Whilst we don’t think the Asus Eee PC 900 is anything to rave about, plenty of you guys think it is, so we did a bit of digging and found this short video review of it from jkkmobile. It doesn’t really tell anything mind-blowing about this little sucker, but if you want see one in use then check out the video.
There’s a definite market for these little suckers and Asus are going all out to gain a good slice of it with a massive range of Eee PCs. Best of luck to them we say, but we still won’t let one of these in the building.
Coming to Japan in late October will be the latest notebook offering from Toshiba (the people who brought you HD-DVD snigger, snigger), the Dynabook NX. Probably the most noteworthy thing about the Dynabook NX is the fact that the capacity of the SSD option is almost as large as the standard HDD with the SSD option rocking in at 128 GB whilst the spinning option sports 160 GB of zeroes and ones. Along with potential speed increases and noise reduction, the SSD unit allows you to squeeze and extra hour out of the standard battery. Unfortunately the SSD option will also set you back an extra US$900. If you’re still impressed check out the other details on this puppy.
* 12.1 inch 1200 x 800 WXGA res LED backlit display
* onboard GMA 4500MHD graphics chipset
* Powered by Intel’s SU9300 1.2 GHz Core Duo processor
* 11.5 hours of battery life with the juice friendly SSD option, old-tech HDD will last only 10.5 hours
* 2 GB of memory, expandable up to 3 GB
* black, white and umm pink colour options
* 3 lbs
* DVD multi-drive
* MS Vista Home Premium as standard OS along with Office Personal 2007 and PowerPoint 2007
* 3 USB ports, eSATA port, VGA output and SD card slot
* Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity
The DynaBook NX will be available in Japan in late October and will start at around US$1,900 with the HDD option and reach up to $2,800 if SSD is your bag. Not cheap but Toshiba usually deliver the goods, so expect nothing different from the NX. However whilst the stats add up, I must admit I’d still prefer their touch-friendly Portege M700.
Whilst netbooks are all the rage, Sony have released a monster 18.4 inch laptop, the VAIO AW. Amongst other things, the VAIO AW sports a Blu-Ray drive and GeForce 9600M GT graphics card. Currently these puppies are only available in Japan for a starting price equivalent to US$2,792 but expect them to land on other shores soon. Here are a few more details on them
* 1920 x 1080 res 18.4 inch 16:9 display
* 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo processor
* GeForce 9600M GT graphics card
* Two 250GB hard drives
* Minimum of 2GB of RAM
* 802.11n Wi-Fi connectivity
* Optional dual 64GB SSD
It certainly sports all the bells and whistles expected from a decent laptop and since this area of the market seems to be a bit neglected at the moment, Sony may have a winner on their hands with the VAIO AW.
Looking for an ultrathin laptop and not keen on the MacBook Air, then the latest offering from Lenovo, the ThinkPad X200, may just be the answer to your Apple phobia. This Centrino 2 powered notebook weighs in at 2.95 pounds, a smidge under the 3 pound Apple variety. The rest of the X200’s specs don’t look too bad either
* 12.1 inch display
* 64 GB SSD or up to 320 GB HDD
* Optional Blu-Ray drive
* Centrino 2 chips running between 2.26 and 2.40 GHz
* up to 4 GB of DDR3 memory
* Windows Vista
* Wi-Fi and mobile broadband connectivity
* 11.6 x 8.3 x 0.8 inches
This puppy won’t be out until August but that’s six weeks away at the latest, so not too long to wait. When it does hit the shelves the base model with 2.26 GHz Centrino 2 and least storage will set you back US$1200. Not bad! Lenovo have got it spot on with the X200 and just as well as this area of the laptop market is heating up considerably especially now the Centrino 2 is out there.
Want to stretch your 17 inch MacBook to the storage max? If so, MCE have the answer for you with their 1TB Internal Hard Drive Solution. This package consists of the OptiBay SATA 500GB Optical Bay Hard Drive and the MobileStor 500GB Internal SATA Hard Drive which respectively replace the internal SuperDrive and internal hard drive of your MacBook Pro. Conveniently there’s also two USB 2.0 external enclosures for the displaced hardware. Here’s a run down on the bits and pieces on offer
* 500GB standard internal hard drive, 500GB OptiBay hard drive
* Both spin at 5,400 rpm
* single volume, partitioned, or RAID array set up options
* USB 2.0 external enclosure for the original internal hard drive
* USB 2.0 external enclosure for the extracted SuperDrive compatible with iDVD, DVD Studio Pro, iTunes, iPhoto, and Finder Burning
The downside on this handy little MCE offer is the price tag rocking in at US$800. MCE also offer installation if you can send your MacBook to them starting at US$100. So this is only really an option if you are desperate for a 1TB’s worth of zeroes and ones on your MacBook.
Asus have just launched an awesome gaming laptop, the G70. This puppy sports a fantastic range of specs from dual HDDs through to a full HD 17 inch display, ideal for all you mobile gaming fans out there. Check out the full spec list
* two independent Nvidia 8700M GT graphics engines using SLI technology and 1024MB GDDR3 of dedicated physical memory
* two drive bays for up to 640 GB of storage
* choice of Intel Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors
* 17 inch WUXGA 1920×1200 res HD display
* DDRII 533/667MHz, up to 4GB
* 4 built in speakers
* DVD Super-Multi Light Scribe/ Blu-Ray Reader/ Blu-Ray RW (optional)
* Built-in 2.0 Mega-pixel camera
* 10/100/1000, 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth connectivity (optional)
* 433 x 314 x 49mm
* 4.8 kg
* 8 cell battery pack
Stopped drooling yet? Yeah, this little sucker looks like the business, unfortunately there’s no indication of price that we can find, but it ain’t gonna be cheap. But then gamers tend not to worry about that too much if the machine meets their requirements and we would imagine that the G70 does just that for most of the gamers out there.
Today’s the day you can get your mits on a brand new Lenovo IdeaPad U110 ultraportable laptop. This little puppy will set you back around US$1900 and for that you’ll get a unit sporting the following specs
* Intel Core 2 Duo L7500 CPU (1.6GHz)
* Windows Vista Home Premium
* 11.1 inch 1366 x 768 res WXGA display
* 120GB HDD spinning at 4,200 RPM
* 2 GB memory
* External dual-layer DVD burner
* 1.3 MP camera
* WiFi and optional Bluetooth connectivity
* 3 USB 2.0 ports
On the downside is a mere 2 hours of battery life with the standard 4 cell battery, however you can squeeze 8 hours of use out of the 7 cell expansion battery. For an extra US$100 you can also get an extra GB of memory, boosting the unit up to 3 GB of RAM. And for the more fashion conscious amongst us, the Ideapad is available in black and red.
I must admit that the Ideapad doesn’t appeal - I think it’s just a bit too overpriced and with a sad 2 hour battery life as well, Lenovo have missed the target with this one. Let me know if you think different.
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