Hasta La Gadget!

If you’ve ever read the comments section here at Engadget, you know it’s possible to develop a fanatical attachment to a brand. To a specific product, though? And a laptop, of all things? That’s fairly rare. But the VAIO Z wasn’t a common notebook. For years, it was Sony’s flagship ultraportable, with a featherweight design, top-of-the-line specs and a delicious carbon fiber weave. It was the sort of laptop for which techies happily spent $2,000 — and they were ready to plunk down even more money when a new version came out. Then it was discontinued, only to be replaced by mid-range models with lesser specs. There was a clear hole in Sony’s lineup, and diehards were left disappointed, with no clear upgrade path once it came time to retire the ol’ Z.

In a sense, the Z is still dead: to this day, there is no Z series in Sony’s lineup. But there is the new Pro line, and it more or less picks up where the Z left off. (It takes after the business-friendly S series, too.) Starting at $1,150 and available in 11- and 13-inch sizes, these machines use carbon fiber to achieve an even lighter design (under two pounds for the 11-inch model). Both pack fresh Haswell processors, with 1080p screens, NFC and backlit keyboards all standard. As it happens, we’ve been testing the smaller Pro 11 for almost two weeks, so although Sony just announced these machines to the public, we already have a full suite of impressions, benchmarks and hands-on photos ready to go. Join us after the break to see if this is the Z replacement you’ve been waiting for.

Filed under: Laptops, Sony

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Tablets and ultrabooks are nice because, if for no other reason, of their sheer portability. With that portability comes some trade-offs, however, primarily in how effective they are as a day-in, day-out workstation device for the home or office. That is where docking stations come in, of which Belkin has just announced two – one for tablets, the other for ultrabooks. Both offer dual-video for multiple monitors, as well as a host of ports.

Officially called the Dual Video Docking Stand for Windows 8 tablets and the Dual Video Docking Stand for Ultrabooks, both utilize DisplayLink and a USB 3.0 plug-and-play cable. Belkin is aiming the docking stations at just about anyone who needs to turn their tablet or ultrabook into a workstation, with the company specifically mentioning contractors, professionals, and hot-desk environments.

The Dual Video docking stations – both varieties – offer several peripheral ports, allowing users to connect all of their items to the station itself while having the ultrabook or tablet only being tethered by a simple-to-remove-and-replace USB cable. There are slots for a printer, keyboard, Ethernet, additional USB ports, display ports, and more.

In addition, because having so many devices connected to a central station on your desktop can cause clutter, it also has integrated cable management. The tablet version of the docking station supports all slates running Windows 8 with Atom and Intel core-i processors. The ultrabook docking station, meanwhile, supports Windows XP through Windows 8. Be advised, however, that neither support devices running Windows RT.

There’s no word on pricing or availability yet.

Mobile Trax’ Principal Analyst J. Gerry Purdy, Ph.D., said: “Greater mobility and the need for an improved user experience are increasingly important to organizations that care about worker productivity and its impact on overall efficiency. Belkin has developed an interesting set of docking stands that really optimize the functionality of Ultrabooks, and particularly Windows 8 Tablets, in the business environment. This is a great step forward for mobile computing at the enterprise level.”

Belkin’s dual-video docking stations turn ultrabooks and tablets into workstations is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Dell is taking a low-key approach to Computex this year, with a key product to cut through rivals’ bloated ranges. This time around, it’s the Dell XPS 11, an 11-inch hybrid that’s fronted by a 2,560 x 1,440 touchscreen, and which can fold around fully to make it a tablet. In case you hadn’t spotted it already, it’s something of a riff on Lenovo’s IdeaPad Yoga 11 we played with last April.

Like the Yoga 11, the XPS 11′s raison d’etre is catering to those mobile users who want the tactile convenience of a relatively compact touchscreen form-factor, but who also demand a proper keyboard occasionally. Well, although we say “proper”, in fact Dell has taken some liberties to get around the feeling of a wobby keyboard constantly at your fingers when you’re holding it in tablet mode.

Instead of regular notebook keys, then, the XPS 11 has a flat, touch-sensitive ‘board, which both Engadget and The Verge compare to the TouchType add-on keyboard for Microsoft’s Surface tablet. That means no typing feedback, and Dell also deactivates the keys altogether once you fold the screen more than 180-degrees around.

Dell isn’t confirming final specifications, but the XPS 11 will have an Intel Core i5 Haswell processor – from Intel’s 4th-gen line-up – along with an active stylus for sketching and handwriting recognition; that’ll slot into a holder clipped to the Kensington lock port when not in use. Ports include USB 3.0, Thunderbolt, and an SD card reader, though there’s no telling what RAM, storage, and wireless connectivity will be; Dell will confirm those closer to launch, which is expected sometime around the holidays.

Overall, the final notebook is expected to come in at under 2.5 pounds and be less than 15mm thick, and despite this being a prototype, first impressions on build quality are positive. Carbon fiber and metal abound, and the quality of the screen – particularly its broad viewing angles, with colors staying almost consistently vivid from no matter where you look at the display – also gets the thumbs-up.

We’ll know more when Dell gets a little less tight-lipped closer to the XPS 11′s release.

IMAGE: Engadget

Dell XPS 11 tackles Lenovo Yoga with bendy-flexy ultrabook is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Once upon a time, glass was a fragile thing; now, thanks to toughening tech, ASUS can splash a slab of the stuff across the top of its new Zenbook Infinity notebook. Topped by a sheet of Gorilla Glass 3, the same toughened material as we’re used to seeing fronting smartphones and tablets, the Zenbook Infinity uses that extra rigidity and strength to drop a dress size, metaphorically speaking, and trim things down to just 15.5mm at its thickest.

That’s a roughly 14-percent cut versus the last-generation of Zenbook models, ASUS says, suggesting that the Gorilla Glass 3 treatment isn’t just an aesthetic one. Not to say it needn’t look good, though; ASUS has sandwiched some graphics inside, and the whole thing shimmers and shines like you’d expect a glass lid to.

Inside, and there’s a 13.3-inch display which is also a full touchscreen, for those moments you want to stab at Windows 8. Gorilla Glass 3 gets a second outing around the keyboard area, too, and the keyboard itself squeezes in backlighting.

Underneath meanwhile, there’s one of Intel’s 28W Haswell dualcore processors, while connectivity includes two USB 3.0, a micro-HDMI, and a Mini Display Port. The ultrabook also gets an SD card slot and a headphones socket.

Look at it from the side and you could be forgiven for thinking of a certain Apple ultraportable, with the wedge profile not dissimilar to the MacBook Air. That’s an accusation that is probably going to haunt ASUS to the market and beyond, though it’s worth noting that the company has managed to make a thinner machine than Apple.

The big deciding factor is likely to be pricing, and that – along with when the Zenbook Infinity will reach shelves – is still unclear.

ASUS Zenbook Infinity wraps super-skinny ultrabook in Gorilla Glass 3 is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Gigabyte loves to pull out all the stops at Computex, and this year is no exception: the company just unveiled 11 (mostly) new laptops and tablets. According to a brochure on hand at the computer maker’s demo table, the emphasis is chiefly on slimmer portables with both Haswell-era Core processors and some dedicated graphics firepower. The P34G and P35K Ultrablade models are equally 0.83 inches thick, but pack gaming-friendly GeForce GTX 760M (P34G) and 765M (P35K) video. More pedestrian Ultrabooks get a boost as well: both the touchscreen U24T (pictured above) and the non-touch U24F wield a mid-tier GeForce GT 750M. If you don’t mind bulkier laptops, the Q2546N, Q2556N, U35F, P27K and P27W scale from the GeForce GT 740M through to the GTX 770M while allowing for more storage and Creative Sound Blaster audio tuning.

The tablet updates aren’t nearly as extensive. Most of Gigabyte’s energy centers on the 10-inch Slate S10A, a spin on the S1082 with an AMD Temash-based A4-1200 processor that delivers up to 14 hours of battery life. Other refreshes are even subtler: the 11.6-inch U21M convertible is similar to the U2142, while the dockable S1185 returns virtually unchanged outside from a new Padbook nickname. Release dates and prices aren’t immediately available for any of the new systems, unfortunately, but you can peek at a few of the fresh models in our hands-on photos just below.

Zach Honig and Mat Smith contributed to this report.

Filed under: Laptops, Tablets, AMD, Intel

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