Hasta La Gadget!

Dell has outed a range of new Precision mobile workstations, billed as the world’s most powerful and yet delivering all-day battery life and slotting into the 17-inch segment which Apple recently abandoned. The new Dell Precision M4700 and M6700 pack 15- and 17-inch displays respectively and use Intel Core i5, i7 and Extreme Edition processors paired with a choice of NVIDIA Quadro K-series and AMD FirePro graphics. Down the line there’ll be optional multitouch, too.

The Precision M6700 uses its extra bulk to accommodate an optional AMD FirePro M6000 with PCIe x16 Gen 3 for even more graphical crunching abilities, while the special Covet Edition optionally adds in a Phoenix Red casing and edge-to-edge Gorilla Glass 2. Both models get the option of NVIDIA Optimus graphics, and RAID 0/1/5 storage with up to 1.8TB of total capacity (spread across three bays) in the M4700 and up to 2.8TB (spread across four bays) in the M6700.

Up to 32GB of 1600MHz DDR3 memory or 16GB of 1866MHz memory can be specified, as well as up to 512GB of SSD storage. Ports include two USB 3.0, two USB 2.0 and one eSATA / USB combo, along with VGA, HDMI and DisplayPort 1.2. There’s also power for up to three simultaneous displays when undocked, or five when docked in a Latitude E-family station.

Screen options include a choice of WLED and IPS RBG LED displays, including some with more than 100 percent Adobe color gamut. The M6700 will also be offered with optional 10+ finger multitouch, though that SKU won’t arrive until a few months time. NVIDIA 3D Vision Pro can be specified for the M6700 as well.

The magnesium alloy and aluminum chassis meet MIL-STD 810G standards, and can be paired with an optional slice-battery for extended runtimes.

The Dell Precision M4700 is priced from $1,649, while the company is asking from $2,199 for the M6700 and from $3,579 for the M6700 Covet. Orders are being taken from today.

Dell Precision M4700 and M6700 mobile workstations bring brute force is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Corning and Samsung were the best of friends well before even the Lotus Glass deal, but the relationship just got a little cozier. The two have agreed to build a plant in China’s industry-heavy Wuxi New District focused on making glass to cover LCD panels in laptops and desktop displays. The roughly $600 million factory will be a major production hub for Samsung, not just an expansion: it’s planning to stop some of its glass production in South Korea and send that work to the new facility when it opens. There won’t even be signatures on the agreement until sometime later this year, so the plant itself is still a distant prospect — but while the two haven’t outlined their exact strategy, the new plant may be the ticket to toughening up that future Series 9 laptop with a touch of Gorilla Glass.

Filed under: Displays, Laptops

Corning and Samsung plan LCD glass plant in China, may toughen up a few laptop screens originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jul 2012 10:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve had an eye on a new Business-focused Dell laptop but wanted to see the inside of one before purchasing, now you can. The company has (prematurely) outed documents for its rumored M4700 and M6700 portables well before they’ve been officially announced. The owners manual for the latter includes detailed teardown information that shows you how to disassemble the unit — much like what we saw for the XPS 13. It’s almost as if Dell knows we’re watching, the naughty tease.

[Thanks, Duy]

Filed under: Laptops

Dell M4700, 6700 documents leak, ruins the surprise for laptop fans originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Jul 2012 10:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP’s new ENVY 4 Ultrabook has landed on the SlashGear test bench this week. Complete with a sleek and impressive design, dual-stereo Beats Audio speakers, and Intel’s 3rd Gen Ivy Bridge dual-core i5 processor. Back in May we received our first glance at the new ENVY Ultrabook, but today we’ve given it another look in a quick hands-on video. More details, pictures, and specs are available after the break.

HP’s new ENVY 4 and 6 Ultrabooks have recently hit the shelves and to start things off we’ve unboxed the ENVY 4, and got our paws all over this new aluminum wrapped laptop. HP’s equipped these new Ultrabooks with a sleek design, impressive power under the hood, and kept them well in range of Intel’s “Ultrabook” standard. Coming in under 4 lbs (3.86 to be exact) and only 0.78″ thick the ENVY 4 is what we’re looking at today so here’s our quick unboxing video:

As you saw from the video above, the specs are rather decent for an $800 machine. You’ll get a clear and vivid 14-inch Brightview LED 1366 x 768 display, 1.7 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (3317U), 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a 500GB HD (no SSD here) 3 USB ports, Ethernet, HDMI, SD slot for storage, integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000, and more.

The build quality for our initial impressions are nice, but certainly no MacBook Air. It’s topped in a midnight black brushed aluminum, and finished with a soft-touch matte coating on the sides and bottom — which nicely fits the Beats Audio red color scheme. All of this comes in under an inch being only 0.78″ thick and weighing less than 4 lbs.

Of course you’ll be running on Windows 7 x64, and you’ll probably want to upgrade to Windows 8 — or will you? The HP ENVY 4 Ultrabook has a nice sleek design, a slim bezel around the 14-inch LED display, a mildly powerful processor under the hood, and we’ll surely be taking it all for a spin in our full review early next week. The lack of an SSD for storage is my only concern compared to the competition, but this does come in at a decent price. Stay tuned and let us know if you have any questions for our full review.

HP ENVY 4 Ultrabook hands-on and unboxing is written by Cory Gunther & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google may have the Nexus 7, Nexus smartphones and Chromebooks, but the company could be working on a hybrid convertible touchscreen notebook if a new patent application is anything to go by. The filing – “Moveable display portion of a computing device” – details a tilting, sliding and potentially even rotating hybrid laptop that could be used as a regular notebook or, after some Transformers-style manipulation, as a touchscreen slate.

Google’s patent suggests that such a design might be useful in a world where the user has a wide array of input and control options to play with. Keyboards, mice, touchscreens and other options are all cited, but “may be cumbersome to use and/or may not produce results at a desirable speed, level of accuracy, and/or with a desired effect.”

To address that, Google’s concept features a screen section that can either be opened up as per a normal notebook or, thanks to a grove either in the edge or top of the lower-half of the computer, pulled forward and then pushed back flat. With a double rail system, the display could be shifted between these two orientations; however, Google also suggests a special hinge and a single grove, allowing the touchscreen to rotate around a point at its corner (as per the top image).

Meanwhile, Google suggests that the software could react to the different orientations of the hardware; so, for instance, the keyboard could be automatically disabled if the display is shifted forward. Alternatively, the touchscreen could be locked if the computer is in notebook orientation.

Now, patent applications don’t necessarily lead to shipping products, but with Google’s Chrome OS and Android Jelly Bean platforms each maturing, a product that could deliver the best of both worlds might be an attractive addition to the Nexus portfolio. More images of the design in the gallery below.

[via PatentBolt]

Google hybrid laptop-tablet patent application hints at next Nexus is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.