Hasta La Gadget!

Google’s Chromebooks are now being used in 22-percent of all K through 12 school districts in the United States, according to Google’s Vice President of Product Management for Chromebook Caesar Sengupta. Likewise, Chromebooks now represent 3-percent of the back to school PC market share, having achieved that figure in a one year time span, something […]

Dell’s XPS 11 might be all new and foldable, but the company hasn’t forgotten its old workhorses, the XPS 13 and 15, both of which are receiving refreshes. Having already received a sharper display option earlier this year, the XPS 13 is now getting a 1080p touchscreen covered in Gorilla Glass NBT. And — surprise, surprise — Intel’s Haswell processors (Core i3 / i5 / i7) are now part of the package, with battery life rated at up to 10 hours. As you’d expect too, the graphics have also received a bump: moving to Haswell also means stepping up to Intel’s HD 4400 chipset.

The XPS 15 (pictured above) has received an even more dramatic upgrade: it now sports a seriously pixel-dense 3,200 x 1,800 touch display “based on IGZO technology.” You have the option of either Core i5 or i7 Haswell chips, “next-gen” NVIDIA graphics and up to 1TB of hard drive space, along with a 32GB SSD. You could just opt for a single 512GB solid-state drive instead, budget permitting, and you’ll also have a choice of “voice and NFC options” (not that Dell was very specific about the voice part). The XPS 15 will arrive first, on October 15th, with a starting price of $1,500 (hey, 3,200 x 1,800 displays don’t come cheap). If it’s the XPS 13 you’re after, that will go on sale sometime in November, starting at $1,000.

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Dana Wollman contributed to this report.

Filed under: Laptops, Dell

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If you’ve been actively waiting to pre-order a brand new operating system on DVD, then a) We’re glad this article found you, and b) You might be gratified to hear that boxed copies of Windows 8.1 are currently available to purchase at the source link, for delivery on October 17th. Unlike Windows 8.0, which came with all manner of introductory deals and discounts, pre-ordering 8.1 on DVD will set you back the regular, final price of $119. Of course, if you’re already running Windows 8, your resurrected Start button will be offered as a free-of-charge download on the same day as everyone else.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Software

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Source: Microsoft Store

It was just two weeks ago that HP spat out a bunch of new consumer laptops ahead of the holiday shopping season. Now that those products are official, HP is shifting its attention to business customers: the company just unveiled five corporate-friendly notebooks, two of which qualify as Ultrabooks. Starting with the outfit’s higher-end EliteBook line, we’ve got three models: the 12-inch 820, the 14-inch 840 and the 15-inch 850. Like previous generations of EliteBooks, they meet the military’s MIL-SPEC-810G standards for ruggedness, but this time, they’re 40 percent thinner and 28 percent lighter. Across the board, you’re looking at magnesium lids, which have been painted with four coats of paint to minimize scratches; the keyboard deck, meanwhile, is made of aluminum. Speaking of the keyboard area, all three models sport backlit keys, with a special finish applied to the buttons to help keep them fresh over the three-year warranty period.

Interestingly, battery life is the same on all units (up to 12 hours), though the 14-incher, specifically, can be paired with an optional slice battery for a total of 33 hours of juice. On the inside, all of them run Haswell processors, as you’d imagine, though only the 840 and 850 meet Intel’s Ultrabook specification. Once it comes time for your IT guy to configure this, he can get any of the three machines with an optional touchscreen, along with an LTE radio and either an SSD, HDD or hybrid hard drive. As for IT support, these are vPro CPUs, as you’d expect, and there’s also TPM on board for added security. Additionally, as on previous models, the entire back shell is removable with a single latch, making it easy to swap out components. Finally, HP included an all-important Ethernet jack, complete with a drop-down jaw, along with a SmartCard reader, docking connector and legacy VGA port. All are available today with pricing as follows: the 12-inch 820 starts at $859, the 840 goes from $799 ($949 with a touchscreen), and the 850 costs $939.

Filed under: Laptops, HP

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We get it. By day, you’re zooming between meetings with your tie done up to 11, but your evenings? That’s when you get some serious fragging done. Always eager to help, MSI is launching the GP series, which tucks a SteelSeries gaming keyboard and some serious hardware beneath an austere chassis. Users have a choice between the GP60, a 15.6-inch unit, or the GP70, which has a 17.3-inch display. Internals-wise, there’s a choice between a Core i5-4200M or a Core i7-4700MQ, which has been paired with NVIDIA’s GeForce GT740M and 8GB DDR3 RAM. The base model will set you back $900, but if you’ve got a particularly generous boss, you can grab the Core i7 model with a 1,920 x 1,080 display for $1,050.

Filed under: Laptops

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