Asus Eee PC 4G Surf Revealed

Just a few months ago Asus rocked the ultraportable market with the release of the EEE PC 701. At the beyond-reasonable price of $399, the 701 came armed with a verstile Linux operating system and tons of handy applications.

Now Asus has released a new version of the tiny wonder. The EEE PC surf 4G ditches the glitchy webcam of its predecessor and simultaneously sheds a few bucks as well. For $349, the coffee house-bound user gets a two-pound portable with a seven-inch display and 4GB solid state drive. We loved the 701, so we're pleased to say the 4G doesn't land too far from the tree. Check out our full reviewhere
Price: $349
info: http://usa.asus.com

Sony VAIO CR Laptops

Compact and functional, Sony VAIO brings its own of street to the notebook market combining a new urban feel blended with edgy chic to create a modern and exciting colour collection.
Sony VAIO has worked with leading stylists to create the new range and believe it is a sure bet for both an uber-hip and totally portable compact notebook. The wrap-around trim, lustrous coating and flawless finish make each notebook a true design piece. Special styling features such as smooth rounded borders and flashy lighting effects will make you stand out from the crowd. This notebook is a design first; Sony VAIO has drawn on the latest in notebook technology to create a multiple layer coating that is not only glossy and fashion must-have but is robust enough to protect the keyboard and LCD screen inside.

Apple Macbook Pro (15-inch)

View all of our Editors' picks

What are they?
Mainstream notebooks deliver what most buyers are looking for in a portable: a screen that's not too small or too bis, a CPU that's powerful but that doesn't kill battery life, a chassis that's easy to carry but that doesn't make you forego a comfortable keyboard and on-board optical drive. In short, an all-purpose laptop is just right.

Who are they for?
Essentially, if a machine isn't intended for a niche buyer-someone looking for a tablet, an ultraportable, a desktop replacement, a budget model, and so on-it's a mainstream laptop. you'll find models tailored for business users, home PC buyers, students, and multimedia enthusiasts.

Learn more about Mainstream Notebooks


more info: www.laptopmag.com

Toshiba Responds: Blu-Ray On the Way?

Toshiba was the first to get back to me about what it is expecting to do with its HD-DVD laptops. I guess their people had the most time to think about the answer. Either way, here is Toshiba's response to our question. The answers in italics are NOT official comments of Toshiba; they are what we anticipate they really wanted to answer.

Is Toshiba planning on discontinuing HD-DVD drives in its laptops?

Yes.( We apologize to the suckers who bought our nice looking systems with HD drives. We hope you like old movies.)

When will Toshiba stop selling computers with HD drives?

No confirmed date yet. (We plan to keep them on the market until we sell out. We wasted a whole lot of money an this HD-DVD thing. Maybe we can still fool the late adopters.)

And switch to Blu-Ray?

Toshiba will explore alternative HD options for its customers. (It will take us months before we can actually say "alternative to HD-DVD" without crying. The format that starts with a B and ends with a Ray will be available sometime soon in our laptops.)

Hands-on With The Alienware m15x: Penryn Power Quite the Light Show

We just our lucky paws on Alienware's shiny new Area-51 m 15x, arguably the most powerful 15.4-inch notebook on the planet. It's the first mobile rig with this screen size that boasts Intel's blazing 45nm Intel Core2 Extreme mobile proccessor X9000. And it's the first laptop in this class to cram in Nividia's GeFOrce 8800M GTX graphics card, complete with a whopping 512MB of dedicated video memory. (Take that, Crysis!) We'll be bringing you our first 3D and gaming benchmark results ASAP, but in the meantime we wanted to share some hands-on impressions of m15x' unique design. Namely, the rad color changing effects have us singing Karma Chameleon.

At first glance the Area-15 m15x looks a bit understated for a mobile gaming rig: It has a silver paint job and blue key backlighting-nothing too flashy and certainly more refined than the over-the-top ribbed look of previous Alienware notebooks. Do a little digging and you'll be wowed by how much you can customize this machine on the fly. The Alienware Control Center lets you seriously tweak the system's back lighting using one of the ten colors (or black and white) for each lighted area of the laptop.

Dell XPS M1530 Announced

Today, Dell unveiled the latest addition to its notebook catalog: the slim and stylish XPS M1530. Starting at under 6 pounds and measuring less than an inch thick, this machine offers mores power and screen real estate than 13.3-inchXPS M1330.

Available un Tuxedo Black, Crimson Red, and Alphine White, the 15.4-inch XPS M1530 can be outfitted with a slot -loading optical drive (standard-definition or $600 for Blu-ray), Nividia graphics with up to 256MB of video memory, and a 2-megapixel webcam. Completing the multimedia features are dual headphone jacks, a pair of noise-isolating earbuds, a travel remote than can be stored in the Express Card slot, MediaDirect (for accessing content without booting into Windows), and an HDMI port. Dell also tosses in a fingerprint reader for keeping prying eyes away from your data.

An Intel Core 2 Duo processor runs the slow along with 1 GB of RAM (upgrade to 4GB). A choice of hard drives ranges from 120GB to 320GB, but speed demons can opt for a64GB solid-state driver for an extra $1,000. On the wireless front, the XPS M1530 comes equipped with Dell's Wi-Fi Catcher for swiftly searching for available 802.11a/b/g/n signals, and optional integrated mobile broadband for connecting to the Web from anywhere you receive a cellular signal.

The Dell XPS M1530 is available for purchase now, starting at $999.

price: starting $999
info: www.dell.com

Tethering might be supported by iPhone

An internal AT&T document reveals that tethering might be allowed on an iPhone, meaning the use of the iPhone as a modem. It is unknown whether this is a flaw in design or it was left there for a specific reason.

This document comes from Boy Genius Report's informants, and is targeting customer service staff of Apple. it mentions the concept of teathering quite a few times.

The paper alleges that customers who try to tether the device to a computer are asked to accept a new-year cntract regardless of any pre-exsiting agreements. This problem has been known long by AT&T and they will reset the contract's start date for the customers affected by this problem.

"Please advise all customers that to complete the tethering process of their new iPhone they will be required to accept a new two-year agreement including the [Terms and Conditions]." the message reads. "However, their agreement will not be extended from their original iPhone activation or upgrade date."

AT&T meaning is unclear since reference to tethering might mean some stage in iTunes activation, or users upgrading to 16GB iPhone. However the way tethering is used is quite unusual. Tethering essentially means, that you can use cell phone as a modem for you laptop or PDA through cabels or wirelessly.

Apples has not announced any plans to offer data tethering for the iPhone. Such feature would be useful by frequent without reliable sources of Internet access, and it was requsted fron Apple by some of its current and future customers.

Apple said that is aware of the issue regardless of its exact nature