Monday, 30 May 2011

posted May 30th 2011 3:59AM

The thickest part of this new laptop is 17mm, its entire body is built from an aluminum alloy (weighs 1.1kg / 2.4lb), and the CPUs can be specced as high as Core i7. Anything else you need to know before drooling all over yourself? How about a two-second resume from sleep, thanks to ASUS' proprietary software, a SATA III SSD, USB 3.0 connectivity, and the ability to hybernate for up to one week? The trackpad is made out of glass, while the keyboard keys are all metal. ASUS projects the launch of its shiny new UX21 in September, and you can see more of it in the gallery below or video after the break.

ASUS UX21 hands-on

ASUS UX Series ultraportable notebooks

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Saturday, 28 May 2011

Sony Vaio SA ultraportable @ www.engadget.com

Sony announces VAIO SA series ultraportable, puts VAIO F series up for pre-order

Having trouble keeping Sony's slim VAIO S series laptops straight? It's okay, we are, too, especially now that the company's officially unveiled the SA series, a 13.3-inch ultraportable that's poised to go toe to toe with the skinnyLenovo ThinkPad X1. Although it's got almost the same magnesium-and-alloy chassis as the VAIO SB series we saw at CES, the SA is a hair thinner, at 0.95 inches, and comes standard with AMD Radeon HD 6630 graphics and 1GB of video memory, 1600 x 900 resolution, a 500GB hard drive, fingerprint reader, and a Blu-ray drive. You can also trick it out with a dual channel solid-state drive, which promises to help let you work up to 16 hours unplugged if you combine it with a $100 sheet battery. If you fork out a minimum of $1,650, you can snag one with an SSD.

If the SA's $1,350 starting price is more than you're willing to spend, there's still the SB series, though the $969 base model naturally has less impressive specs, including 512MB of video memory, 1366 x 768 resolution, a DVD player, and a Core i5 -- not Core i7 -- processor. For what its worth, its color options now include pink and navy, if that floats your boat more than the high-end SA's black, silver, and brown palette.

In other news, Sony's also taking orders for the VAIO F Series, which comes in two flavors: one with a 16-inch 3D display with a 2D-to-3D conversion button, starting at $1,659, and a 16.4-inch 2D model with a more modest $1,100 base price. But if you want a 2D display with 1080p resolution and a Blu-ray drive, you can expect to pay at least $1,169. Both these and the SA series are up for pre-order today, with gussied-up photos below and full PR and past the break.

Sony VAIO SA series

Sony VAIO F series

Wednesday, 11 May 2011

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 @ www.youtube.com

Samsung SF310 with nvidia optimus @ www.pcmag.com

Samsung SF310 Review & Rating | PCMag.com

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May 10, 2011

Samsung SF310

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VIEW SLIDESHOW

Pros
Intel Core i5-480M processor. Nvidia GeForce 310M graphics with automatic switching. Lots of extra features, like Bluetooth 3.0, Sleep-and-Charge, and quick restarts. Good battery life.
Cons
Covered ports are less accessible. Wimpy speakers. Middling performance. Internal battery can't be accessed or replaced by buyer. Small hard drive.
Bottom Line
Some buyers will be intrigued by features like Bluetooth 3.0, Sleep-and-Charge funcationality, and quick restarts, but more discerning buyers may shun the Samsung SF310 for its underutilized components and small hard drive.

Monday, 9 May 2011

Optimus on Linux with Bumblebee -- using both your intel and nvidia with 3D acceleration

Optimus on Linux Problem Solved | Martin Juhl's Blog

One of our Linux hybrid-graphics team members has found a neat trick to enable both the integrated (Intel) and discrete (Nvidia) graphics cards in Linux using a VirtualGL. As it works in version 0.2, the Intel card is running the Desktop interface and the nvidia card can be used to offload specific applications with the command "optirun32 <application>" or "optirun64 <application>" depending if you use 32bit or 64bit code.

There is still no load balancer to automatically decide which applications should run on which card, and the nvidia card is constantly running, but bumblebee now enables the discrete graphics card for hybrid laptops running Linux, even for those models with no mux to switch the card in the BIOS menu.

For more info:

https://github.com/MrMEEE/bumblebee/blob/master/README

Saturday, 7 May 2011

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 slim to the extreme @ www.engadget.com

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 spotted in the wild -- Engadget

By Donald Melanson

posted May 6th 2011 1:06PM

We've already seen it pictured and detailed, but Chinese website Mydrivers.com has now scored what appear to be the very first in-the-wild shots of Lenovo's new super-slim ThinkPad X1. As you can see above and in a few more shots at the source link below, the laptop is indeed pretty thin -- 21.5mm, or 0.85 inches thick, apparently -- but Lenovo still found room to squeeze in a backlit keyboard (check it out after the break), not to mention the ThinkPad's trademark pointing stick. Unfortunately, Lenovo has yet to officially say anything about it itself, so we still only have that rumored May 20th launch date to go on for the time being.

[Thanks, leungxd]

Cloned in China

source Mydrivers.com

Wednesday, 4 May 2011

HP Pavilion dm4x @ www.engadget.com

HP Pavilion dm4x with Sandy Bridge goes on sale, starts at $730 -- Engadget

Those Sandy Bridge refreshes just keep on coming. Today, it's HP's turn, whose 14-inch Pavilion dm4 (which we reviewed last year) now comes standard with a 2.3GHz Intel Core i5-2410M CPU. Curiously, it's now the dm4x -- a suffix you don't usually see on HP notebooks. For that $730 starting price, you'll also get Radeon HD 6470M graphics with 1GB of memory, 6GB of RAM, a 640GB 5,400RPM hard drive, and a six-cell battery. If money's no object, you can trick yours out with a 2.7GHz Core i7-2620M processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 750GB 7,200RPM HDD. Oh, and for $25 you can opt for a "dark umber" color instead of "steel grey" (pictured). Not too shabby, but we just hope HP also fixed that wonky touchpad.