Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re in the market for a laptop that won’t buckle if you start flinging it across the room, Ballmer-style, then Panasonic’s “business ruggedized” Toughbook SX2 might be for you. Resembling one of the company’s Let’s Note units, the 12.1-inch unit boasts of a difficult-to-believe 14.5 hours of battery life, a slim yet sturdy magnesium alloy body and a 3.3 GHz Intel Core i5-3320M Turbo-boosted CPU. It’ll arrive later this month, with the base model making a $2,649 sized hole in your company’s procurement budget — and if you’d like to know more, there’s the obligatory hairy-chested press release after the break.

Continue reading Panasonic releases the Toughbook SX2, a laptop that’ll take no prisoners at the quarterly conference

Filed under: Laptops

Panasonic releases the Toughbook SX2, a laptop that’ll take no prisoners at the quarterly conference originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Oct 2012 18:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Make no mistake, one of the biggest trends you’ll see this fall is PC makers slapping touchscreens on their current machines so as to make them a little more Windows 8-appropriate. And Acer is no exception: the company is introducing touch-enabled versions of its existing Aspire V5 and M5 laptops, both of which will go on sale this month.

Starting with the M5, it’s the touch-enabled version of the M5 Ultrabook we reviewed earlier this year. Though the standard version is available in 14- and 15-inch screen sizes, the touchscreen model (aka the 481PT, pictured above) will only be offered with a 14-inch (1,366 x 768) panel. This, too, has a Core i5 CPU and 6GB of RAM, though its 500GB hard drive is paired with a 20GB SSD for faster boot-ups. Like the non-touch version, it’s rated for eight hours of runtime. Surprisingly, even though it’s classified as an Ultrabook, it manages to make room for an optical drive — impressive, given its 0.81-inch-thick chassis is still relatively slender. Both machines will be sold exclusively at Best Buy in the US, with the regular M5 starting at $700 and that touch-enabled version going for $800.

As for the budget-minded V5 series, the touchscreen will only be offered on the 14-inch version (the V5-471P). Max specs include up to 8GB of RAM and up to 750GB of HDD storage. (Either way, you get a 1,366 x 768 display, a Core i5-3317UB processor and your requisite Intel HD 4000 graphics.) That model starts at $750, though the non-touch models are priced at $500 and up.

Continue reading Acer Aspire V5 and M5 laptops will be available with touchscreens this month

Filed under: Laptops, Acer

Acer Aspire V5 and M5 laptops will be available with touchscreens this month originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Oct 2012 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We don’t often summarize market share in one word, but: ouch. Both Gartner and IDC have trotted out their preliminary estimates for PC market share in the third quarter, and the two agree that this summer was a dire one for the traditional computer. Outside of ASUS and Lenovo, whose price-focused strategies and key acquisitions kept them ahead of rivals, virtually every major vendor saw its PC shipments collapse versus a year ago, often by more than 10 percent. Total worldwide shipments declined by more than 8 percent in either estimate — enough to make a flat second quarter seem rosy by comparison. Lenovo took the top spot in Gartner’s study, although IDC is counting workstations and kept HP in its usual lead.

As for the US, it’s almost better that we don’t look. Gartner and IDC believe that the American market sank by respective 13.8 or 12.4 percent amounts, and the steep global declines repeated themselves in the one country for everyone but Lenovo. Even a market share gain for Apple came only because its shipments dropped at a gentler rate than most of its peers. Whether it’s the US or worldwide, don’t assume that inventory clearances ahead of Windows 8 were the only factors at work, though. Both research teams point to continuing world economic troubles as influences, and IDC contends that buyers are still skipping PCs in favor of smartphones and mobile tablets. There’s often a jump in computer sales between the summer and the fall, especially with a new OS on the way, but we wouldn’t count on a return to the halcyon days.

Continue reading Gartner and IDC: PC shipments tumbled over 8 percent in Q3, only ASUS and Lenovo escaped unhurt

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Apple, Microsoft, ASUS, HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo

Gartner and IDC: PC shipments tumbled over 8 percent in Q3, only ASUS and Lenovo escaped unhurt originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Oct 2012 19:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As we get closer to Windows 8’s October 26th launch, expect the floodgates to open on a barrage of tidbits, insider peeks and revelations. One such early arrival is these four clips, lasting just under a minute, that demonstrate some of the new features that’ll soon arrive on your computer, tablet or hybrid. We’ve included them for you after the break, but be warned — there’s no Alex Clare blasting in the background like those catchy Internet Explorer ads, so we’ll just have to sing it ourselves. On three… “and it feels. like. I. am. just. too. close. to. love. you…”

Update: Looks like all four videos have been pulled. Good thing you only have to wait two weeks or so to view them through more official channels.

Continue reading Four Microsoft Windows 8 demo videos sneak online (update: pulled)

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Tablets, Microsoft

Four Microsoft Windows 8 demo videos sneak online (update: pulled) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Oct 2012 04:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With a couple exceptions, we hadn’t heard much about Lenovo’s Windows 8 plans until now. Okay, it teased the IdeaPad Yoga back at CES, and recently unveiled the business-friendly ThinkPad Tablet 2. But surely the company wasn’t going to stop there, right? Hardly. Lenovo just announced the IdeaTab Lynx, an 11.6-inch laptop / tablet hybrid aimed at mainstream consumers. Like so many other products with this form factor, it runs a dual-core, Clovertrail-based Atom processor, paired with 2GB of RAM and either 32 or 64GB of solid-state storage, depending on the configuration you choose. Unsurprisingly, the detachable keyboard dock has a built-in 6,800mAh battery of its own, which promises to double the tablet’s runtime from eight hours to 16. In this case, though, the machine benefits from Lenovo’s keyboard know-how, so as small as the 1.45-pound dock is, it still offers an AccuType layout similar to what you’d find on Lenovo’s bigger notebooks.

Detach the tablet from its dock and you have a 1.4-pound tablet that measures 9.45mm thick. That 11.6-inch, 400-nit screen is of IPS caliber, so the viewing angles should be decent if you attempt to use it outdoors or watch movies from an odd angle (say, with the screen dipped forward on an airplane tray). Poke around the device and you’ll find micro-USB and micro-HDMI ports, along with a microSD slot for external storage. It also has a 2-megapixel webcam up front for video chatting, though interestingly, there’s no camera module on the back side. The dock, meanwhile, adds two full-sized USB 2.0 ports. According to Lenovo, the Lynx will be available in December, starting at $600 for the standalone tablet. (The keyboard dock will be a $150 add-on.) Until then, we’ve got some early hands-on photos below, along with the usual spate of press shots.

Continue reading Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx: an 11.6-inch Windows 8 hybrid arriving in December for $600 and up

Filed under: Laptops, Tablets, Lenovo

Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx: an 11.6-inch Windows 8 hybrid arriving in December for $600 and up originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Oct 2012 19:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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