Hasta La Gadget!

As anticipated, Apple announced an upgrade to its MacBook Air line of notebooks. The signature teardrop design hasn’t changed — the focus of this refresh is in the core of the computer.

This week the folks at NVIDIA have unveiled several high-powered graphics cards to advance the world of desktop gaming, the tiniest of these being the GeForce GTX 700M notebook GPU. A family of four cards is being shown here, each of them with a slightly different build for different kinds of gaming setups. The builds of the devices coming with NVIDIA’s technology inside as part of this next wave of gaming notebooks will be small, too – dashing the past in which “big and heavy” were required in order to have enough power to speak of in a “gaming laptop”.

Each of the cards introduced here in NVIDIA’s new notebook line are, as they say, “Kepler top to bottom.” This means technologies like Boost 2.0, SLI, and top-of-the-line power. NVIDIA is making clear their intent to be part of the world’s most portable gaming notebooks, starting with the Razer Blade, a notebook revealed earlier today packing a GeForce GTX 765M.

The GeForce GTX 765M is a step up from the least powerful of the four cards in this family. Also included is the 760M, 770M, and 780M. The difference between these cards begins with the number of CUDA cores that sit under the hood. While both the 765M and 760M both work with 768 CUDA cores, the 770M starts in with 960 cores, and the 780M sweeps the rest with 1536 cores.

Above you’ll see a break-down of how each of these cards is different from the next: base clock speed, memory and all. You’ll be working with 1080p Ultra settings if you’ve got a 780M working for you, while a 760M will deliver 1080p High – the differences will be slight, but they’ll definitely be there.

These cards will be employing NVIDIA Optimus technology, allowing high performance graphics processing while battery life remains sustained. Optimus was created by NVIDIA at seeing IGPs deliver good battery life while failing to show GPU performance and graphics up to modern standards. With Optimus, NVIDIA is delivering a fully-automated battery optimization system that dynamically switches between the notebook’s IGP and dedicated NVIDIA GPU.

Pricing and release details for the 700M series for notebooks will be appearing soon. Stay tuned as additional notebooks begin to appear with NVIDIA’s next-generation graphics solutions under the hood – you might even be able to fit a gaming notebook in your backpack before summer is over!

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 700M aims to make gaming notebooks powerful and portable is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

HP has officially entered into the Chromebook market with their new $329 Pavilion 14 Chromebook. As a laptop, it doesn’t deviate too far from HP standards, and it still sports the same curves and style that you’d expect out of a laptop from the company. Plus, despite being a Chromebook, it feels more like a traditional Windows laptop with it’s fairly spacious keyboard and trackpad, along with the 14-inch display. However, looks aren’t everything, and it’s the internal hardware and performance that can make or break a notebook. Is the Pavilion 14 worthy of a spot on your college laptop shortlist for the upcoming school year? Let’s find out.

Hardware & Design

The Pavilion 14 — unlike traditional Chromebooks that we’ve seen before — sports a standard laptop design for those that will want something a bit more full-size, but with minimalistic elements. It sports an Intel Celeron processor, which we don’t see too often anymore in laptops, but it’s enough to power a lightweight operating system like Chrome OS. It’s clocked at a mere 1.1GHz, and is paired with 2GB of RAM, along with a 16GB solid state drive, so nothing too spectacular spec-wise, but that was expected.

Essentially, if you didn’t notice the Chrome logo on the top corner of the laptop, you would think it was a regular Windows laptop from the face of it. The whole laptop is plastic-laden, and the top has an incredibly-reflective mirror surface that’s a bit of a fingerprint magnet. Opening up the notebook reveals the standard keyboard and trackpad, which aren’t anything special, but the larger size of the laptop makes for more typing room than what other Chromebooks offer. The trackpad is dimpled, adding a comfortable textured feel to your fingers. Unfortunately, using the trackpad isn’t smooth at all, and the cursor ends up skipping around quite a bit. I ended up having to use a mouse most of the time because I found the trackpad to be pretty intolerable.

Of course, the main seller for the Pavilion 14 is in the name. The laptop has a good-looking 14-inch display, which makes it one of the larger Chromebooks that we’ve seen, but the relatively low 1366×768 resolution leaves a bit to be desired. Then again, this is to be expected in a budget notebook like this. Connection options are a bit ample, however, with three USB 2.0 ports, an SD card reader, combination audio jack, Ethernet, and even a full-size HDMI port. Sadly, no USB 3.0 on this one, but we can’t be too surprised. There’s also no 3G or LTE chip built in, which we’ve seen in a lot of Chromebooks (as constant internet connectivity is vital to the platform), so you’ll end up having to tether to a smartphone to get internet on the go.

Other than that, there’s no optical disc drive, which is completely fine by us, but those wanting the opportunity to access the occasional disc will have to think twice. However, in this day and age, we’d be surprised if anyone actually needed to use a disc, and it certainly makes the entire package much lighter, coming in at a just bit over 3.5 pounds.

Overall, the design of the laptop feels solid for what you’re paying for, but plastic-built laptops will always have a hint of cheapness, and durability is always a concern in this case. The keyboard and trackpad are pretty cheap, but for the price you’re paying, you can’t expect anything too top tier.

Software

We’ve talked about Chrome OS before in past Chromebook reviews, so I won’t go into a lot of redundant details here, but there a few things to note specifically. First off, the Chrome OS install on the Pavilion 14 is mostly stock, with only an “@HP” icon in the app launcher that takes you to the HP registration page for the Chromebook.

If you don’t know a lot about Chrome OS, it’s essentially just a browser, and while it does have a desktop of sorts, there’s no file browser exactly (just a “Downloads” folder and your Google Drive). You can also download apps, but they’re essentially just web apps that appear in the app launcher on the bottom-left. Clicking on one will simply open the web browser to that web app. You can pin apps to the “dock” of sorts, similar to pinning programs to the taskbar in Windows, and the bottom-right corner is where you can access settings, as well as toggle the WiFi and adjust the volume.

Performance & Battery

It’s hard to judge Chrome OS performance using pure numbers, as you can’t really run benchmarks, so we simply had to base the speed of the laptop on how fast apps opened and whether or not we experienced any significant lag while playing around with the Pavilion 14. Indeed, despite the slow Celeron processor, Chrome OS performed as we expected, and boot-up and shutdown times were extremely speedy. It wasn’t necessarily an instant-on type of boot-up, but it almost felt like an older computer waking up from sleep, taking about five or so seconds to get to the desktop. Shutting down was even a bit quicker, taking only about three seconds to go completely black.

One feature that may bother some users is that when you open the lid, the laptop will automatically turn on. Obviously, this feature will prevent you from having to press the power button, thus saving an extra step, but it was a bit cumbersome when I wanted to open up the laptop to show off the keyboard or trackpad to someone without having the whole thing boot up. I haven’t found a setting that will disable this feature either.

As for battery, HP claims that the Pavilion 14 can last for up to 4 hours and 15 minutes on a single charge, which isn’t very long at all, especially for such a low-powered machine. However, we were getting closer to five hours with light web browsing. Obviously, though, streaming any kind of video on YouTube or Netflix will see the battery life diminish quite a bit (about three hours in our testing), but that’s definitely to be expected. Sadly, though, we were hoping to get at least six or seven hours out of the battery during light use at least, especially since it’s a larger laptop with room for a bigger battery than most Chromebooks, so we were still a bit disappointed to only get five hours, despite exceeding HP’s own battery ratings.

It’s also important to note that even turning off the power completely and closing the lid for overnight storage still eats away at battery life from what we’ve found. We stopped playing around with the laptop for the night when it had around 82% left in the battery. We made sure to completely shut it down for the night, but when we booted it up in the morning, we noticed the battery was mysteriously drained to 72%, hinting to the possibility that the Chromebook actually doesn’t shut down completely without taking the battery out, probably to make sure it boots up quickly without hesitation.

Wrap-Up

The HP Pavilion 14 is the company’s first stab at a Chromebook, and instead of just mostly copying what Samsung and Acer have done with their Chromebook options, HP made a one-of-a-kind option, with the minimalistic performance and operating system mixed with the look and feel of a standard Windows laptop. However, this isn’t the notebook for everyone. Chrome OS is a very niche operating system, and it’s really only suited for casual users who surf the web, check email, stream media, etc. The Pavilion 14 isn’t the cheapest Chromebook option, but the larger 14-inch display is the real kicker here, and it’s perfect for those that want a lightweight OS in a slightly larger package.

HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook Review is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

HP has a lot of laptops these days, and they all have their own unique look, but the company never really has had a signature style these past few years. However, they refreshed their line of desktops and laptops today for 2013, and while school just let out for the summer, it’s never to late to begin shopping for a college laptop for the fall.

One of the most notable new products arriving for the summer is the Envy 14 TouchSmart Ultrabook, which comes with a 14-inch display at 1366×768 by default, but can be immediately upgraded to a more feasible 1600×900. Furthermore, though, you’ll be able to upgrade to a whopping 3200×1800 resolution sometime this summer, all of which is touchscreen-equipped.

The laptop has a modest starting price of $699, but that won’t get you the high-resolution display sadly — you’ll most likely have to hand over more cash in order to enjoy the 3200×1800 resolution. There’s no word on what hardware the new laptop is running, but we’re guessing Intel’s new Haswell architecture is tucked neatly inside, waiting for an official unveil next month during Computex.

The New Envy 14 TouchSmart looks to take on Google’s Chromebook Pixel and Apple’s MacBook Pro Retina-equipped laptops. However, Samsung is also in the running, as they recently announced a laptop of their own that packs a 3200×1800 display. What we once thought was insanely high-res, is now playing catch-up with HP and Samsung. Who would’ve thought?

HP also showed off their other refreshed laptops, such as 15-inch and 17-inch variants of the Envy line, as well as new Pavilion 11-, 14-, 15-, and 17-inch laptops that include a mixture of Intel and AMD processors, as well as NVIDIA mobile graphics. Furthermore, the company added on five new desktops that pack Intel’s new Haswell chips. You can grab one for as low as $289 for the HP 110, although you’ll have to cough up more for a robust machine.

VIA: Engadget

HP Envy 14 TouchSmart Ultrabook packs a 3200×1800 display is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Lenovo‘s long-awaited IdeaPad Yoga 11S is finally about to make its store debut. The 11-inch convertible laptop, which was announced at CES 2013 back in January, now has a release date of June 23 and pre-orders are live starting today on Lenovo’s website, as well as at Best Buy. If you like the Yoga series, but want it in a more compact form factor, this is probably your best bet.

The Yoga 11S essentially takes the small form factor of the Yoga 11 (which we reviewed), and blends it with the performance of the Yoga 13, offering faster hardware on the inside that makes it a bit speedier than the regular Yoga 11. And of course, it comes with the same 360-degree hinge action that lets you use the device as a tablet of sorts.

Lenovo’s website has the Yoga 11S packing a 1.4GHz Intel Core i3 processor with 4GB of RAM and a 128GB solid state drive for $800, while Best Buy has a bit of a better deal with a 1.5GHz Core i5 chip on the inside at the same price. You probably won’t notice too much of a difference, but if you’re all about specs, it seems the Best Buy deal is the better grab.

As for the display, the Yoga 11S has the same 11.6-inch HD IPS screen that the regular Yoga 11 has, along with 10-finger touch support. Best Buy will have the Yoga 11S available starting on June 23, while Lenovo’s website lists a ship date of “more than 4 weeks,” which will roughly get us to late June for possibly a tandem release with Best Buy.

We ended up getting our hands on with the Yoga 11S during CES 2013 back in January, and we also reviewed the regular Yoga 11. Indeed, there is a slight performance boost with the Yoga 11S, but the Yoga 11 is working with the nifty Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core processor, which packs quite a punch for a convertible laptop like this.

VIA: Windows Experience Blog

SOURCE: Lenovo and Best Buy

Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11S coming next month, pre-orders now live is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.