Laptops
Photos: Archos 9 Windows 7 tablet hands-on 
Lurking in the archives of last month you'll find details of the 9-inch Windows 7 tablet PC coming later this year from French manufacturer Archos. Today, the wait to know how it functions is over, as we spent a morning fingering it. Oh, and we know now that it'll cost £450 for an 80GB model, and £500 for a 160GB.
First, a quick reminder of les autres caractéristiques. This is a tablet PC weighing 623g, featuring a 9-inch capacitive touchscreen (that's the sexy kind, like the iPhone), an Intel Atom Z515 CPU, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, plus built-in DVB-T antennas, which should allow it to receive and store Freeview TV in the UK. Continue reading...
Samsung R620: The touch of red is dead
Remember the Samsung R610 laptop with the 'touch of red'? You know, the one that looked like a small child had smeared nail varnish over the front edge? Great news: it's being replaced with the R620, and judging by the early press pictures, it's a red-free zone. Thank you, Samsung.
Like its predecessor, the R620 will use a 16-inch, 16:9 display with a 1,366x768-pixel resolution. Samsung will also release a version with a Full HD 1,920x1,080-pixel panel, so you can enjoy hi-def flicks played via the optional Blu-ray drive, either on the laptop or on an external display -- courtesy of the R620's HDMI port. Continue reading...
Dell Vostro 1220: Pretty, cheap, laptop
For an entry-level 12.1-inch ultraportable laptop, the Vostro 1220 sure is purdy. An upgrade from the Vostro 1200, this series is aimed at nail technicians, boxercise instructors and dog walkers who want to save a few quid and don't need high-end features such as the Centrino vPro platform in the Latitude lineup.
Sporting a glossy red or dreary black chassis, this laptop comes with a Core 2 Duo chip and an impressive claimed battery life of up to nine hours with the extended cell. Weighing about 1.5kg with the standard six-cell battery and integrated optical drive, this machine is surprisingly affordable, starting at £369. Continue reading...
Jobs officially back at work
After taking a medical leave of absence in January, Steve Jobs on Monday officially resumed his work as chief executive of Apple.
"Steve is back to work," Apple spokesman Steve Dowling, told Bloomberg News. Jobs will be working at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California, for "a few days a week", and working from home on the rest, according to the report.
Jobs was initially said to be taking a break from work to focus on recuperating from a hormone imbalance. But, in April, he received a liver transplant from a hospital in Tennessee. Continue reading...
Dell reportedly developing Android-based rival to iPod touch
Dell is developing a pocket-sized Internet device using Google's Android operating system that could take on Apple's iPod touch, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal on Monday.
Two people who have seen early prototypes of the device told the newspaper it looks like the touch but is slightly larger. And, like the touch, the device isn't expected to include a phone. The device is considered part of a category of gadgets called 'mobile Internet devices' (MIDs), which are designed to fit into the market between a mobile phone and a laptop or netbook computer.
The device could go on sale as early as the second half of 2009, according to The Wall Street Journal's sources. Continue reading...
Asus Eee PC 1101: Biggish is the new smallish
Good news, netbook fans: we've got our greasy mitts on the Asus Eee PC 1101HA -- the company's first venture into 11-inch netbook territory.
When we first got wind of it, we worried its extra size might cause other netbooks to laugh at it. But, now that we've got one in our hands, we can tell you it's not too lardy at all. In fact, its 1.4kg, 286 by 36 by 196mm chassis isn't too far off the 1.1kg, 262 by 26 by 178 chassis on the 10-inch Eee PC 1008HA Seashell. Continue reading...
HP unveils Mini 5101 netbook
One of the better netbooks that money can buy is the HP Mini 2140, a brushed-metal system from HP's business line that's a cousin to the consumer-focused Mini 1000. The revamped, and actually quite different, 10.1-inch Mini 5101 trades the silver metal look, with a slight curve to the lid, for a more squared-off design in black brushed aluminium. It's a slick-looking machine.
We liked the 2140 for its solid construction and high-end extras, such as an ExpressCard slot. The 5101 loses the ExpressCard slot, but adds a default 7,200rpm hard drive and an optional, higher-resolution 1,366x768-pixel display. An optional, integrated, Gobi-powered HP Mobile Broadband module will also be offered, along with some custom syncing software for organising files between desktop PCs and netbooks. HP has promised us that it will work better than the broken version of the same software found in the recent Mini 110. Continue reading...
Nokia to make netbooks?
Intel and Nokia have announced a long-term relationship that will see the development of Intel-powered, Linux-based handheld mobile-computing devices.
The partnership between the chipmaker and handset manufacturer was announced on Tuesday. Under the deal, the companies will collaborate on several open-source mobile Linux software projects, and Intel will license HSPA/3G modem intellectual property from Nokia. Continue reading...
Lenovo ThinkPad T400s: Rocks you like a hurricane
They don't make things easy for us, the folks who name names for laptops. The Lenovo ThinkPad T400s is the latest addition to the Lenovo T series, and may be nominatively related to the T400, but is in fact closer to the Lenovo ThinkPad X300. It's certainly thin, and tougher than most, as well as being louder. Let's see if it goes up to 11.
The 14.1-inch T400s is clad in a second-generation carbon fibre monocoque. As well as making it very thin -- 21mm -- Lenovo reckons it gives the T400s enough tough to be run over by a 12-tonne truck. Except it isn't; it won't turn on. Still, at least the hard drive survives. Continue reading...
Photos: Alienware M17x hands-on
It's allegedly the "fastest laptop in the universe". It's got 8GB of RAM, two dedicated Nvidia graphics cards and the horsepower of Intel's Core 2 Extreme chips. It's called the Alienware M17x, and after a very brief prod earlier this month here at CNET UK, Alienware took us out to the land of three strikes (France, yo) to spend time with the final version.
This laptop is, quite frankly, insane: insanely big, insanely specced and insanely heavy. You could beat whales to death with this thing. Its spec maxes out with a 17-inch 1,920x1,200-pixel display (yes, higher than 1080p HD), up to a 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9300 CPU, up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM, two Nvidia GeForce GTX 280M in SLI config -- each with 1GB of GDDR3 RAM -- 1TB or storage and an internal Blu-ray. Continue reading...
