Hasta La Gadget!

Nettops have slipped a bit out of vogue, but Shuttle is keeping the flame alive for those who like their desktops tiny and hushed. The XS35V3 and XS35GTA V3 have moved on to more contemporary Cedar Trail-era, 2.13GHz Atom D2700 processors that keep the power draw to a fanless 27W, even when everything is churning at full bore. That limit might get tested with the GTA variant, which brings in Radeon HD 7410M graphics for a lift to 3D performance, but neither mini desktop will exactly make the power company beg for mercy. Either is a barebones kit with the laptop-sized hard drive, optical drive and OS left to the buyer — if you don’t get them at the same time, you’ll have only the HDMI, VGA, USB and card reader to keep you company. Europeans are currently the only ones getting a crack, where it costs €172 pre-tax ($214) for the XS35V3 and €233 ($290) to get its faster GTA cousin.

Shuttle takes quiet nettops down the Cedar Trail, intros XS35V3 and XS35GTA V3 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jun 2012 06:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Panasonic has announced an update to its line of Toughbooks to include Intel’s new Ivy Bridge processors. The Toughbook CF-31 will be available in two configurations, Standard and Performance. The Performance model will come with a Core i5 3360M processor clocked at 2.8Ghz as well as AMD’s Radeon HD 7750M discrete GPU. The notebook can switch between the discrete graphics and Intel’s integrated HD 4000 GPU to balance power versus performance.

The Standard model comes with a Core i5 3320M clocked at 2.6Ghz but relies solely on Intel’s integrated GPU. The CF-31 also comes with low-voltage DDR3 RAM for power efficiency, and hard drives have seen a bump to 500GB as standard with 128/256GB SSD options. Battery life is rated for up to 14.5 hours, and you can purchase a secondary battery pack that will give you another 6.5 hours. Three USB 2.0 ports and a single USB 3.0 port can be found on the laptop, plus HDMI output and a serial port. A configuration slot gives you the option to include an additional LAN, FireWire, or modem ports.

The Toughbook CF-53, meanwhile, comes with a Core i5 3320M processor clocked at 2.6Ghz, Intel’s HD 4000 GPU, and the same 500GB hard drive, although this model has an option for a 512GB SSD. Panasonic say the battery life on the CF-53 l is good for up to 11 hours, and there’s an additional 9 cell battery that can be purchased. Better yet, there’s a Touchscreen model available that boasts 1,000 nits of brightness for outdoor productivity.

Panasonic say that the CF-31 models should be available in July, with the Standard model starting at €3,699 (~$4,600) excluding VAT. The CF-53 will also ship next month for a more reasonable €1,544 ($1,919) excluding VAT.

Panasonic updates Toughbooks with Ivy Bridge is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you’re a fan of Dell’s XPS 13 but want something a little bigger with extra connectivity, the newly announced XPS 14 and 15 might just be for you. Both laptops have seen a redesign that sees the chassis’ making use of aluminium while giving the models a much needed thinner profile, and you can expect to see the latest internals with Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors and optional discrete NVIDIA graphics.

The base model of the XPS 14 will come with a 400-nit brightness 1600×900 display, an Intel Core i5 processor with HD 4000 GPU, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive. Just about everything can be configured, so you can bump the CPU up to a Core i7, the RAM up to 8GB, add in NVIDIA’s GT 630M GPU, and swap out the standard hard drive for a 512GB SSD at the top end. Ports for the laptop includes two USB 3.0, HDMI, DisplayPort, Ethernet, and an SD card slot. Overall thickness isn’t too bad at 0.81-inches, and all in all it weighs around 4.6lbs.

The XPS 15, meanwhile, adds in an optical drive and a few additional ports, but thickness increases to 0.91-inches and weight to 5.79lbs. The base configuration comes with a Core i5 processor, NVIDIA GT 630M GPU, 6GB of RAM, 1920×1080 display and a 500GB hard drive with a DVD optical drive. The maxed out XPS 15 includes a quad-core Core i7 processor, NVIDIA GT 640M graphics, 16GB of RAM, 1TB of storage plus a 128GB mSATA, and a Blu-ray drive.

Both the XPS 14 and 15 are available to order starting from today. The XPS 14 pricing starts from $1,099, while the XPS 15 will start at $1,299. If you spec out both models to their maximum, expect the price to hit a cool $1,999. If you’re in the UK, the XPS 14 starts from £1,049 while the XPS 15 starts at £1,149.

Dell unveils new XPS 14 and XPS 15: Hands-on is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.