Generation Next Gadgets

The Eee PC 1008P is the latest generation premium netbook from Asus. The company took help from famous designer Karim Rashid to add some of sort of uniqueness to its design. Along with the updated laundry list of internal components, the Eee PC 1008P is Year 2010-ready. It is got almost everything right for a netbook; it’s thin, lightweight, has a comfortable keyboard/touch-pad and decent battery life - thanks to the extra battery pack. The main gripe we had with the 1008P is the low screen brightness. Also, just two USB ports could be too less for some people.
The 1008P Karim Rashid Edition takes it a bit further by swapping the glossy black exterior, which was known for its notorious fingerprint affinity, with a unique design. The entire exterior of the Eee PC 1008P is covered by a slightly protruding textured pattern, which can be related to the scaly body of a reptilian. It comes in two shades; pink and brown. The brown one we received looked quite elegant.
The Asus Eee PC 1008P comes with a 10.1-inch glossy LED-backlit display. It is based on Intel Pinetrail Atom chip the Atom N450 1.66-GHz. There is 1GB of RAM, 250GB, and Windows 7 Starter edition operating system, but only two USB ports a minor disappointment. The Eee PC 1008P doesn’t come with Gigabit Ethernet (only 10/100 Mbit LAN), but includes 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. There is a 1.3MP webcam recessed on its top screen bezel which is good enough for video chats.
With the Asus 1008P model, the battery is now removable,and not only that, it is very slim, and is removed in a slide out way from a slot in the side. It also features an updated chiclet style keyboard.Along with the Intel Atom N450 CPU, it will feature 2GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, 1.3MP webcam, Bluetooth, 10.1-inch 1024×600 pixel LCD and Windows 7 Starter Edition OS.

Good
Very reasonable price
Though a 3 cell, battery life is healthy

(continue reading…)

Dell Inc, the world’s third-largest PC maker, has filed a lawsuit against Sharp Corp, Hitachi Ltd, Toshiba Corp and two other companies for alleged price fixing of LCD displays.
Dell filed the suit at a U.S. district court in San Francisco on Friday against the group of five firms, which also includes Japan’s Seiko Epson and Taiwan’s HannStar, a spokesman at Dell’s Japan unit said on Monday. Dell has not decided the level of damages it will seek in the lawsuit, the spokesman said. Sharp and Hitachi said that they were aware of the suit filed by Dell but declined to comment further. Toshiba and Seiko Epson said they were still making checks on the issue, while no one at HannStar was immediately available for comment.

Lenovo has introduced the IdeaPad S10-3t, its next-generation touch tablet netbook, in India.
A mid-range tablet netbook, the IdeaPad S10-3t, features a 10.1-inch touchscreen, that can swivel 180 degrees and fold over to transform into a touch tablet. It is the first multi-touch capacitive convertible netbook tablet, built with Lenovo NaturalTouch responsive fingertip touchscreen technology, creating an optimal netbook user touch experience. It is comfortable to handle with a 16:9 curve design and sports a stylish fashion pattern on the back with a dual color plan. With a stylish keyboard and one-piece touchpad, the tablet netbook’s screen comes with a steel hinge to make it strong and durable.
The netbook also features an Intel Atom N450 processor, 250 GB hard drive and stereo speakers and Dolby Headphone audio.
The Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t comes with the DirectShare feature, which allows users to synchronize files with another notebook without having to connect to the Internet and VeriFace face recognition and Active Protection System to protect the PC hard drive from bumps or falls.
The Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t will be available across all Lenovo Exclusive Stores and select Lenovo Multi Brand stores for Rs. 30,740.

Designer storage drives developer, LaCie, has announced two new models of portable HDDs, Starck and Petit range.
The LaCie Starck Mobile Hard Drive is the result of collaboration between LaCie and world-famous designer Philippe Starck. Its sturdy 2mm of aluminum casing keeps the LaCie Starck from overheating, and helps it to be very resistant, enhancing its overall dependability.
The polished aluminum exterior is stylish and tough, but also light enough to transport, making the LaCie Starck both completely chic and completely mobile. A convenient aspect of the LaCie Starck is its embedded USB cable, which allows you to maximize its compact nature and portability.
The LaCie Petit Hard Disk is one of the smallest, most compact drives on the market - small enough to fit in a pocket.
Its USB 2.0 interface helps the LaCie Petit work on almost any computer, anywhere. Covered in aluminum, the LaCie Petit features a sturdy, resistant casing that keeps the drive cool, and most importantly, protected.
Other exciting features that the drives boast are Ready for Windows 7 and MAC OS 10.6, USB Boost (increased drive performance up to 33% ), Wuala 10GB online storage and 2 years warranty.
Both drives will be available in 320 and 500 GB capacities at MRP beginning Rs. 5900 exclusively through Neoteric Infomatique ltd. and its network of 48 branches spread across India.

Good
Excellent performance
Elegant looks
Great build quality

(continue reading…)

WD has announced that the company is shipping its first consumer-oriented solid state drive (SSD) with the new WD SiliconEdge 2.5-inch SSD family. WD SiliconEdge Blue SSDs offer fast read/write speeds and high SSD capacities, making them an ideal storage solution for read-intensive applications requiring high performance and plug-and-play compatibility.
WD SiliconEdge Blue SSDs, in capacities up to 256 gigabytes (GB), feature a native SATA 3.0 gigabits per second (Gb/s) interface with read speeds up to 250 megabytes per second (MB/s) and write transfer rates up to 170 MB/s. Fast and rugged, WD SiliconEdge Blue SSDs accelerate application performance and deliver maximum tolerance for drops, shock and vibration along with silent and low-power operation.
The new WD SiliconEdge Blue product family has passed WD’s extensive functional integrity testing procedures, which subjected the WD SiliconEdge Blue SSDs to over 250,000 hours of testing to ensure they meet the industry’s highest data integrity, reliability and compatibility standards. Designed for both read-intensive client/consumer applications and write-intensive, 24/7 OEM applications, WD’s new multi-level cell (MLC) -based SSDs feature patented and patent-pending technologies, such as advanced wear-leveling and error correction control, as well as TRIM and NCQ (Native Command Queuing) command support to ensure maximum drive performance and endurance with easy plug and play compatibility.
WD SiliconEdge Blue SSDs are available through select distributors and resellers. The manufacturers’ suggested retail price (MSRP) for WD SiliconEdge Blue SSD 64 GB (model SSC-D0064SC-2100) capacity is Rs 16,250; for 128 GB (model SSC-D0128SC-2100) is Rs 30,900 and for 256 GB (SSC-D0256SC-2100) is Rs 58,250.
The WD SiliconEdge Blue drive is backed by WD’s world-class technical support and comes with a three-year limited warranty.

Asus has added yet another member to its Seashell family of ultraportable Eee PC. However, this time around, this ultraportable comes with an AMD processor in it. New Asus Eee PC 1201T features AMD Athlon Neo processor and supports full HD playback. Ideal for those who watch HD movies while on the move, this notebook also equips ATI Radeon HD discrete graphics.
Bearing the stylish Seashell design, this ultraportable comes in a glossy chassis with an in-Mold roller technology. The panel around the chiclet keyboard too appears glossy. The new 12.1-inch Eee PC 1201T has 1366×768 pixel resolution supporting LCD display with 16:9 aspect ratio. Though the screen is technically capable of supporting full HD content, the difference between half HD (720p) and full HD (1080p) would hardly be visible to an average Joe.
Apart from that, the 1201T equips 1.6GHz AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 processor, 2GB DDR2 memory, and 320GB HDD for storage. To support the HD playback, Asus has placed ATI Radeon HD 3200 discrete graphics in this ultraportable notebook. Here, the pre-installed ArcSoft SimHD software upscales the standard definition video to an HD video. The only heart breaking part here is the absence of HDMI outport.
Even with Asus Super Hybrid Engine feature for power management, this ultraportable offers a battery life of six hours with a six-cell battery pack. Other standard features of this notebook include a 0.3 megapixel web cam, HD Audio Codec, multi-media card reader, three USB 2.0 port, LAN port, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR and Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n). Surprisingly, the default operating system in this ultraportable is DOS and hence customers will have to buy a copy of Windows 7/Vista/XP.

The emachines EM250 looks quite similar to the Acer Aspire One D150 model we reviewed a while back. While the design is almost exactly the same, this netbook has managed to shave off almost 10 mm of its thickness, thus making it fairly thin. The build quality is decent. The black and metallic-grey color combination gives the EM250 a corporate-friendly appeal. But it isn”t a stunner in terms of looks, especially owing to its flat protruding battery at the back. But on the positive side, the flat surface of the battery is not as obtrusive while using this netbook on the lap. At almost 1.3 kilos, it’’s fairly light for a netbook with a 6-cell battery.
On the inside we have a regular 10-inch 1024 x 600 pixel screen. The quality is standard-fare and brightness is sufficient. Despite several attempts, we were not able to get the webcam working, thus we can”t comment on its quality. The size of the keyboard would have been called adequate if we would have seen the EM250 two years ago. But with netbooks these days having wider key designs (for e.g. the HP Mini 110 or the Eee PC 1005HA), the one on the EM250 feels somewhat tiny.
The surface is also quite smooth and it supports multi-touch gestures like two finger scrolling. How clever, since putting a traditional side-scrolling strip would have eaten away precious real estate of the touch-area. At the sides we have the usual array of ports: 3 USB, 1 VGA, 1 headphone, 1 mic, 1 LAN and 1 card reader. There’’s a switch at the front edge to toggle the wi-fi on or off. The stereo speakers at the base of the laptop offer average audio quality and moderate volume. We wouldn”t prefer hearing anything other than the dings and dongs of the Windows OS from them.
The performance of the EM250 is like any other netbook from a year back. You”ll be able to do basic stuff like office productivity, internet and playing standard-def movies on it. We tried to play a couple of 720p movies, and it was a hit and miss affair. Some played smoothly, while others stuttered. We could see that it was putting the system internals through a tough time to handle this task.
The webcam is the typical 1.3 mega pixel cam. The screen is bright and beautiful. Plenty of hard drive space , and the RAM is upgradeable. It of course, does not come with a DVD drive, but you can buy a cheap external drive anywhere. Its a great price for a small netbook. I love it. I compared it with the Acer, and it is much smaller, and lighter. See pictures.

Dell Latitude XT2 it just feels good. The rugged metal-alloy casing gives it a solid, substantial frame. Pick it up, and the 13.3-inch machine is deceptively light (3.8 pounds). Put all of that together, and you seem to have a premium choice for mobility-minded businessfolk in need of a tablet PC. It has style in spades and a host of great features.
The Dell Latitude XT2 has a very professional, business-like appearance with sharp lines and edges, all dark-grey design, and even exposed screws. This notebook is definitely not targeted towards those looking for the next designer notebook. Instead, it is aimed squarely at those who just want to get down to business. The brushed metal surfaces are actually specially painted covers that give the look of metal but with the ease of maintenance that paint gives. The finish resists smudges and is much easier to wipe clean than most brushed metal exteriors. If it was painted matte black and had a Lenovo logo printed on it, you would swear it was a ThinkPad.
The machine translation is pretty weak, but Dell 12.1-inch (1,280 x 800 pixel) Latitude XT2 looks to have just made its first tentative steps in a global launch. The video posted after the break comes courtesy of Korean site, AVING, where the convertible tablet was apparently just released. Pinch to zoom and two-fingers swipes. yup, it is in there. 11-hours of battery (6-cell plus battery slice) and DDR3 memory (max of 5GB!) too in a chassis just 2.5-cm (0.98-inches) thick. Click through for the video while we track down the official specifications that already seem to be aligning with the unofficial specs leaked earlier.

(continue reading…)