Hasta La Gadget!

Over in Berlin at IFA 2012, the folks at Acer have revealed their next-generation Ultrabook lineup by the name of Aspire M3 touch. This lineup improves on their Ultrabook offerings thus far with a 10-point touch display optimized for Windows 8. The Acer Aspire M3 touch is just 22mm thin and weighs in at 2.3kg, toting with it a frameless 15.6-inch display with full touch capabilities.

Inside you’ll find a next-generation NVIDIA GeForce GT640M GPU, the first in an Acer Ultrabook, and a 3rd Generation Intel Core processor besides. You’ll also get Dolby Home Theater v4 audio enhancements working with what Acer calls “premium” speakers – hard hits and big beats on the way! This unit also has battery power that Acer rates at a full day of productivity and entertainment unplugged.

The Aspire M3 touch has a lovely dark casing made of aluminum alloy and works with a chiclet keyboard including full QWERTY and numeric keypad as well. You’ve got an oversized touchpad for precision control aside from your touchscreen, and the whole device is, again, so thin that you’ll want to bring it everywhere. This unit works with Acer Instant Connect so you can reconnect to access points you’ve got saved up in just 2.5 seconds, and Acer Green Instant-On so you can resume from sleep mode in 1.5 seconds.

This unit is one of several revealed – or presented again – at IFA 2012 in Berlin. Have a peek at our Acer tag portal as well as our portal for IFA and stay tuned as the devices keep popping up left and right! ALSO NOTE: Pricing and availability have not yet been announced, but we’ll have it all up for you soon as we can!

Acer Aspire M3 touch Ultrabook hits Windows 8 arena is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It appears that Lenovo has decided to take the idea that ultra-thin computers cannot have a disk drive and throw it out the window with their newest Ultrabook, the IdeaPad U510 – and it’s got Windows 8, too! This machine comes in at 0.83-inches thin and has a 15.6-inch HD display along with a full keyboard and – yes indeed – an internal DVD reader/writer and Blu-ray Disc drive that pops out to accept your disks whenever you need it. The U510 will be appearing with a range of colors for its exterior and a fully metallic feel – with real metal!

This unit weighs in at 2.2kg – thats about 4.85 pounds – and is 21mm thick (that’s 0.83 inches, once again), meaning this device is certainly mobile for how powerful it is. Inside you’ll find an Ivy Bridge (3rd Gen) Intel Core i7 processor (if you so choose) as well as either Genuine Windows 8 or Genuine Windows 8 Pro right out of the box. This unit’s display is 1366 x 768 pixels sharp and has a 16:9 aspect ratio as well.

Graphics on the IdeaPad U510 are made possible with NVIDIA GeForce 625M 1GB under the hood, and your memory is going to be ringing up to 8GB HDD storage — 1333/1600 Mhz memory [2 SODIMM slots (1x2GB/2x2GB/1x4GB/1x2GB+1x4GB/2x4GB)]. Right alongside you’ll see your disk drive working with up to 500GB HDD storage – [500GB/750GB/1TB (5400rpm)]; 24/32GB SSD1 cache. For audio you’ve got integrated stereo speakers, two of them at 2W with Dolby Home Theater v4 action backing you up on the inside.

You’ll be working with wi-fi connectivity, 10/100M LAN (RJ-45 connector connected), VGA out, and optional Bluetooth 4.0. Along the sides as well are 2 USB 2.0 ports, 1 USB 3.0 port, HDMI out, memory card reader that works with SD and MMC, and a 1/8-inch Stereo Headphone Output & Microphone input combo jack. Lenovo notes that inside you’ll have OneKey Recovery software for easy data backup and recovery as well as remote disable.

Also integrated in the U510 is the ability to wake this Ultrabook up from Sleep mode in just over a second. There’s a front-facing 720p webcam for video chat with software right inside the OS when you start it up – Youcam and Skype amongst them. Also inside are McAfee, Lenovo Support Energy Management to keep you running strong without eating your battery like a pig, and Microsoft Office (everywhere except Japan).

The IdeaPad U510 will be available inside September 2012 starting at US $679 – go grab it! And also stick around for the rest of the Windows 8 wave and Lenovo‘s full IFA 2012 offering too!

Lenovo IdeaPad U510 Ultrabook brings disk tray to the show is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week the folks at MAINGEAR have let it be known that they’re bringing on the NVIDIA Kepler excellence with the GeForce GTX Ti graphics solution to their line of custom built PCs. You’ll be able to work NVIDIA GeForce architecture for fabulous graphics here with MAINGEAR without dropping tons of cash, both companies aims here being a “sweet spot” for affordability, performance, and power efficiency. In addition to the GeForce GTX 660 Ti coming to the MAINGEAR custom desktop lineup, the whole NVIDIA Kepler family will be joining the party as well – immediately if not soon!

The MAINGEAR custom desktop line will benefit from the Kepler family right out of the gate and there’s a couple of limited edition units coming here in the summer season as well. MAINGEAR is bringing on a limited F131 and Potenza class system, each of them with the 660 Ti for gaming action, and both of them coming on with the next-level beast of a game Borderlands 2 included. Check out more info on these limited edition setups on the GTX 660 Ti MAINGEAR page right this minute. The Potenza Limited Edition model with Borderlands 2 will cost you a cool $1199 while the F131 Limited Edition model with Borderlands 2 will bring you up to $1379 – they’re both ready to rock!

MAINGEAR notes that NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 660 Ti will bring on 1.5x faster performance than the generation that precedes it – the GTX 560 Ti. This same comparison has the new 660 working at 2x better power efficiency as well. With this solution you’ve got TXAA temporal antialiasing for fabulous performance and image quality no matter what game you’re attacking. You’ve also got NVIDIA PhysX as well as Full Direct X11 support for “the best gaming experience possible”.

And we’ll see about that when we have a full look at one of these units next week – meanwhile, you’ll want to have a peek at recent bits of news surrounding the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti in the timeline below [DEVELOPING]. And let us know if you plan to upgrade to this new gear in the near future!

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti graphics hit MAINGEAR custom PCs is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Eurocom has carved out a strange but soft spot in our hearts for its desktop replacement-level laptops — the insistence on overkill hardware leaves even the vaguely ultraportable Monster packing the kind of power reserved for larger-screened (if also much thinner) counterparts. Nowhere is that too-much-is-never-enough attitude truer than in the just-launched, 17.3-inch Scorpius. While supporting up to 32GB of RAM isn’t unique anymore, the Scorpius can optionally carry two of NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 680M graphics chips with the full 4GB of video RAM per piece. That’s more graphics memory than the total system memory of some entire PCs, folks. Eurocom can optionally slot in two of AMD’s Radeon HD 7970M or step down to a single graphics core, and the usual bevy of processor and storage choices culminates in as much as a quad 2.9GHz Core i7 and four drives. The lowest price that will net a fully functioning Scorpius is $1,793, although we’ll admit that it’s very tempting to pick that dual 680M option and come out with a $2,857 bill — not to mention some serious bragging rights with the gamer crowd.

Continue reading Eurocom intros powerhouse Scorpius laptop, touts more video memory than most desktops

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops

Eurocom intros powerhouse Scorpius laptop, touts more video memory than most desktops originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Aug 2012 21:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Can’t help salivating over gaming setups with three screens? The Tech Report knows your hunger, and aims to satiate your cravings with a detailed look at the triple-display efforts of Gigabyte’s GeForce GTX 680 OC and ASUS’ Radeon HD 7970 DirectCU II Top. The high-end GPUs ran Battlefield 3, Arkham City, Rage and a few other games through the wringer — competing on temperature, game performance, noise level and more — outputting each title in a glorious extra-wide resolution, with a few quirks on the side. The Tech Report emerged from the gauntlet reluctant to relinquish its additional displays, extolling the trial as the first “next-generation gaming experience” they’ve had in a while. What’s this mean for you? The author sums it up nicely: “In a few short years, surround gaming has gone from being somewhat of an exotic luxury to something far more attainable.” If snagging a multi-panel gaming setup is your goal, venture on to the source below where an unabridged, 11-page breakdown awaits.

Filed under: Desktops, Displays, Gaming

Triple-screen gaming setups put under the microscope, deemed an attainable luxury originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Jul 2012 06:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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