strong performance and switchable graphics to match. The short battery life will give highly mobile users pause, but you can easily upgrade to a 9-cell battery.

Design

Like its predecessor the XPS M1330, the XPS 13 has a wedge shape that’s both good-looking and easy to carry. However, at 4.8 pounds (versus 4 pounds), it’s nearly a full pound heavier. The black lid has a classy gloss finish that picks up fingerprints easily. On one end is a metal strip that separates the plastic from a patch of black leather, which is easily the most luxurious detail on this notebook.

Then the design takes a funky turn. That metal strip extends onto the lower corners of the bezel, turning into hinges with visible screws. On the plus side, most of the other details hit the right notes: the touch-sensitive multimedia control panel, which glows white, was impeccably responsive, even to the slightest tap. Rings on the hinges also glow white, as do the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LED indicators on the front side of the notebook. Even the keyboard is backlit, although it doesn’t have an ambient light sensor like Apple’s MacBook line (this would adjust the backlighting depending on the surrounding light). And the screen, which is only 0.2 inches thick, is edge-to-edge glass.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The black keyboard has a wonderfully soft finish that feels comfortable. Dell makes good use of space: the keyboard extends almost from one end of the 12.6-inch-wide chassis to the other, so there’s ample space for your fingers. The panel felt sturdy and didn’t flex as we typed away. Best of all, the keys barely make any sound.

Our pet peeve is stiff touch buttons, so we appreciated how easy these were to press. Some might consider these buttons mushy, but we like them. Although the mouse buttons were large enough, the 2.5 x 1.6-inch touchpad, which had little friction, felt small. At the least, Dell had room to make it wider.

Dell Dock

Like other consumer Dell notebooks, including the Studio 15, the XPS 13 has the Dell Dock, a panel of large launch icons that looks eerily similar to the Apple dock. Unlike Apple’s dock, however, which is also a repository for minimized documents, Web pages, and other windows, Dell’s Dock only allows you to launch commonly used programs. To its credit, it’s intuitively organized by task. When you click on the Photos icon, for example (which looks like a camera), you’ll have the option of viewing and publishing photos or snapping stills.

Users can also customize the color and location of the dock, as well as drag and drop shortcuts into the dock. When you do so, the shortcut will disappear from your desktop, which has the effect of cleaning up your workspace. We recommend moving the Dock away from the top of the screen, its default location: it kept popping up as we tried to type in the address bar of our browser, or click on tabs.

Display and Sound

The 13.3-inch (1280 x 800), LED-backlit display looked bright when we watched an episode of Mad Men on DVD. Despite having a glossy finish, the screen has versatile viewing angles. We were able to tip the lid far forward and still watch comfortably, which bodes well for travelers who want to watch a movie while resting their laptop on the seat tray. We were able to watch from pretty oblique side angles, too, though at 180 degrees the screen became too reflective.

The stereo speakers are decent, delivering plenty of volume for watching a movie by ourselves in a quiet room. The music we listened to—Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs—was sufficiently loud but a bit tinny. Still, the system supports Dolby 5.1 surround sound, which comes in handy for connecting the XPS 13 to a home theater system.

Ports and Webcam

The XPS 13 has many of the ports you’d expect from a high-end notebook: HDMI, DisplayPort, VGA, FireWire, and a USB port that doubles as an eSATA connection. There’s also an Ethernet jack, one mic, and two headphone jacks. The problem is, there’s only one other USB port, bringing the total to two. Even on a more basic system of this size, one would expect at least three. It also has an ExpressCard/54 slot, an 8-in-1 memory card reader, and a slot-loading DVD drive.

The 1.3-megapixel webcam took bright, nicely colored still photos and videos. The VGA video had loud, accurate sound, with good brightness and colors. We noticed very slight latency around our mouth, but it wasn’t distracting. In general, the Webcam Central software made the webcam easy to use (and the Dell Dock’s Movies icon made it easy to find). The tabbed interface allows users to switch quickly between photo and movie mode, thumbnails of captures you’ve just taken appear on the bottom, and the resolution options appear in a drop-down menu.

Facial Recognition

The XPS 13 also comes with FastAccess facial recognition software. Of all the facial recognition–enabled notebooks we’ve tested, including the Lenovo IdeaPad Y650, this had the fastest enrollment process we’ve seen. The enrollment program opens to the Vista login screen, has you select a user account, quickly scans your face, and—voilà—you’re finished. The first time we tried logging on after that, the webcam examined our face for less than a second before approving.

Switchable Graphics

Our configuration of the XPS 13 came with Nvidia’s GeForce 9500M GE GPU. This Hybrid SLI setup includes switchable integrated and discrete graphics cards and 256MB of dedicated video memory, meaning that users can toggle better performance and increased endurance.

Toggling the two graphics options is as easy as selecting the battery icon in the system tray and choosing Power Saver or High Performance. You’ll see an on-screen graphic indicating the switch is in progress; when it’s done, Vista’s circle will stop spinning. While this is going on, you have no control over the desktop. However, not having to reboot the computer to switch graphics or log off, as you have to with the MacBook Pro, is a relief.

The differences in graphics performance between the two cards was pretty stark: On 3DMark06, the XPS 13 scored 2,168 and 3,530, respectively, in Power Saver and High Performance mode. The XPS 13 steamrolls the average thin-and-light, even with integrated graphics enabled: the average score for 3DMark06 is 1,393. In fact, the XPS 13’s integrated graphics scores are nearly identical to those of the 13-inch MacBook, which has an Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU.

On our real-world tests, the XPS 13 delivered frame rate scores that were less than impressive. On Far Cry 2 with the resolution set to 1024 x 768, it managed 21.3 frames per second with the integrated graphics and 25.8 fps with discrete graphics. With the resolution set to 1280 x 800, it eked out just 9.9 fps and 9.5 fps, respectively.

Performance

As a high-end machine in Dell’s lineup, the XPS 13 delivers better-than-average performance. Thanks to a 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 CPU and 4GB of RAM, it scored 2,672 on PCMark Vantage with integrated graphics, and 3,961 with discrete. The category average is 2,862. Apple’s MacBook, which has the same processor, but 2GB of RAM, scored 3,093 on the same benchmark when running Vista in Boot Camp mode.

However, the 320GB, 7,200-rpm hard drive transferred a 4.97GB folder of mixed media at a rate of 15.9 Mbps, which falls short of the category average of 17.8 Mbps. That’s surprising, given that most of the notebooks we test have slower 5,400-rpm drives. The notebook took 1 minute and 5 seconds to start up, which is slightly slow even for a Vista notebook. We have a feeling that bundled trialware (see the software section for details) has something to do with it.

That said, the XPS 13 felt zippy during day-to-day activities—faster, certainly, than lower-end machines we’ve tested recently, such as the Gateway TC Series. We had no problem navigating between six open tabs in Internet Explorer, responding to e-mails, watching a video clip, and perusing comments on our favorite blogs. When we clicked on another tab, the notebook was very quick to catch up and change the image on-screen. While doing this, we were also able to quickly download Handbrake and jZip.

When it came to heavy multitasking, the integrated and discrete graphics cards delivered similar results. The XPS 13 transcoded a 5-minute-and-5-second MP4 clip to AVI in 6 minutes and 31 seconds, and in 11:39 while zipping a 4.97GB folder in the background. When using discrete graphics, these times remained about the same, at 6:37, and 11:43, respectively. While that may sound like a long time, cheaper notebooks, such as the $749 HP Pavilion dv2, which runs on AMD’s Yukon platform, took 22 minutes and 32 seconds to complete the same task.

Heat

In general, we noticed that the chassis, particularly near the display and battery, felt uncomfortably warm, even when we weren’t using the notebook. At its hottest point, near the vent, the notebook measured as high as 105 degrees.


Battery Life and Wi-Fi

On the LAPTOP Battery Test (continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi), the XPS 13’s six-cell battery lasted just 2 hours and 42 minutes in power-saving mode. That falls far short of the category average, which is 4 hours and 16 minutes, and is 2 hours short of what the 13-inch MacBook gets. For extra endurance, buy the nine-cell battery ($80). The power brick itself is slim, at half an inch thick; it’s a nice touch, particularly for people who intend to travel a lot with their notebook. Be warned, however: the brick, like the chassis, gets hot, even when the computer is idle. When the computer was idle, its temperature was 109 degrees.

The Dell Wireless 1515 Wireless-N adapter delivered throughput of 19.4 Mbps and 14.2 Mbps at 15 and 50 feet, respectively, which is slightly above average in the 15-foot category, but slightly below the 50-foot average.

Configuration Options

If, based on what you’ve read here, the integrated graphics performance sounds sufficient, you can save $110 by opting for an integrated-only GPU, Nvidia’s 9400M solution, which we praised in our Apple MacBook review, among others. Interestingly, the LED-backlit monitor on our review unit comes with a 1.3-MP webcam; selecting the LCD display (a $125 downgrade) gets you a 2-MP webcam.

Although our unit had a 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 CPU, you can choose two faster models: a 2.53-GHz P8700 ($50) or a 2.66-GHz P9600 ($175). Users can add up to 8GB of RAM ($800), but once you get past 4GB you’ll have to choose a 64-bit version of Windows to match. Aside from Home Premium, users can select Vista Ultimate ($150).

Our configuration had the base 320GB hard drive, but customers can also choose a 500GB, 7,200-rpm hard drive ($75) or as 128GB or 256GB SSD ($200 and $400, respectively). Finally, users can choose integrated mobile broadband options by AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon Wireless, which adds $125 to the total cost.

Software and Warranty

Like many other consumer notebooks, the Studio XPS 13 comes with its fair share of installed software, some of it trialware. Bundled programs include: Dell DataSafe Online (Dell’s online backup service), Dell Video Chat (this is SightSpeed software, rebranded), McAfee Security Center, Microsoft Office PowerPoint Viewer 2007, Compatibility Pack for Office 2007, Microsoft Silverlight, Dell PowerDVD, Roxio Creator DE, and Windows Live Essentials.

All told, that’s no so bad. There are no annoying browser toolbars, for example, and Dell even installed Adobe Air, so you can enjoy your favorite desktop apps, like TweetDeck, right out of the box. The Studio XPS 13 has a one-year warranty, including 24/7, toll-free phone support.

The Verdict

With a leather strip on the lid and switchable graphics, the $1,354 Dell Studio XPS 13 looks and feels like a luxury machine. However, with less than 3 hours of battery life, it’s not for highly mobile users; it’s a better choice for people who can deal with keeping the (thin) AC adapter handy. If you’re looking in this price range, you should also consider the 13-inch MacBook, which is lighter, has an equally—if not sleeker—design, and better battery life. But for switchable graphics, face recognition, and more configuration options, stick with the Studio XPS 13.

Source : laptopmag



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Acer Aspire 3935 (3935-6504)

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Acer’s latest 13-inch notebook sports a slim design, comfy keyboard, and good performance at an attractive price.

Acer has hit a home run with the Aspire 3935-6504, which combines a stylish design and excellent ergonomics with good performance and battery life—all at a very reasonable $899. Amenities such as a sharp edge-to-edge glass display, powerful Dolby-optimized speakers, and convenient one-touch backup and power-saver buttons go a long toward making this thin-and-light notebook a pleasure to use. Assuming you can live with mediocre graphics performance, the Aspire 3935 is an excellent value-priced notebook you can take anywhere.

Design

Measuring an inch thin and weighing 4.2 pounds, the Aspire 3935 isn’t quite in the ultraportable category, but it’s svelte and easy to carry. Just as important, it looks more expensive than it is. Acer chose a unique, classy golden brown brushed-metal chassis. (One benefit of this color choice: fingerprint smudges aren’t nearly as obvious as with glossy black systems like the Dell Studio XPS 13.) We especially like the textured feel of the deck, which has a subtle pattern of tiny upward-shooting arrows. The build quality feels solid, unlike many other laptops in this price range.

Other welcome touches include the large circular power button, ringed by an LED, and a strip of small but responsive touch-sensitive buttons just above the keyboard. From left to right you’ll find a mute button, volume keys, and dedicated buttons for the toggling Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections.

To the right of the these buttons is the Back-up button, which launches software from NTI that lets you back up important data (or your entire system) to the internal drive or an external drive. Last but not least is the Acer PowerSmart Button, a large button above this strip that saves battery life when activated. Among other things, entering PowerSmart mode automatically reduces the screen brightness to 30 percent and changes the color scheme to Windows Vista Basic.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The Aspire 3935 uses what Acer calls its FineTip keyboard, which was designed to have large key caps and increased key gaps compared to other notebooks isolated layouts. Overall, we found this full-size keyboard to be comfortable during longer typing stints. Those who prefer some spring to their keyboards may find the keys a tad soft or mushy, but we acclimated within minutes.

The touchpad is plenty large and was very smooth, which made cursor movement effortless. We also found the dedicated scroll area to be responsive. The touchpad buttons, actually a single bar separated by the fingerprint reader, are also well sized and provided just the right amount of feedback without being too loud. If you want to use an external mouse, next to the touchpad is a button for disabling it.

Using Synaptics’ technology the Aspire 3935’s touchpad supports multiple gestures. We had no problems zooming in and out on Word documents and images, as well as breezing through a gallery of images with a two-finger swipe.

Display, Audio, and Webcam

This thin-and-light sports a 13.3-inch edge-to-edge glass display (meaning it’s flush with the bezel). With a resolution of 1366 x 768, this LED-backlit panel was bright and crisp when viewing images in Windows Photo Gallery and watching an episode of 30 Rock on Hulu. This glossy panel gave off some reflections, but it wasn’t too distracting.

Thanks to Dolby’s surround sound technology, the speakers on the Aspire 3935 produced impressive sound for a 13-inch notebook. When streaming a Travis track in Slacker, audio was rich and balanced and plenty loud to fill a small room. Dialog and background music in a streaming 30 Rock episode came through loud and clear.

The tiny 1.3-megapixelwebcam above the display worked well during a Skype call. However, when we moved away from the natural light provided by an office window, the other caller said the picture had a yellow cast. Audio in both directions was clear with sufficient volume.

Ports and Slots

The left side of the Acer Aspire 3935 houses the power jack, a VGA port, two USB ports, and the headphone and mic jacks. The mic jack doubles as an S/PDIF output. On the right side of the system are an Ethernet jack, a Kensington lock slot, the third USB port, and the tray-loading DVD burner. Down in front is a 5-in-1 memory card reader.

What you don’t get on this notebook is an HDMI output, which would be good for directing audio and video via a single cable to a high-def monitor or big-screen TV—despite the lack of Blu-ray. Also missing is an eSATA port, which would be a nice addition for faster backups to external hard drives that support the technology. Lastly, the Aspire 3935 lacks an ExpressCard slot. That could be a turn-off for those who prefer that slot for adding a mobile broadband card, but plenty of compact USB 3G modems are available.

Performance

Equipped with a 2-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 3GB of RAM, the Aspire 3935’s performance is right in line with the average thin-and-light notebook. In PCMark Vantage, which measures application performance in Windows Vista, this machine notched a score of 2,880, which is just above the category average (2,862). The Dell Studio XPS 13, by comparison, notched 2,672 in integrated graphics mode.

The Acer took 63 seconds to boot into Windows Vista Home Premium—only a bit above the category average of 61 seconds.

In terms of everyday performance, the Aspire 3935 was pretty snappy, opening Adobe Reader, Microsoft Works, and Windows Photo Gallery each in less than 4 seconds—and this with Google Chrome open with several tabs running. The system also didn’t exhibit much lag while McAfee SecurityCenter was running in the background.

The Aspire 3935 took 7 minutes and 56 seconds to transcode a 114MB MP4 file to AVI using Handbrake, and 13:56 when the system was also zipping a 4.97GB folder in the background. By comparison, the Studio XPS 13 completed the same task in 6 minutes and 31 seconds, and in 11:39 while zipping the 4.97GB folder in the background. The $799 Gateway UC7807u, which has a 2.0-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 processor, took a similar 7:53 to complete the same task.

The Aspire’s 250GB hard drive isn’t the fastest. On the LAPTOP Transfer Test (copying a 4.97GB folder of mixed media), this 5,400-rpm drive turned in a transfer rate of 15.6 MBps. That’s below the 17.8 MBps average, but not alarmingly so.

Graphics

Given that this notebook uses Intel’s Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD, we didn’t expect the Aspire 3935 to offer blistering 3D performance. And sure enough, it turned in a low score of 797 in 3DMark06, compared with the thin-and-light category average of 1,393. However, that category average includes systems with discrete graphics, like the ASUS N81Vp and Dell Studio XPS 13. The 13-inch MacBook also smokes the Aspire 3935, thanks to its more powerful Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics card, with a score of 2,146. Nevertheless, this Acer is on a par with most other notebooks with integrated graphics, like the Gateway UC Series (722).

If you’re thinking of playing the latest games on the Aspire 3935, think again. It mustered only 5.5 frames per second in Far Cry 2, and that was at 800 x 600 pixels. You’re better off sticking to the plethora of included casual games, which include demos of Cake Mania 2 and Zuma Deluxe.

Battery Life and Wireless Performance

The Aspire 3935 comes standard with a four-cell battery, which lasted a decent 4 hours and 10 minutes when running the LAPTOP Battery Test (continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi). Although that endurance is slightly below the thin-and-light notebook category average of 4:16, you can squeeze extra runtime out of this machine by engaging the PowerSmart button above the keyboard. As mentioned previously, pressing this button dims the screen brightness, changes the color scheme to Windows Basic, and automatically tweaks advanced settings for energy saving. We’ll update this review once the battery test in this mode is complete.

In terms of Wi-Fi performance, this notebook offered good throughput near our router but below-average speed as we moved farther away. At 15 feet the 802.11a/g/draft-n card turned in a data rate of 18.8 Mbps, which matches the category average. That number dropped to 14.5 Mbps from 50 feet, which is a bit below the category average of 15.3 Mbps. Nevertheless, sites loaded quickly in both Internet Explorer and Google Chrome at both distances

Software and Warranty

Acer includes a boatload of software with the Aspire 3935, but the good news is that it didn’t seem to slow down the notebook. In addition to 19 casual games, the vendor bundles Acer Bio Protection (for configuring and customizing the fingerprint reader), eSobi (an Internet news reader and search tool), Orion (a universal instant messaging client), NTI Backup Now 5 (which works in tandem with the backup button), and NTI Media Maker 8 (a media suite). We could have done without the trial offers for NetZero and EarthLink, but some will appreciate the 60-day trial subscription of McAfee Internet Security and free 30-day subscription to Carbonite for online backup. Acer also includes Microsoft Works 9.0 and a trial version of Office 2007.

The company backs this notebook with a one-year limited warranty and offers 24/7 toll-free technical assistance.

Verdict

A 13-inch notebook that’s this thin and light typically costs a grand or more, so for $899, the Aspire 3935-6504 represents one heck of a bargain. You get adequate performance for running Vista and a more stylish and svelte design than the entry-level MacBook. While both the HP Pavilion dv3z ($1,043 as tested, starting at $679) and the Dell Studio XPS 13 ($1,354 as tested, starting at $1,099) both offer better graphics performance, it comes at the expense of lower battery life than the Aspire 3935. The only real negatives with this system are the lack of HDMI, eSATA, and ExpressCard. Add in a sharp display, very good speakers, and helpful features like a one-touch backup button, and the Acer Aspire 3935 is an excellent choice for students and mobile professionals alike.

Source : laptopma



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