Hasta La Gadget!

Who’s up for some more Intel roadmap rumoring? The latest scuttlebutt from “notebook players” over in the far East is that the chip giant has finally settled on names, speeds, and prices for its first three Arrandale CPUs, which are expected to arrive in the first half of 2010. The Core i5-520UM and Core i7-620UM both run at 1.06GHz, while the top Core i7-640UM model speeds ahead at 1.2GHz, with bulk-buying prices of $241, $278, and $305 per unit of each processor. Even if the processing speeds might not impress on paper, these 32nm chips splice two processing cores, the memory controller, and graphics engine all into the same package and thereby deliver major power savings. Platform pricing is expected to remain at around $500 for netbooks, while the ultrathins these chips are intended for should hit the $600 to $800 range… if Lord Intel wills it so.

Filed under: Laptops

Intel Arrandale chips detailed, priced and dated? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s hoping you held off on purchasing that Core 2 Duo G51 just a few months ago, ’cause ASUS has just pushed out the exact same laptop with a Core i7 within and a price tag that’s $200 skimpier. The G51J-A1 was launched alongside Windows 7, and the crew over at Hot Hardware managed to toss it on the test bench to find out what kind of gains could be expected when going from Intel’s last-gen CPU to the newly-announced Core i7-720QM. The long and short of it is this: the new CPU enabled this machine to smoke the C2D sibling in every test, with graphical performance being nothing short of astounding. ‘Course, the omission of a Blu-ray drive was somewhat of a bummer, but for just $1,499, it’s not like we really expected one to be included. Hit the read link for the full skinny, but only if you’ve got some disposable income that you don’t mind parting with.

Filed under: Laptops

ASUS’ $1,500 Core i7-equipped G51J gaming laptop gets reviewed originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Intel P55 Express chipset snafu that caused iPhones to lose their syncing minds has now been remedied — at least by one motherboard maker. Gigabyte has issued a BIOS update making things all hunky-dory between the phone and the mobo, putting your troubles to an end. The P55 is Intel’s latest midrange chipset and orchestrates things for newer Core i5 / i7 machines. The other two P55 purveyors, ASUS and MSI, were also caught by the bug, and there are anecdotal reports of success with an ASUS BIOS update, but not official fixes as of yet. Given the competitive nature of this market, though, we’d be surprised if those two companies didn’t quickly follow suit. All’s well that ends well, right?

Read – Gigabyte Beta BIOS download page
Read – Update fixes iPhone sync problem

Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops

Gigabyte fixes iPhone sync issue with BIOS update originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You’d think you’ve seen all the Windows 7 holiday laptops to last you through this yuletide season, but in comes Acer with another offering, the Core i7-packing Aspire 8940. The 18.4-inch 1080p widescreen monitor brings with it a NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250M, Blu-ray drive, 600GB HDD, and 4GB RAM. Let’s also throw in a webcam, 802.11 a/b/g Draft-N, webcam, multi-card reader, HDMI and eSATA ports and a 8-cell Li-Ion battery for good measure. Quite a hefty number, so expect a little bit of workout if you’re wanting to haul this around. Suggested price is $1,349 and all we know of the release date is “holiday season” so it should be safe to add this to your wishlist.

Filed under: Laptops

Acer wants the Aspire 8940 to be your Core i7-packing portable of choice originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Nov 2009 06:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After months of speculation, Apple has unveiled some completely new iMacs, featuring 21.5-inch and 27-inch 16:9 displays and all-aluminum enclosures. The new widescreen IPS panels are LED-backlit and have 178-degree viewing angles — the 21.5-inch iMac has a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, while the 27-incher comes in at a staggering 2,560 x 1,440. Ports are the same as the outgoing model with the addition of an SD card slot and video-in on the 27-inch (via a special cable), and the wireless keyboard is now standard (as is the all-new Magic Mouse). Pricing tiers haven’t changed much: there’s a low-end $1,199 21.5-inch model with a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics, 4GB of RAM and a 500GB drive, a $1,499 model that bumps things up to 1TB of storage and ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics, while the base 27-inch config starts at $1,699 with the same bumped specs. All of those can be custom-configured with up to a 3.33GHz Core 2 Duo, but it’s the top-end $1,999 27-inch model that’ll bring the real heat when it ships in November; it’s packing a 2.06GHz quad-core Core i5 processor (with a 2.8GHz Core i7 available for $200 more) and Radeon HD 4850 graphics. Not a bad little refresh — but it looks like all you Blu-ray fans are going home alone again. Check the full specs list after the break.

Continue reading iMac line updated with 16:9 displays, quad-core Core i5 / i7 model

Filed under: Desktops

iMac line updated with 16:9 displays, quad-core Core i5 / i7 model originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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