Any residents of the US of A hanging out for the Willcom D4 UMPC? Well make a note of June 20th in your diaries as that’s when GeekStuff4U will be sending out your pre-ordered Willcom D4 aka Sharp WS016SH. The little puppy will set you back US$1526 and here’s what you get for your moola.

* 40 GB HDD
* Windows Vista Premium
* 1 GB memory
* Centrino Atom Z520 1.33 GHz
* 470g
* 5 inch 1024 x 600 res touchscreen display
* 84 x 188 x 25.9 mm
* external display res of 1360 x 768
* 802.11 b/g connectivity
* Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity
* mini USB 2.0 port
* 2 MP camera
* microSD slot

Apart from the lack of wisdom in trying to get Vista Premium to run in 1 GB of memory - thank goodness for that microSD slot - the Willcom D4 certainly sports all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a slimline UMPC. Well almost, where’s the cellphone functionality? Huh? So this little sucker will replace none of your current gadgetry unless you’re willing to fore go a decent laptop. So whilst it’s slimline sexiness is very appealing, $1500 seems a touch extravagant for a new toy that doesn’t really replace another. If you’re still interested then waltz on over to GeekStuff4U.

Featured tags: d4 umpc willcom

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The rumour is that the Motorola W755 clamshell will effectively be given away free when you purchase it along with a Verizon two year shackle plan. And judging by the specs we can see why they may well be tossing these out like candy at Halloween

* CDMA dual band (800/1900 MHz)
* 3G Capable
* 1.3 MP camera with video capturing functionality
* plays mp3 and acc audio files with touch-sensitive buttons
* 80MB memory
* microSD slot
* predictive text
* mini USB connectivity
* 1.2 stereo bluetooth connectivity

Yeah, nothing to phone write home about, so if you’re up for a cell phone to just make phone calls on - ooh, how retro - the Motorola W755 at Verizon may just be the deal for you! The phone will be launched in early May and sport either a grey casing or a potentially vomit inducing purple version.

Source: phoneArena

Featured tags: cellphone motorola verizon w755

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Worried about some axe-wielding maniac dealing to your external hard drive? You may find some comfort in LaCie’s latest offering the Rugged Hard Disk. It offers a scratch-protected (note not resistant) aluminium case along with a shock-resistant rubber bumper in a delicious shade of orange. Aside from the usual specs, the maximum drop height is 90cm and that’s in non-operating mode - apparently dropping is not recommended in operating mode. The unit comes in two flavours, a USB 2.0 connection version and a USB 2.0, FireWire 400/800 version. Apparently the encased HDD is Hitachi’s 2.5-inch Travelstar 5K500 with the following specs

* 5,400 rpm
* 480 Mbps transfer rate
* 90 x 25 x 145 mm
* 250 g
* plays nicely with Windows 2000 upwards and Mac OS 9.x upwards

Pricing depends on the capacity required and connectivity option chosen. For USB 2.0 only, 80 GB starts at US$90, going up to US$340 for the 500 GB version, whilst the USB/FireWire model starts out at US$130 for 120 GB increasing up to US$400 for 500 GB’s worth of zeros and ones.

Source: LaCie Rugged Hard Disk

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You lucky Europeans, Samsung has decided to launch their ‘flagship product’, the ‘Soul’ mobile phone on your very shores before letting it loose over the rest of the globe. Starting later this month, this little sucker will hit the shelves of cellphone retailers all over the UK, France, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium. Here’s the low-down on the Samsung ‘Soul’

* Quad-band HSDPA 7.2 Mbps
* 5 MP camera with auto-focus and 4x digital zoom
* 2.2 inch QVGA display
* Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity
* Plays mp3 and wma files
* 105.9 x 49.5 x 12.9 mm

The unit is available in three colours, Sterling Steel, Soul Gray and Platinum Silver and will retail for around 400 euros (US$630).

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Whilst I’m not too convinced about the moniker Joybook, a laptop in leather certainly looks the part. BenQ’s latest Joybook, the R45 whilst sporting leather binding also boasts a nice list of specs too

Specs

* Intel® Core™2 Duo processor T8100
* Windows Vista Home Basic/Home Premium/Business
* nVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M G graphics
* DDR2-667 512MB memory (up to 4GB)
* 120 GB HDD (up to 250 GB)
* 8x DVD Burner
* 14.1 inch 1280 x 800 res WXGA display
* 4 x USB 2.0 ports
* RJ-45 ethernet port
* HDMI output port
* Built-in 2 MP web cam
* 6 cell lithium-ion battery giving 53 Whrs for an approx 2.5 hrs duration
* 802.11 b/g wireless connectivity
* Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity
* 340 x 246 x 33.4 mm

Unfortunately the key spec, the price tag, is conspicuous by its absence so we will reserve judgment until we find that out. Not only that but this sucker is likely to be unavailable in the US whilst most of Asia and Russia will be able to enjoy it’s leather bound qualities in April this year. Despite these limitations the BenQ R45 certainly has all the bells and whistles and of course that luxuriant leather covering!

Source: Benq JoyBook R45

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Looks like HP have jumped on the mini laptop bandwagon with the HP 2133 Mini-Note PC aimed fairly and squarely at students

“HP listened to our needs and now is delivering a product designed by education for education,” said Chris Sieger, director of information technology for Alexandria City Public Schools in Virginia. “Teachers and technology are the two most important assets in education. HP’s announcement demonstrates that it understands what schools need from industry.”

So would your average non-student be interested in their latest offering? Check out the specs on the educationally minded 2133

* sturdy and lightweight aluminium casing
* full-sized qwerty keyboard
* 8.9 inch 1280 x 768 res display
* 1.18 kg
* 1.0 GHz cpu
* 4 GB of flash
* 512 MB of RAM

All that will set you back US$500, whilst an extra US$250 will get you a 1.6 GHz processor, 120 GB HDD and Vista Business. We checked out a few reviews and all seemed generally favourable with jkontherun and notebooks.com giving it a thumbs up and notebookreview.com whilst being positive were not exactly gushing either. So HP could have a hit on their hands with the 2133 Mini-Note laptop.

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Yeah, we don’t know who Van der Led are either - they seem to be into outdoor led (!!!) lights more than gadget hardware, but they’ve just announced that their Jisus laptop will be out in Europe in May for 300 Euros (US$470). Here’s the low down on the little unit

* 8.9 inch LCD screen with LED backlight of course
* 1 GHz 64 bit Loongson processor
* 512 MB DDR2 memory
* 4 GB Nand flash memory
* 802.11b/g connectivity
* two USB 2.0 ports
* 10/100 Mbps RJ45 port
* battery life of 4.5 hours
* Unbuntu OS

I must admit I was intrigued by the Loongson processor so I dug a bit deeper and unearthed this on Wikipedia. Literally translated Loongson means ‘Dragon Core’ which sounds like a pretty cool name for a processor, however this statement concerned me

The primary purpose of the chip is to run localized Chinese versions of Linux, with emphasis on Chinese character support.

Hopefully they’ve extended this to other languages otherwise there may be only be a very small demand upon its launch in Europe!

Source: Engadget

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