Hasta La Gadget!

LAS VEGAS — Asus’s latest 12.1-inch notebook is special not only because a cow died for it. More interesting for gadget geeks, the notebook can hold a solid state drive over half a terabyte large.

Lined with brown leather, the S121 is part of Asus’s high-end line of 12.1-inch notebooks. The notebook, powered by a 1.3GHz Atom processor, normally ships with a hard disk drive, but Asus offers a 512GB SSD as an optional upgrade.

That’s pretty damn huge for solid state. Just a year ago, the industry was barely breaking double digits in terms of gigabyte capacity for solid state drives. The advantage of solid state is there are no moving parts, which thus makes these drives less fragile and more quiet.

Solid state ain’t cheap, though. Taking Apple’s MacBook Air, for example — upgrading from a 120GB hard disk drive to a 128GB solid state drive costs an additional $500.

Asus’s S101 starts at $1,650 with the default configuration. The company didn’t have a price yet for the SSD option, but I’d estimate you’d have to pay at least an extra $700.

The S101 ships end of January.

See Also:

• SanDisk’s Solid State Drives Make Laptops Better, Faster, Stronger …
• Intel Shrinks Solid State Drive for Mini Notebooks

Photo: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com

We’re live at the Dell presser and the Adamo (pronounced uh-dahm-o) is official. The laptop was briefly presented and then whisked off stage without specs or prices. All we know is that it’s crazy thin and represents the new luxury design franchise within Dell’s laptop lineup. More as we get it.

Continue reading Dell’s ultra-thin Adamo laptop set free

Filed under: CES, Laptops

Dell’s ultra-thin Adamo laptop set free originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here in an atypically small press conference in the desert, Dell has just served up its Mini 10 netbook, complete with an “edge-to-edge” 720p 10-inch display, a built-in TV tuner (!), integrated 3G WWAN / GPS, multitouch support and an Atom Z530 CPU. Moreover, you’ll find an “edge-to-edge” keyboard (no wasted space, we guess), a gesture-sensing touchapd and expanded design studio choices. Check another image after the break, but don’t expect any pricing or release information, ’cause Dell ain’t squealing.

Continue reading Dell launches Inspiron Mini 10

Filed under: CES, Laptops

Dell launches Inspiron Mini 10 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 10:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The new version of Ford Sync, introduced this week at CES, isn’t just better Bluetooth and audio. It also represents a cheaper way to get navigation and driving information in your car. And most of all, it’s part of the car technology revolution where electronics trumps mechanical components.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally introduced Sync 3.0 with Traffic, Directions and Information in a keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show yesterday. Sync will include an offboard navigation system that connects to your car via your Sync-connected Bluetooth cellphone and voice (or dashboard) inputs. You request trip directions from a Sync server, it downloads turn-by-turn information, and you navigate via text prompts (no moving map) on the radio display.

There’s also traffic information sent to your cellphone as text messages that can be read aloud by Sync, and the ability to get business information, weather, and sports scores. All this comes free for the first three years of ownership, after which there’s a monthly service charge that Ford says it hasn’t determined yet, or more likely just doesn’t want to discuss. Figure $10-$15 a month.

Your options are pretty wide open when it comes to personal GPS trackers, but Xact Technology is hoping to catch your heart by promising no monthly fees for its XACT | TRAX. Hailed as an ideal solution for keeping tabs on pets, loved ones, movable property, etc., the GPS tracking module relies on a proprietary, web based portal in order to see where your subject is and to set “geo-fences.” Location requests can be sent via the web or SMS, and readouts are provided on an easy-to-read map along with physical address, date and time. Sadly, we’ve no price to share, but at least you can rest assured that the cost of entry is it.

Filed under: CES, GPS

XACT | TRAX personal tracking device requires no monthly subscription originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Jan 2009 09:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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