It wasn’t long ago that we were drooling over Rock’s Xtreme XL8 gaming notebook, and now they’ve produced a notebook at the other end of the scale certainly in terms of size, the Pegasus 210. The 210 is a nifty ultra portable notebook that boasts a six hour battery, weighs in at 1.2 kg and has a magnesium alloy chassis just in case you drop the sucker. Here are a few other bits and pieces to make you go oooh and aaah.

* Intel A110 Processor 800MHz
* 12 inch 1280 x 800 res display
* 1GB DDR2 memory
* 80GB HDD spinning at 4200rpm
* 3.6Mbps 3G/GPRS Integrated modem*
* Wireless LAN 802.11 a/g/n
* Bluetooth connectivity
* Windows XP Professional or Vista Business Edition

Firmly aimed at the business person on the move, the Pegasus 210 sports the kind of specs that really do underwhelm, however it’s the portability that counts on this baby and on that point it scores highly. All that for just a snip under 1000 pounds sterling (US$1850) too.

Source: Rock

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With the format war over, we haven’t seen a great plethora of new Blu-Ray integrated products now that sitting on the fence isn’t an option. Neither have we seen the usual great price hikes associated with a monopolistic market. In fact Dell are now offering a laptop with a Blu-Ray drive (not burner) for under US$1000.

Their Inspiron 1525 laptop range start as low as US$879 with a Blu-Ray Disc Combo option, tack on another $200 for the Blu-Ray burner. Here are the specs on the $879 Blu-Ray player, err, laptop

* Intel Core 2 Duo T5550 1.83 GHz
* Vista Home Basic
* 15.4 inch 1280 x 800 res display
* Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
* 1 GB DDR2
* 80 GB SATA hard disc drive
* Dell Wireless 802.11g card
* 28 Whr battery

And of course your Blu-Ray combo drive. The laptop has an HDMI output so you can hook it up to your HD home system and supports 720p.

So $879 for a laptop/Blu-Ray player, not bad, eh? Obviously the specs are nothing special, but if you’re looking for a basic laptop and a HD player then this could be a great option. Hopefully this also heralds price reductions with other Blu-Ray integrated hardware.

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Having just recently announced a price of 400 Euros (US$600) for the Eee PC 900 in Europe, Asus will launch this cute little sucker for a mere US$500 in the good old US of A. This price tag seems to be attached to a Linux version of the laptop which sports slightly lower specs than a hinted at Windows XP version which comes with a bit more (required) grunt and thus a heftier price tag. Here are the specs for the Linux version

* 512 MB of RAM
* 12 GB of flash storage
* Intel’s 1.6 GHz Atom
* 9 inch display 1024 x 600
* 2.5 hour battery life
* 3 USB, 1 monitor, headphone jack, microphone input, SD card reader
* Ethernet 10/100
* 802.11b/g wireless

The Asus Eee PC 900 certainly looks like a winner if you’re after a slimmed down laptop in both specs and physical size. I’m not personally convinced by it but I’m sure there’s a niche market out there for these suckers. If anyone has had a play with one, drop me a line and let us all know what you think.

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When discussing ergonomic workstations, laptops tend not to crop up in the conversation. However that may change with the Dreamcom 10 laptop which was shown off at CeBit recently. This nifty laptop has a 15cm vertically adjustable display to stop those neck cramps and comes with a docking station to allow you to use the laptop ‘at a distance’. The DreamCom 10 comes in three flavours, Personal, Business and Professional. Features on the Business flavour include

* 2.2 GHz T7500 cpu
* 2 GB of DDR2 memory
* 2 USB ports
* ExpressCard slot
* 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600
* Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity
* 160 GB hard drive
* 15.4 inch display

The Professional version ramps the cpu up to 2.6 GHz T7800 and 4 GB of DDR2 memory. So at last a laptop designed with ergonomics in mind, however the cost of this extra functionality is still unknown as these suckers come with no price tag.

Source: Dreamcom

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We took a look at the Asus leather clad laptop, the U2, last year and today we shall take a gander at their ultra-portable offering the U6S another leather unit. Over at HotHardware they have done a full review and give the U6S a thumbs-up despite noting an issue re short battery-life and with it weighing in at 1.57 kg you could argue that it’s not really ‘ultra-portable’. However here are the stats that did grab their attention

* Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.2GHz,4M L2 Cache,800MHz FSB)
* Vista Business
* 2 GB Memory
* 12.1″ LED 1280×800 res display
* 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M G
* 802.11a/b/g/n connectivity
* Bluetooth 2.0, 3G/3.5G, HSPDA connectivity
* 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
* Ultra Slim DVD Super Multi Double Layer
* 300 x 220 x 31.6 mm
* 1.57 kg
* 4 x USB 2.0, 1 x HDMI, 1 x RJ11, 1 x RJ45 ethernet ports

The U6S is indeed feature-rich and with a price tag of US$1650 looks like good value. However the short battery life and weight are real downers for me - surely the idea of an ultra-portable laptop is, err, its portability. I’d rather shell out a few more bucks for a lighter and longer battery life model - but if that doesn’t concern you and you like the feel of leather in your lap then the U6S is probably right up your street!

Source: HotHardware

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The title on Rock’s home page states that they deal in the ‘Ultimate performance gaming laptops and notebooks’. Well their latest offering, the Xtreme XL8, certainly seems to fit the bill and here are the specs to back up the claim.

* Intel X6800 quad processor
* 2 GeForce 8800M GTX video cards
* 1 TB HDD spinning at 5,400 rpm
* 17 inch 1,920 x 1,200 res display
* Wireless connectivity 802.11a/b/g/draft-n
* HD-DVD drive

Of course any sucker stacked full of these kind of features is not going to come with a wafer thin price tag and the Xtreme XL8 is no exception coming in at a range of US$5,000 to US$6,000 depending on spec. However if power computing in a notebook is what your after then the Xtreme XL8 could just be the solution.

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With the Macworld Expo in full swing, Apple have unleashed their latest notebook, the MacBook Air, on an unexpecting world. The ultra slimline notebook measures a mere 0.76 inches thick or a unbelievable 19.4 mm for the metrically minded. The unit sports a 13.3 inch display as well as a multi-touch trackpad enabling similar two finger action as on your iPhone. Other specs include

* 1.8 inch 80 GB HDD (64 GB of SSD storage is available at what we shall call a significant extra cost)
* 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
* 1280 x 800 res display
* mono sound output
* Micro DVI to DVI and micro DVI to VGA adapters (S-Video and composite will cost extra)
* 19.4 x 325 x 227 mm
* 1.36 kg
* 5 hr battery
* Optical Drive? Yeah that’s right an extra US$99 will get you a DVD drive, yes, really

In fact we not sure what you get if you don’t choose any optional extras? Seriously though Apple have obviously stripped all the bells and whistles off the unit to slim it down and thereby create a selling point. Quite good marketing really. Anyway I’m sure these suckers will sell like iPhones hot cakes and every Mac FanBoy will be queuing up for one. The basic model will set you back US$1,799 when it’s out and about in two weeks time.

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