MSI's recently unveiled X370 notebook is now available for order and, depending on which vendor you go through, will ship right away. The X370 is a budget-conscious ultraportable priced at $599 and built around AMD's dual-core E-350 Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) platform. It's a sexy looking notebook, at least in the pictures we've seen, and at 3.1 pounds, you won't throw your back out lugging it around.
"We designed the X370 for those who want a fully functioning notebook in a compact form, with long battery life," noted Andy Tung, vice president of sales for MSI U.S.
MSI claims the the X370 will keep chugging along for up to 10 hours. Other notable features include a 13.4-inch widescreen display, AMD Radeon HD 6310 discrete class graphics, 4GB of DDR3 memory, 500GB hard drive, SRS Premium Sound speakers, HDMI, 1.3MP webcam, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.
Newegg has the X370 stocked and ready to ship, or if you don't mind waiting 1-4 weeks, Amazon is selling it slightly cheaper at $580.
Netbooks were the tablets of the pre-iPad world, but now they are found more often in market research studies bearing out claims of their cannibalization by tablets than in the marketplace itself. Acer seems to have finally found the key to this endangered specie's comeback: a hypnotic ripple-like effect on the back. Jokes apart, the upcoming Acer Aspire One 722 netbook is reported to feature a “water drop” effect on its lid.
Seen for the first time in the D257 at this year's MWC, the lid's cool ripple-like effect has been created out of molded plastic. The Aspire One 722 features AMD's C-50 APU with two CPU cores clocked at 1GHz and an integrated Radeon HD 6250 graphics core. It has an 11.6-inch display (1366x768) and a battery life of up to 7 hours. Price and release date haven't been revealed as yet.
Hewlett-Packard is bringing an enterprise version of its competitively priced Pavilion dm1z ultraportable to the market. Dubbed a “mini executive” by the company, the HP 3105m is essentially the dm1z with different branding save for a couple of trivial differences.
The 11.6-inch 3105m is powered by an AMD E-350 Zacate APU with two CPU cores running at 1.6GHz and an integrated Radeon HD 6310 graphics core. Other specs include 2GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive and a six-cell battery. Does that remind you of the dm1z? What's more, it even shares the same $449 price tag as the dm1z. The only difference is that the 3105m comes with Windows 7 Professional and Computrace LoJack anti-theft software.
Acer today announced its newest all-in-one 3D entertainment center built around Intel's Sandy Bridge platform, the Aspire Z5763. This latest AIO PC sports an integrated IR emitter and Nvidia 3D Vision technology to serve up 3D visuals on its 23-inch, Full HD 1080p 16:9 display. Audio duties are handled by an integrated 5W stereo speaker system and Dolby support.
3D isn't the only bandwagon Acer is jumping on. The Aspire Z5763 is the first to feature Acer's AirControl motion control technology, which utilizes built-in cameras to detect movements of your hand of fingers to control the computer. Waving your hand in front the machine fires up the media control interface, after which you can move your hand over media controls, like volume, rewind, forward, play, pause, or stop.
On the hardware front, the Aspire Z5763 is configurable with the following:
- Intel Core i5 2400s/2500s or i7 2600s processor
- Up to 16GB of DDR3-1333
- Up to 2TB SATA HDD
- Optional 3D Blu-ray
- Intel HD graphics; Nvidia GeForce GT4440; Nvidia GeForce GT435M
- 2MP webcam
- 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
- Multi-card reader
- Eight USB 2.0 ports; headphone/mic jacks; D-Sub VGA
The Aspire Z5673 will ship in the U.K. starting mid-May for around $1,650. No word on when it will ship stateside.
We always envisioned Google's Android platform sparking a price war among tablet makers, but that may be wishful thinking. Motorola's Xoom tablet, the first in the world to sport the potentially awesome Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) platform, will reportedly sell for $800 and perhaps as high as $1,200 (we doubt it). Either way, it's significantly more than Apple's entry-level iPad, which isn't a fair comparison based on features, but could play a role in which platform consumers buy into. To top it off, now we're hearing that LG's upcoming Optimus Pad will run at least $700.
That's according to news and rumor site Fudzilla, which claims to have gotten the info from a "nice talkative chap from LG" presumably at the Mobile World Congress. The rep indicated LG plans to price the 32GB tablet between $700 and $800.
We don't know if that's the trend Honeycomb tablet makers will all end up following, but if so, it's going to be difficult for Android to overtake the tablet market. The hardware is better than what you'll find on an iPad, however the upcoming iPad 2 will at least partially address this. Plus, Honeycomb tablets will be going up against RIM's PlayBook (QNX) and HP's TouchPad (webOS).
How much would you be willing to pay for a Honeycomb tablet?
Asus is trying to do what others so far haven't been able to, which is to knock the iPad off its perch as the most popular tablet PC. Samsung's Galaxy Tab wasn't able to do it, and neither could Motorola's Xoom. RIM's PlayBook held promise, but the lack of email and contacts support for non BlackBerry owners are major omissions. Will the Eee Pad Transformer present the first real challenge to the iPad?
It's too early to tell, but it at least appears that Asus' convertible tablet is off to a heck of a start. The Eee Pad Transformer went on sale in the U.S. today, and according to Engadget, Amazon.com sold out of the device within minutes of listing it. Orders were being fulfilled by Target, which also lists the device as unavailable.
If you head over to Asus' "Where to Buy" page, you'll find several vendors listed, but none of them turn up an in-stock Eee Pad Transformer. That means one of two things. Either the convertible tablet sold out hella fast, or there wasn't much supply to begin with.
As a refresher, the Eee Pad Transformer comes with a 10.1-inch display, Nvidia Tegra 2 processor clocked at 1GHz, 1GB of DDR2 memory, 16GB of internal storage, 1.2MP webcam, 5MP rear facing camera, 4-in-1 media card reader, a pair of USB 2.0 ports, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, and a 40-pin docking port for an optional keyboard/docking station, transforming the tablet into a bona fide netbook. All this comes wrapped in Google's Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) platform.
What's more, Asus is bucking the trend of $500+ tablets by selling the Eee Pad Transformer for $400, sans keyboard.
When Apple announced it was going to sue Samsung for patent and trademark infringement over its Galaxy lineup of tablets and phones, the tech industry took notice. The reasons for paying attention to this one go far beyond the financial ramifications, Samsung you see is one of Apple’s biggest component suppliers, manufacturing everything from screen to chips which go into the companies growing portfolio of gadgets. Some journalists speculated the lawsuit was just for show, and would settle quickly with a series cross licensing agreements, a trend that is common in the tech sector. This was a sound theory, however a counter-suit filed by Samsung on Friday suggests both companies might be in this for the long haul, and business relations could be in jeopardy as a result.
According to the court filings, Samsung claims that both the iPhone and iPad infringe on 10 of their mobile technology patents, and called for immediate action, along with compensation for damages. The patents in question involve methods for reducing power consumption during data transmission, along with various 3G technologies for reducing errors during transmission.
"Samsung is responding actively to the legal action taken against us in order to protect our intellectual property and to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the mobile communications business," the statement said.
Countersuits are fairly common in this type of a scenario, and while Samsung may just be using it to pressure Apple into settling the dispute, this very public battle might well have Apple looking for an alternate supplier by the time it’s all over.
We are quickly nearing the one year anniversary of the first time Google demoed music downloads on Android, and Google Music is still a no show. We've been hearing that Google's discussions with the music labels have hit the skids, but El Goog might be working a new angle. According to Cnet, Google is in talks with Spotify to run its music service.
This deal would make sense in a number of ways. Spotify has a devoted user base in Europe and good relations with labels. They have been negotiating hard in the US to bring Spotify to American users as well. An alliance here could help Google bypass all that pesky licensing negotiation and bring Android users an integrated music solution.
Neither company is saying a word, as expected. It speaks to the urgency of the situation that Google would go this route. Amazon has launched its Cloud Player service without label blessing, and Apple is reportedly closing in on releasing a cloud-based music service. What form do you think a Google/Spotify alliance would take?
Need a videocard but find yourself cramped for space? Unfortunately for you, many of today's mid-range to high-end graphics cards take up two slots, a necessary evil in order to cool today's increasingly power (and power hungry) GPUs. Fortunately for you, most board partners also like to experiment with their own designs, ditching reference blueprints in favor of their own cooling creations. It was this mindset that led Powercolor to launch the first single-slot Radeon HD 6850 videocard.
Powercolor didn't go into a whole lot of detail about its cooler in terms of temp performance, but did say it sports three units of 8mm heatpipes with a full cover cooling plate.
Otherwise, the Powercolor HD 6850 sticks with AMD's reference clockspeeds, so the GPU runs at 775MHz and the memory races along at 1000MHz on a 256-bit bus. The card is powered by a single 6-pin PCI-E plug.
With a little help from its manufacturing partner Toshiba, SanDisk today announced a 64Gb (gigabit), 2-bits-per-cell (X2) based monolithic chip produced using 19nm manufacturing technology. This, SanDisk says, is the most advanced memory process technology node in the world, and with it, the flash memory card maker intends to produce embedded and removable storage devices with high capacities for things like mobile phones, tablets PCs, and other portable products.
"We are excited to introduce the world’s smallest and lowest-cost NAND flash chips based on industry-leading 19nm process technology in our ongoing collaboration with our manufacturing partner Toshiba," said Yoram Cedar, executive vice president and chief technology officer, SanDisk. "Products based on this technology are designed to enable new applications, form factors and consumer experience that will continue to drive the flash industry to new heights."
SanDisk said it plans to sample its 19nm 64Gb X2 device this quarter, with high-volume production scheduled for the second half of 2011. That means you should start to see actual shipping products either by the end of the year, or early 2012.
