Hasta La Gadget!

We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Anthony, who is looking for an external battery pack to keep his laptop humming through those 21-hour T / TH marathon days. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“I’m going off to college soon. I have a new HP TM2. Obviously the 9 hour battery life isn’t realistic, and I would like the fabled “full day computing” experience. I do have a second battery, but it’s awkward to charge both batteries, the shape doesn’t fit into my bag well, and I have to hibernate to switch (which introduces some wonkiness to some programs). I’m looking into external batteries which provide power to the DC input of my laptop (18.5V, but 19V will work too). It would preferably be approximately 9- to 13-inches diagonally to fit into my bookbag and / or laptop bag, and not ridiculously thick. USB charging would be a definite plus too, but not required.”

For Mac owners asking a similar question, we can personally attest to the greatness of the HyperMac, but we’ll be looking to the collective brain of our dear readers to help on Anthony. Go on and toss your suggestion down in comments — you wouldn’t want poor Anthony running out of juice during his first Biology lab, now would you?

Ask Engadget: best external laptop battery? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Apr 2010 01:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve stumbled across any number of MacBook Air KIRFs, but it’s not often we see a worthy representation of Cupertino’s heftier model. Never underestimate Shenzhen. This “Dragonfly QT Pro” not only features a familiar aluminum alloy shell, the 14-inch, 1366 x 768 netbook’s also got Ion 2 switchable graphics ahead of its Acer and ASUS cousins. A 1.66GHz Atom D410 and 1GB of memory help pump out 1080p video while keeping case temperatures at a lap-happy 36 degrees Celsius, while a 160GB hard drive, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and HDMI (take that, Mini DisplayPort) round out a 4.2 pound, roughly $3000 RMB (about $440) package. Shame it only gets 2 hours of battery life, eh?

Keepin’ it real fake: MacBook Pro knockoff rocks Ion 2, thinks itself fly originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Apr 2010 22:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Valve promised that Steam on Mac would arrive in April. As you’re no doubt aware, April is nearly over. Does that make Steam… vaporware? Not quite. Put away the Caruso sunglasses for two more weeks, because our friends at Joystiq just received a one-line email reading: “Valve today announced the public release of Steam for the Mac is May 12. Please stay tuned for more information.” Oh well — at least you’re not waiting for Steam on Linux, and you can always stock up on Razer peripherals while you endure the delay.

Steam for Mac opens a portal to May 12, steps through originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Apr 2010 20:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Valve’s Steam software distribution software has finally gotten a release date, and it’s just two weeks away. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20003832-248.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Web Crawler/a/p

The nation’s largest wireless provider appears ready to add another powerful handset to its Android lineup. Featuring a 1GHz processor and sliding QWERTY keyboard, the LG Ally should appeal to many. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-19736_1-10473884-251.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Android Atlas/a/p