Those expecting Apple to introduce a new tablet computer soon may have another clue to the device’s imminent arrival.
Apple has rehired Michael Tchao, one of the original developers of Apple’s Newton personal digital assistant, according to a report Monday in
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Originally posted at News – Apple
Newegg has listed prices for OEM copies of Windows 7—technically intended for little computer building businesses, but there’s nothing stopping you buying them. And as long as you understand some mostly-minor limitations, you can save some serious money.
Take a look at the table—that’s not chump change. Newegg is also taking a further $5-$15 off some prices for pre-orders before October 20.
The main two caveats: OEM product keys aren’t transferrable from one PC to another, and you’ll need to install them on a formatted machine (usually the best way, anyway). Less of a concern is that you don’t get any support or packaging; just the disc. Still sounds like a bargain to me—unless you’re a college student, in which case you can pick Windows 7 up for just $30 bucks. [Newegg via ComputerWorld via ArsTechnica]
| Windows 7 | Home Premium | Professional | Ultimate |
| OEM | $110 | $140 | $190 |
| Retail Upgrade | $120 | $200 | $220 |
| Full Retail | $200 | $300 | $320 |
| Full OEM (3 Pack) | $310 | N/A | $550 |
It’s not every day you see something thoroughly distinct in the laptop scene — or even barely off the beaten path — so we were quite happy to behold Dell’s new Latitude Z 600 outside of the narrow confines of the FCC. The machine combines a 16-inch 1600 x 900 display with a Core 2 Duo processor and a thin (0.57-inch) and light (4.5 pounds) chassis — a rather rare trifecta. Dell’s gone with premium soft touch materials, a large multitouch touchpad, a 2 megapixel webcam with included security and document scanning (like business cards) software, and a rather novel capacitive “EdgeTouch” sensor on the side that can be tapped for a quick launch bar of apps. Remember that 802.11g radio that had us scratching our heads in the FCC docs? Well it’s actually one of two WiFi radios in the machine (the main radio is 802.11n, just like mother used to make), and belongs to Latitude ON, that instant-boot ARM-based Linux system that co-exists inside the computer (which first made an appearance in the Latitude E series). For security reasons it doesn’t share a lick of data with the main OS, but it can hook up to Exchange and handle basic browsing tasks. In addition to its quick-booting properties, the low-power nature of the ARM chipset means you can get “days” of computing out of the machine, despite the 16-inch screen the battery is up against. But that’s not all! Dell has built in a UWB radio for communicating with an optional wireless base dock (out in November) that pumps out DVI and USB, and there are also induction charging contacts on the bottom of the laptop for use with an optional induction charging stand. Other features include a built-in Smart Card reader and room for dual SSD drives.
We got to play around with the laptop briefly, and it doesn’t just pile on the features — it’s really a pretty tight design from Dell, and oozes quality. Some of the features make a bit less sense, like the EdgeTouch sensor, but if you’re going to go all out on a laptop for executives, you might as well really go all out, right? The keyboard is one of the best laptop keyboards we’ve played with in a while, the touchpad is expansive, and the machine doesn’t seem brittle despite its wild surface-area-to-thickness ratio. The screen did seem a little dim to our eyes, but it was mercifully matte, and that 2 megapixel camera up top really comes in handy with Dell’s bundled software, reading and deciphering a business card of ours without a problem. It’s a three way tie for neatest feature between UWB, Latitude ON and induction charging, but we’d probably have to go with UWB — unlike Toshiba’s similar solution, which relies on a dongle, Dell’s built-in implementation actually makes a lot of sense for a premium laptop. It was also surprisingly quick at pairing with the wireless dock, and there’s no harm done by pulling the laptop out of range of UWB — a quick screen flicker and it’s back to regular. Our biggest downers about the laptop probably have to do with the odd color choice (a bit too personal of a preference to be made a default) and the understandable but painfully sky-high $2,000+ pricetag.
Update: Smarmy infomercial and in-depth look at Latitude ON now posted after the break.
Gallery: Dell Latitude Z 600 hands-on
Gallery: Dell Latitude Z 600 press shots
Filed under: Laptops
Dell’s Latitude Z 600 is a 16-inch thin-and-light, makes overcompensated CEOs out of us all (update: video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
This article was written on January 02, 2007 by CyberNet.
Whether the next release of Flock is 0.8, 0.9, or they pass right on over to 1.0, people are anxiously waiting to get their hands on a new release. While we’re waiting for the next Milestone, a mock-up has been created of what we might be able to expect. Remember, this is a Mock-up and just that. It was probably quickly done using Photoshop, and there’s no saying that this is what the next release will really look like.
First things first, the next version will be based off of Firefox 2. This is great news for anybody using Flock or considering it, because now Flock will have all of those great things introduced with Firefox 2 like built-in spell check and session restore, just to name a few. To the left on the mock-up, you’ll notice the built-in feed reader (which the current Flock already has), and to the bottom you’ll notice all of your online images, and images from your friend’s accounts. This mock-up also includes a tabbed interface for your contacts, and note-taking in the bottom right corner. It also appears that they’ve broken away from the the norm by putting the search box below the address bar, although I’m sure that can be configured however you’d like it to be.
There ya have it, the next milestone mock-up of Flock! I remember reading that they wanted the next milestone out by the end of 2006. Unfortunately that didn’t happen, but hopefully we’ll be seeing it soon!
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About as slim as the Adamo and just half a pound heavier, Dell’s new ultra-thin laptop is a PC intended for business users who crave beauty and are willing to pay whatever it takes to get it.
At the basic level, the Dell Latitude Z is a notebook with a 16-inch HD display that runs Intel Core 2 Duo processor and offers a choice of up to two 256 GB solid state drives. It comes with multi-touch trackpad that supports gestures such as pinch and zoom.
But the device goes beyond that to offer some smooth features — a new kind of touchscreen, wireless charging and some solid security features.
Lets start with the touchscreen. Instead of a touchscreen display, the Latitude Z has touch functionality built along the frame of the notebook display. Sliding your fingers vertically along the frame pops up a tool bar that lets you choose common applications like email, photos, and camera.
The Latitude Z has a two megapixel camera that goes significantly beyond the traditional webcam function. Hold your business card in front of the camera and it scans the card and saves the information to Microsoft Outlook contacts. If you have a sheet of paper, you hold it in front of the camera and can choose to save it as a PDF.
The camera also has face-recognition capability. So, if turned on, it can detect when you step away from the computer and automatically lock the machine then.
Other security features include a fingerprint reader and contact less smart card reader so you can lock the computer by just waving your office badge over it.
Another interesting addition to the laptop is new hardware that supports a ‘Latitude On’ mode. The mode promises instant start up and offers always on connection to email, internet, contacts and calendar.
The idea is to bring the functionality of a BlackBerry that promises always synced email and calendar to a PC, says Steve Belt, vice president of business client engineering at Dell.
“We wanted to create something that would be the best of both worlds,” says Belt. “The Latitude On mode is fast and gives users gobs of battery life.”
In the ‘Latitude On’ mode, users don’t have access to all of Windows applications such as word processing and PowerPoint. Instead they can access e-mail and browse the internet with boot up times of less than a second. The trade off also brings with it extended battery life of up to 12 hours, says Dell.
Compare that to the idle mode of the laptop where boot up time can be a few seconds and emails are checked every few minutes. But then the battery life can extend up to two days. To switch back to Windows, users have to press a special power button on the laptop.
These are nifty features but the question is does it deserve the $2000 price tag — more than the Adamo? And if that’s not enough for a sticker shock, accessories such as wireless docking and an inductive charging stand will cost extra.
More photos of the Latitude Z
Two power buttons allow users to toggle between the ‘Latitude On’ mode and the regular Windows mode.
See Also:
Photo: Latitude Z/Dell
Well, well, what’s this? We were just sent what looks like a rough draft of HP’s Winter 2009/2010 consumer catalog, and it’s got details on three as-yet-announced machines. The most interesting is the Pavilion dv3 with TouchSmart, which has a 13.3-inch touchscreen, but there’s also confirmation of that previously-leaked Pavilion dm1 11.6-inch CULV thin-and-light and the monster Pavilion dv8 with an 18.4-inch screen and a new mobile Core i7 processor. That’s a pretty strong lineup to back the new Envys, we’d say — and for whatever reason, we’re fascinated by this new trend of sticking touchscreens on regular laptops. We’ll see if the dv3’s TouchSmart 3.0 build is any more usable or sensible than Lenovo’s take on the idea soon enough, we hope — for now, check out the whole catalog in the gallery.
[Via Engadget Spanish; thanks, Marc]
Filed under: Laptops
Touchscreen HP Pavilion dv3 leaks out, brings dm1 ultraportable and Core i7 dv8 along for the ride originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Someone at Dell must have tripped over some wires and after cleaning up the bloody gash came up with the $2,000 anti-cord Latitude Z: It has wireless charging and wirelessly connects to displays too.
Like we had heard, Dell made the Latitude Z for the suit wearing, briefcase toting, conference room type. Being .57 inches thin and weighing 4.5 pounds may make it the lightest and thinnest 16-inch notebook ever, but it’s still a full-sized machine. The design itself is a lot nicer than the typical business notebook, though. The soft-touch lid feels nice and the back of the magnesium alloy chassis has angled chrome plated hinges.
Similar to the Palm Pre but on a much bigger scale, the Z has power coils built in to the base of the notebook and so it charges wirelessly, through a magnetic inductive stand that’s an extra $200. Supposedly, it takes the same amount of time to recharge as a normal notebook power cord.
The love for no cords doesn’t stop there. You can also buy the $200 wireless dock and hook up all your peripherals (printer, monitor, mouse, etc.) to it rather than to the computer. It then communicates with the notebook itself which has Ultra Wide Band technology built-in so there is no need to add an extra dongle.
Beyond the love of wireless, there are a few other things that make the Z different from your average laptop. It has Dell’s Latitude-On which gives you access to email and a browser before actually booting into Windows. Lots of laptops have this pre-boot environment now (like the HP Envy 13 and Lenovo S10-2), however, the difference here is that it runs on a different processor. In addition to a Intel ULV processor, the Z has an ARM processor which will boot up the instant-on mode faster and increase battery life. Frankly, I don’t always see the point in these pre-boot environments when you can just wait a few extra minutes to get into Windows but my guess is some find it useful.
And because it seems like every notebook has to have some form of touch capability now, the Z has what Dell calls EdgeTouch. The right screen bezel has an LCD sensor that when tapped brings up shortcuts. Not sure how much the average person will end up using this thing, but it is a neat trick.
That guy that tripped over the wires probably has some sort of unfortunate looking scar, but at least we have the Latitude Z. Sure it will cost you a pretty penny when you add in all the wireless doodads, but it is chock-full of some kick ass tech. [Dell]
The Latitude Z on wireless charging station, and wireless dock adapter on the right.
(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET)
That Dell is releasing a new laptop for business customers is the opposite of surprising. But the fact that it contains notable features not seen in any other laptops certainly is.
Most everything about the new Latitude Z is expected: It’s yet another very thin notebook (a metric which PC manufacturers keep using to try to one-up each other), with a different kind of exterior finish (soft-touch, in this case), and comes in a black cherry. It measures 16 inches across, and is 14 millimeters thin at its most narrow point.
But you probably wouldn’t guess that the Latitude Z charges wirelessly. And as far as we can tell, it’s the first laptop to do so. Surprised that this is coming from Dell? You’re not alone.
The wireless charging is handled elegantly enough. An inductive pad that’s built into a laptop stand can accomplish a full recharge in “about the same amount of time” as a standard-issue cabled charger, according to Dell. While smartphone maker Palm has a similar (albeit smaller) wireless charging system for the Pre, and companies like Visteon and Wild Charge have debuted wireless charging accessories for phones, no PC maker has incorporated the idea until now.
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Originally posted at Circuit Breaker
Just in time for the Windows 7 invasion, Toshiba has announced a new line of slim laptops, dubbed the T100 series. With Intel ultra-low-voltage processors (or ULV), the 13.3-inch T135 and 11.6-inch T115 are both less than one inch thick, have LED displays, and multi-touch touchpads.
Like other …
Feel free to feign surprise, but seeing how Sony handled the PlayStation 3 Slim’s launch, we kind of expected this. According to an anonymous tipster, at least one Metro Atlanta-area Target store has the PSP Go in stock and is apparently already selling them to (presumably) eager customers. So much for that October 1st street date, but you’re still gonna have to wait until then for all the new digital content. We’ve pinged Sony for more details. In the meantime, anyone else happen upon the new portable during their daily travels?
Filed under: Gaming
PSP Go found in the wild being sold ahead of October 1st launch date? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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