Filed under: Laptops

If Tulip’s high-priced luxury laptops aren’t to your liking, perhaps MSI’s latest bit of gadget excess will suit your style better. The Taiwanese company recently took the wraps off its M677 notebook, packing some impressive enough specs and, more importantly, an ample amount of bling to go along with ‘em. The less-than-unique part of the equation includes a 15.4-inch widescreen display, AMD Turion 64 X2 processor, up to 2GB of DDR II RAM, a 5,400 rpm hard drive of unspecifed size, NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 graphics, and a 1.3 megapixel integrated webcam. But what MSI really hopes will attract your attention are the 120 pieces of genuine Austrian crystal not-so-subtly inlaid around the MSI logo. What MSI hasn’t said, however, is how much of a premium that’ll cost you, nor have they said when it’ll actually be available — which means that if you’re really looking to impress this holiday season, you’ll probably have to look elsewhere.

[Via laptoping.com]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Laptops

If you’ve had your eye on Tulip’s line of luxury laptops but don’t way to pay the extra bucks to import one (or take time away from your next European vacation to pick one up), you can now get one a little closer to home, with none other than Barneys signed up to deliver the goods in the US. While it’s not clear if the six figure diamond-encrusted model will be available for your perusal, you can now snag the “entry level” model both in store (in New York, Beverly Hills, Chicago and Dallas) and on Barney’s website for a mere $5,000. The big selling point on this one is the interchangeable skins, although while there’s apparently more than a dozen available, you’ll only get two with your purchase. The system’s specs, not surprisingly, are pretty far off the mark from the price, with the Ego packing a 12-inch WXGA display, AMD Turion 64 processor, ATI Radeon XPRESS 200 M graphics, 1GB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive, and integrated WiFi and Bluetooth. But what are specs compared to the bragging rights that come with a zebra-skinned laptop?

[Via Gizmag]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Laptops

Epson’s busted out a new laptop for the low end set, loading up its Endeavor NJ1000 with yesterday’s specs to keep the price down — and offering a few upgrade options for those wanting something a tad more respectable. Opting for the base model, however, will net you the most basic of basic laptops, with 15-inch XGA display, Celeron M 410 processor, 256MB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive, and a plain old CD-ROM drive — all for just 64,890 Yen (about $550). If you’re in an upgrading mood, you can max out the system (for a price) with a Core 2 Duo T5500 processor, 160GB hard drive, 2GB of RAM, and a DVD burner. A white model is also available although, and reversing the trend, it’s the one that’ll cost you a few extra Yen in this case.

[Via Akihabara News]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Laptops

What better to control a ginormous army of robot overlords than a notebook ripped straight from the confines of a science fiction control lab? To get those ‘bots a-marchin’, just boot up the NEC TYPE-NO1, load the commands (stored on your USB Pocket Rocket, of course), and unleash your best impression of an evil dictator’s laugh. NEC has teamed up with Takara to create the presumably mad scientist-approved machine, which sports all the token stickers, labels, and even wallpapers that make this device so similar to those seen laying around Duke Nukem laboratories. Beneath the facade is a LaVie G type L laptop, sporting a 15.4-inch WXGA display, 1.6GHz AMD Mobile Sempron 3200+ processor (Turion 64 X2 TL-50), 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 80-100GB hard drive, dual-layer DVD burner, 802.11a/b/g, and the likely dangerous “FeliCa” port. Flanked on the side is the very necessary “Emergency Button,” which apparently shuts down the machine in case of unexpected intruders. The highly secretive TYPE-NO1 can be reserved starting today, and considering that they’ll be limited to 300 units, you should probably make haste if you plan on throwing down your ¥145,530 ($1,231) to ¥174,510 ($1,476).

[Via Akihabara News]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops

With a name like the Prime Note Altair TB, you’d think this new 14-incher would pack all kinds of swank. You’d be wrong, however, so wrong. This budget box is heading to DOSPARA shops in Japan courtesy of Third Wave Corp targeting the low-end gaming market, uh, if there is such a thing. As such, you get the yawntastic specs of a 1.3MHz Celeron M 350 proc, 40GB 5400RPM UltraATA disk, and DVD multi-drive coupled with a WXGA (1280×728) resolution on a glossy screen, up to 2GB of DDR2 RAM, and built-in ATI RADEON Xpress 200M graphics. Hell, it might just pull-off duty as your low-end, 5.3-pound portable gaming machine after all. And that low (for Japan) pre-order price of ¥87,580 or about $733 (sans OS) certainly helps the cause.

[Via Impress]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Laptops

No double agent facade is complete with just an uber-stealthy Sony Ericsson cellphone, as everyone understands that no impossible improbable heist goes down without wiring a few mil to that heavily secured offshore account. Stepping up to the oh-so-dodgy challenge is Sony’s own 007 Edition VAIO TX ultraportable, slimmed down to just 1-inch thick and weighing 2.8 pounds in order to fit comfortably in the matching Attaché briefcase. The 11.1-inch machine touts a carbon fiber enclosure, WXGA XBRITE display, 1.2GHz Intel U1400 Core Solo processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 80GB 4200RPM hard drive, Intel’s GMA950 integrated graphics set, dual-layer DVD burner, and a snazzy “privacy screen” that blurs all on-screen content to curious enemies not looking head-on. The Casino Royale-approved device also touts audio in / out, Ethernet, 56k modem, a pair of USB 2.0 ports, 4-pin FireWire, MS / MSPro reader, PCMCIA, and the wireless tools (read: WiFi / Bluetooth) no undercover assassin could function without. For snapping up those incriminating reconnaissance photos, Sony bundles in a DSC-T50B (the “B” is for Bond, obviously) which rocks the same bevy of specs found on its less-secretive sibling, but sports a sleek, black finish and the obligatory 007 logo. While you may have got turned down when looking to become Pierce Brosnan’s sure-to-be-legendary successor, you can live vicariously through Sony for just $4,299.99 — but those desirable silhouettes are unfortunately not included.

[Thanks, Will]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Laptops

If all goes well for fuel cell designer EnerAge, you may soon be able to fill up your laptop at the same time that you fill up your car’s gas tank. CNET is reporting that by early 2007, the Los Angeles-area company claims that it will demo a 25-watt fuel cell that will keep your laptop juiced. While we’ve already seen a few fuel cell hopefuls, this new one is potentially among the most innovative. EnerAge’s fuel cell allegedly will burn any hydrocarbon fuel, including methane, butane, methanol or ethanol — so it would seem that burning diesel or gasoline is within the realm of possibility as well. While there have been countless previous attempts at fuel cells, EnerAge’s design is a “direct oxidation fuel cell,” which CNET explains as such: “It mixes air with a hydrocarbon. When the materials come in contact with the membrane, electrons are released. The reaction also results in byproducts like water and CO2.” However, there still remains a huge engineering puzzle to get around, which is that the fuel cell itself can reach temperatures of as high as 600 degrees Celsius (that’s 1,112 degrees Fahrenheit). Yikes. And let’s not forget the carbon dioxide factor — exactly what we’re trying to get rid of from automobile and coal emissions (to name a couple). As you can imagine, we’re skeptical at best, but any solution that might enable increasingly plugless computing is worthy of a second glance by us.

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Laptops

No model number here or anything, that would be way to convenient, and we’re pretty sure we’ve seen this OEM look before, but Korea’s Wolf-N-Fox is busting out a new Core 2 Duo lapster, and we though we’d let you know all the same. The 15.4-inch laptop sports a WSXGA+ resolution (1,680 x 1,050), and runs a 1.66Ghz C2D T5500 processor, with 1GB of RAM, an 80GB HDD, CD-R/DVD combo drive and Intel 945GM graphics to round out the specs. It’s a reasonably sized unit, at 1.3 inches thick and 5.7 pounds, especially considering the disc drive is swappable for an extra HDD if it strikes your fancy. Price isn’t too bad either, at around $1150 US.

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Laptops

Here at Engadget, we do have a certain love for the aesthetic appeal of gadgets — when we do things we like do do them with style, and we appreciate it when others do too. So, in that vein we present to you what might just possibly be the first cardboard laptop case ever (except for those folks who tote their machines in pizza boxes). It was shown at London’s recent [re]Design exhibition, and claims to be made from 100 percent recycled materials, so we’re assuming that the leather strap counts as recycled cow. Still, as someone pointed out in Inhabitat’s comments, it’s unclear what happens if you use this case in the rain.

[Via Inhabitat]

 

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Laptops, Media PCs

Looks like the bevy of holiday updates are getting a bit of a headstart this year, as HP is already hoping its revamped Pavilion dv900t will be the prized jewel under a few lucky trees. Raising the already heightened bar, the flagship unit in the dv9000 series is receiving an oh-so-coveted HD DVD drive that doubles as a dual-layer DVD burner. It also packs a 17-inch 1,440 x 900 resolution LCD, 2.16GHz T7400 Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, dual 100GB SATA drives, nVidia GeForce Go 7600 graphics, 1.3 megapixel webcam, HDMI, 7.1 audio out, ExpressCard slot, twin headphone ports, the usual complement of connectivity options, and battery life stretching just over 2.5 hours. For those of you who rushed out to pick up last month’s flavor and just can’t get that craving for HD DVD to subside, HP’s also bringing the High Definition DVD-ROM drive (that’s an external HD DVD drive, folks) to the table. Both items should be hitting shelves (and shopping lists) soon, and while the dv9000t will set you back a respectable $2,395, pricing for the standalone HD DVD unit remains up in the air.

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Laptops, Tablet PCs

If you woke up this morning craving a bit of Merom juice in a 12.1-inch tablet then check the TravelMate C210 from Acer. Like the C200, the “Vista Premium Ready” C210 features a sliding-track to easily move from slate-style tablet to keyboard mode. Inside you’ll get a range of Intel’s new Core 2 Duo procs, 256MB GeForce Go 7300 graphics, 802.11a/b/g WiFi, up to 4GB of DDR2 memory and 160GB “or higher” (whatever that means) disk, and fingerprint reader for a bit of security when left behind at happy hour. Slap in an optical drive and 6-cell battery and you’re looking at a 5.5-pound tablet. Sorry, no ship date or price yet but you can expect this to cost about the same as the C200 it’s replacing, or about $1900.

[Via laptoping]

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Filed under: Laptops

Custom laptop designs are a dime a dozen these days, with everything from fast car logos to glorious “Pink Feather” designs being stamped onto the back of LCDs in an attempt to draw the eyes of punters looking for a new lappie. The latest custom job on the market is Fujitsu Siemens’ team of soccer themed laptops which don the colors and crests of four different Premiership clubs: Celtic, Aston Villa, Everton, and Tottenham Hotspur, to be precise. Under the soccer shirts, the laptops are Amilo 1536 models featuring 1280 x 800 15-inch displays powered by a 128MB ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 graphics adapter. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find a 1.83GHz Core Duo processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, and a roomy 120GB 5400RPM SATA drive. Not quite striker material, we know, but the £1000 (plus three year warranty) price tag ain’t too shabby considering the bundled paint job. Fujitsu Siemens is promising other clubs will join the line-up to celebrate the recent start of the Premiership season, although don’t expect any teams with notable rivalries to be released at the same time. If you follow English football, you’ll notice that the first four club themed laptops are a rather disparate lot: there’s no Liverpool to go with Everton, no Rangers to go with Celtic, and so on. These guys obviously know how to manage their laptop teams without starting a football riot.

[Via Reg Hardware]

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Filed under: Laptops

What a difference an “E” makes. Chinese owners of Dell’s Inspiron 640m laptop are apparently furious over the fact that the company misleadingly equipped their new machines with Intel’s Core Duo T2300E processor instead of the T2300 chip that had been advertised, and are lining up to sue over the alleged defrauding, according to news site China Daily. Since the only real difference between the T2300 and T2300E is the former’s support for Intel’s Virtualization Technology, the average consumer probably wouldn’t even be affected by the cheaper processor, but customers are still understandably peeved that they’re not getting all the functionality they paid for. The discrepancy was first discovered in early June by a single owner, who by way of an online bulletin board, learned that hundreds of other unhappy customers were afflicted with the same problem. The owner filed suit against Dell in late July after having apparently been rebuffed in an attempt to get the CPU swapped out (”"I tried to negotiate with Dell and simply asked them to change the CPU, but they said there was no difference between the two and it was unnecessary to change,” claims the owner); now 19 more customers have joined together for their own class-action suit, with many more waiting in the wings, according to lawyers handling the cases. For its part, Dell claims the mix-up stems from a failure to update its Chinese marketing materials, and has issued affected customers both an apology and an offer to refund the full price of returned machines — but at this point, that doesn’t seem to be enough for many of the folks involved. It’s unfortunate that it took a big public stink for Dell to own up to its mistake and attempt a resolution, but as with the just-announced, historic battery recall, this incident proves just how powerful a determined group of individuals can be.

Read- Chinese lawsuits [Via Ars Technica]
Read- Dell’s response

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Filed under: Laptops

If any of you have plans to venture towards the Sahara desert or Arctic Circle, but can’t bear the thought of making such treacherous journeys without a laptop in tow, Itronix has the goods to keep you connected while fending off the brutal elements. The latest laptop to make it out of Itronix’s testing facilities alive is the XR-1, a lightweight and rugged notebook that doesn’t sacrifice performance in order to operate in less-than-ideal conditions. The 6.8-pound beast sports a 12-inch XGA touchscreen display, 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo processor, 40GB SATA hard drive, 512MB of RAM, and a fancy glow-in-the-dark keyboard to boot. While specs this good aren’t usually found in such rough and tough machines, the XR-1 also manages to rock WLAN, WWAN, Bluetooth, and built-in GPS antennas that can all be utilized concurrently to presumably track down a signal from any corner of the globe. Making sure that all this internal goodness remains functional, the company designed the notebook to meet “military standards” for drops, shocks, vibrations, and water / dust resistance, not to mention its ability to survive a “bleach-water” bath if exposed to toxins. For those headed towards a pole, the built-in hard drive / display heaters warm up your fragile components before attempting to boot in sub-zero temperatures (and probably double as a halfway decent space heater, too). While we’re impressed with the amount of power found beneath the plates of armor, er, casing, the (practically) everything-resistant XR-1 demands a premium for its abilities, and we’d humbly suggest changing your vacation spot unless the $4,330 (and way up) pricetag doesn’t deliver a shock of its own.

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Filed under: Laptops

Details are still thin about the specific models affected by this latest battery recall, but it would appear Dell is working with the Consumer Product Safety Commission in recalling what’s been said to be “the largest safety recall in the history of the consumer electronics industry.” We’re talking 4.1 million units installed in Dell machines sold between April 2004 and July 18th, an absolutely mind boggling number compared to their last recall, which was in the thousands. The kicker here is the batteries were actually contracted out to Sony for manufacture, meaning of course that anyone else using Sony-built batteries, like, say Sony (and Apple, should we be looking your way?) may also have their units taken back. While we are a little wary of one Dell exec’s statement that they’re “getting ahead of the issue,” which in our opinion would have actually been issuing this recall four months ago, we’re glad they’re finally taking care of business before someone actually gets hurt.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Filed under: Laptops