Posts in Notebooks
Fancy a UMPC for around S$1,000?
Darius Chang | May 29, 2007
Fancy a UMPC but unwilling to pay sky-high prices for rock-bottom performance? Well, a UMPC has been spotted in Singapore which is going for an almost too-good-to-be-true price.
The name may be a mouthful, but the Kohjisha SA1F00 is possibly one of the cheapest UMPC machines you can get your hands on outside the land of the rising sun. Resembling another convertible UMPC, the Fujitsu LifeBook FMV-U Series, it has a keyboard/touchpad combo and runs on the AMD Geode LX-800 500MHz processor, with an option to bump the 512MB memory up to 1GB.
Weighing only 960g, it has a runtime of 5 hours, much longer than the ASUS and Samsung UMPCs. The Kohjisha has generously included two USB 2.0 ports and a memory card reader while allowing for 802.1b/g and Bluetooth radios. Both modem and Ethernet network connectivity are supported internally. The 7-inch touchscreen is larger than the Fujitsu's 5.6-inch display, and has a maximum resolution of 800 x 480 pixels.
But what you really want to know is the price, right? At almost half that of its competitors, the black version with a 40GB harddisk is going for S$1,049 (US$702), while the white 100GB model is only slightly more expensive at S$1,199 (US$802.38). The Kohjisha SA1F00 is currently distributed by PA Mart in Singapore Funan the IT Mall, but only limited units are available.
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Intel mobile Metro laptop: RAZR-thin PC unveiled
Rory Reid, CNET.co.uk | May 26, 2007
Intel has been showing off a new laptop that by all accounts is the thinnest in the world. Codenamed the Intel mobile Metro, it's apparently less than 18mm thick--about 6mm thicker than a Motorola RAZR phone.
It's the result of a collaboration between Intel and US firm Ziba Design. Judging by these pictures, it's absolutely stunning. The working model will probably use Intel Centrino technology, although we're yet to discover what sort of chipset, processor, memory and storage will be employed. One of the few tech certainties is the inclusion of Wi-Fi.
The chassis, which weighs a mere 1kg, will be a champagne-colored magnesium alloy and dotted with subtle gold accents. Intel has also confirmed a clip-on folder for the laptop, which will feature a secondary display. This will use E-Ink technology, of the sort used in Sony's Reader, to prolong battery life.
We've no idea if or when it'll reach the market. Intel doesn't actually make laptops (just the bits that go inside them). So we reckon a company such as ASUS will take charge of building and selling it, as it did with Intel's Classmate PC.
We're pretty excited by it. Check out the pictures over at the photo gallery--you will not be disappointed.
Hands-on with Acer Aspire 5920: The BMW laptop
Rory Reid, CNET.co.uk | May 25, 2007
| Editors' note: The Aspire 5920 will be available in Singapore from May 30. At the same time, Acer claims it will also be the first vendor to offer Dolby Home Theater for virtual surround sound across its new range of consumer notebooks. |
The Acer laptop folks are nuts about cars. First they seared our retinas with their gaudy Ferrari laptops and now they're about to unleash the Gemstone series--which have been co-designed by BMW. Yes, the car people.
Rather than just stick a BMW badge on the lid, Acer has conducted seven months of market research to discover what constitutes a sexy laptop, then left the results in the capable hands of over 100 designers and engineers at BMW Designworks.
The resulting laptops are stunning, but not in a good way. We got our hands on the "King of Entertainment" Aspire 5920 model and we're really not feeling the design.
The glossy black lid is okay, but every laptop maker, his mum and his dog has one of these--so nil points there. They also get zero props for the granddad-pleasingly grey keyboard section. It looks white in the pictures, but believe us when we say it's greyer than John Major after a bout of autoerotic asphyxiation with Madame Whiplash. Our lawyers would like us to point out that this is a purely hypothetical scenario.
The next design faux pas is the USB port arrangement. There are three ports on the left side, which is fine, but we reckon the lone port on the right was stuck there by a petrol-head who knows nothing about laptops. The port sits about 1mm away from the DVD-ROM drive, so any standard-sized USB device physically prevents the drive bay from opening. The USB logo is even printed in the wrong place--above the DVD drive.
There are some touches we like, though.
The Webcam doubles as a sort of car door handle for opening the sexy 15.4-inch screen. Plus the shortcut buttons on either side of the keyboard are just like those on either side of a BMW car stereo. Ironically there's even a button that does absolutely nothing--like the dummy switches on cars that haven't got all the optional extras. We have no idea why they've included this--it makes you wonder whether there's something missing.
We can't grumble with the specs. The Aspire 5920 is Santa Rosa'd up to the eyeballs and packs a 2GHz Intel T7300 CPU, 2GB of 667MHz (not 800MHz unfortunately) RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics card for gaming. There's even a Dolby-certified speaker system with a subwoofer underneath. It doesn't sound as good as in-car systems, obviously, but it's impressive all the same. We can't argue with the price, either--a measly S$2,698 (US$1,805.53) goes a long way to make up for the design car crash.
We'll have a review of the Aspire 5920 sooner than you can say sprochtung durch technik, or whatever they say in Germany.
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Toshiba battery promotion at PC Show
Darius Chang | May 24, 2007
It's a sad fact that though your notebook may be made to last you for at least three years technologically, its Lithium-ion battery would likely have degraded significantly after a year. Or you might have several laptop batteries which can no longer hold any charge but are uncertain how to get rid of them safely.
Well, if you happen to have a Toshiba portable, you are in luck. At the coming PC Show in Singapore, the Japanese manufacturer is offering a free Pala-chan screen cleaner to help you dispose of your unwanted Toshiba power cells in an environmentally safe manner. At the same time, it is offering a trade-in program for certain notebook batteries with discounts of up to 40 percent. For more details, you can access the trade-in offer at http://www.pc.toshiba-asia.com/battery/.
Fujitsu announces its first 250GB, 5,400rpm SATA hard drive
Reuben Lee | May 22, 2007
Fujitsu recently announced a new series of 2.5-inch notebook hard drives, among them an industry first of 250GB running at 5,400 revolutions per minute (rpm). Expected in selected Asean markets by Q4 this year, the new hard drive series is primarily designed for laptops, slim PCs as well as consumer electronics.
The new 250GB hard drive is, however, not the highest capacity 2.5-inch offering from Fujitsu so far. Earlier this year, the Japanese company introduced a 300GB notebook hard drive running at a slower 4,200rpm. That said, the faster spindle speed and large capacity of the new range should appeal to those into gaming, digital video and audio editing. The MHY2xxxBH series, which is based on the perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology, also comes in 200GB, 160GB, 120GB, 100GB, 80GB, 60GB and 40GB flavors.
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