Free replacement for old Fujitsu laptops in UK

Frankly, we're incredibly jealous. Though Fujitsu LifeBooks are hardly known for budget prices, they are among the few machines still made in Japan and have one of the best build qualities in the market. In fact, the Japanese maker is so confident of its quality control that it has made a three-year warranty standard in Asia, even for its Netbook.

To sweeten the deal further, the new LifeBook4Life program in the UK promises Fujitsu laptop owners a new machine every three years. To adjust for inflation, 10 percent will be added to the original price to determine the value of the replacement. This applies to the LifeBook S, T, E and P range. For the cheaper Esprimo line, the Esprimo Promise initiative will refund the purchase price of the machine in addition to repairing the laptop as long as the warranty is still valid.

Sadly, Fujitsu Singapore has just confirmed that this is a UK exclusive and is unlikely to travel to Asian shores soon. But for those going to the UK for an extended period, you may want to hold off your LifeBook purchase till you get there.

Report: 10-inch Acer Aspire One on the way

Acer is readying a 10-inch version of its Aspire One Netbook, according to a report in DigiTimes. The publication attributed the news to Scott Lin, president of Acer Taiwan, and said to expect an official launch of the new Netbook in February or March of 2009.

Lin offered no further details about the 10-inch Aspire One, including whether (or when) it will make its way to the US. We assume it will, and that when it does it'll have largely the same specs as the current model, adding perhaps some more RAM and (we hope) a larger battery. No matter what, a 10-inch screen will provide a welcome break from all that scrolling.

Of course, this puts a kink in the plans of anyone who'd hoped to buy an Aspire One this holiday season. If you've been planning to buy an Acer Netbook, will you now hold out in hopes of a larger model, or proceed with your purchase as planned?

Via CNET Crave

HP Mini Vivienne Tam Edition hitting Asia

Forget imprint designs or snap-on covers. If there was ever such a thing as a designer Netbook, then the HP Mini Vivienne Tam Edition must surely be it.

Dressed in a "Digital Clutch" chassis, the body of this special-edition Netbook is made for the fashionable woman. But design aside, you'll find that the performance and feature set are exactly the same as the original HP Mini 1000. Here are some pictures we took of the special-edition Netbook during a recent HP Christmas party in Singapore (click on the thumbnail for larger images). The slip case shown in the picture below is decorated to complement the unit.





But before whipping out your wallets to buy this for your other half, take note. While the run-of-the-mill Mini 1000 costs S$799 (US$534.70), the HP Mini Vivienne Tam Edition goes for a cool US$799. This brings the Netbook to the same price point as full-fledge budget portables. But if you insist, then look out for this model in Asian markets in mid-January 2009.

Foil laptop thieves with a text message

An SMS message can be a powerful thing when it comes to laptop security.

There are a considerable number of security measures available to companies to protect their valuable data on employee hard drives. Self-encrypting hard drives and security software are touted as the latest solutions, but the PC has to be turned off for the data to be secured by encryption. If a notebook is stolen while in hibernation mode, or even while the operating system is fully loaded, there's a higher risk of data being exposed.

That's where Lenovo says its new text-message-based remote disable software comes in. Using Phoenix Technologies' system, any Montevina-based Lenovo machine that's equipped with WWAN (wireless wide area network) can be paired with a cell phone.
Read more »

Netbook's Biggest Secrets Revealed: HP Mini 1000 does 3G

The HP Mini 1000 Netbook has a 3G modem--who knew? Well, HP presumably and now the rest of us do, thanks to an enterprising Mini 1000 owner and forum poster at Pocketables.net. He or she (impossible to say with a name like dplxy) discovered a SIM card slot hiding out in the Netbook's battery compartment. After speaking with HP and AT&T, user dplxy was able to find a WWAN driver from HP that did the trick--no hardware required. All that was needed was downloading the driver and then popping a SIM card in the mystery slot, which would seem to indicate that HP is shipping 3G-equipped Netbooks but not telling anyone.


Sadly, we just returned our HP Mini 1000 review unit, otherwise we'd be trying this out for ourselves right now (damnable loan agreements!). So, if you are an owner of the HP Mini 1000, take a peak underneath to see if you have this mysterious SIM card slot. Forum poster dplxy outlines the simple process on Pocketables.net and kindly provides a link to the WWAN driver you'll need.

Now, all we need is someone to discover a secret 6-cell battery to replace the puny 3-cell unit that is currently your only option with the Mini 1000.

Via CNET Crave

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