Hasta La Gadget!

Voodoo founder Rahul Sood has never shied from controversy — he famously cut a cake with a MacBook Air during his tenure at HP — and today he’s expressing his love for Apple hardware from his pulpit as a Microsoft exec. “Every executive in the PC industry should use an Apple notebook,” Sood tweeted today, implying that they were of higher quality than those that come with Windows by default. That certainly sounds a bit like a shot at Microsoft, but according to ConceivablyTech he may actually be pointing at his former employer HP, as a series of private status updates point to HP’s unwillingness to compete at the high end of the laptop marketplace. “We could have done it – just need a few years of patience, and investment in our tooling/process,” the message reportedly reads, “We really could have done it. […] ‎…especially with webOS, what a combination that would have been.” We’re actually pretty happy with our Envy 14 — lack of Radiance Display aside — but we can’t help wondering if it coulda been a contender with Voodoo DNA on board.

Microsoft’s Rahul Sood says every PC industry exec should use a MacBook originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 17:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on July 09, 2007 by CyberNet.

Modern laptops continue to get more powerful and smaller in size, but we can’t forget about the predecessors that led to the notebooks that we have today. PCWorld put together an article outlining the top-10 most important laptops of all time where they outline the significance of each one. So what laptops made the list?

1. First True Laptop: Epson’s HX-20 (1981)
   This shipped with a flattering 50-hour battery, 614 Hz dual processors, 16K of RAM, and only weighed 3.5lbs! The LCD only showed four-lines of text at a time, which probably made gaming a little difficult.
   
2. First Popular Laptop: Tandy’s TRS-80 Model 100 (1983)
   Used four AA batteries to stretch out 18-hours of battery life, which wasn’t bad for a cost of just $800! There has been no confirmation, but this is supposedly the last system that shipped using code actually written by Bill Gates.
   
3. First Portable PC Running a 386 Processor: Compaq’s Portable 386 (1987)
   If you had the $12,000 to drop on this sucker you would walk away with a 20MHz chick magnet that had the 386 processor in it. Of course you better be in shape to lug this 20lbs machine around.
   
4. First Convertible Tablet: GRiD Systems’ 2260 (1992)
   Looks like Tablet PC’s have been around a little longer than you thought!
   
5. First Thin-and-Light Notebook: DEC’s HiNote Ultra (1994)
   A whopping 4MB of RAM, 340MB hard drive, trackball mouse, Windows 3.11, and just a mere 3.5lbs standing in at an inch thick.
   
6. First Notebook With a Touchpad: Apple’s PowerBook 520 (1994)
   Relief from the trackball mouse initially came from an Apple! I remember getting my hands on a touchpad when they were first developed (it was a Gateway laptop with trackball and touchpad), and my initial thought was how that would be successful. It seemed to be so inconvenient to use until you really started to get used to it.
   
7. First Laptop to Use a Lithium Ion Battery: Toshiba’s Portege T3400 (1995)
   Out with the Nickel-Metal Hydride and in with the Lithium Ion! You no longer had to worry about completely draining the battery because of the "memory effects" that plagued so many people. The introduction of the Lithium Ion battery 12-years ago brought a 4-hour battery life…which isn’t all that different than what we get today.
   
8. First Wireless-Enabled Laptop: Apple’s iBook (1999)
   External wireless cards are virtually non-existent these days since it is built-in to nearly every electronic device we use. I can hardly count all of the times I almost snapped my wireless card off of my laptop since it protruded so much out the side.
   
9. First Gaming Notebook: WidowPC’s Sting 917X2 (2005)
   This dual-core AMD X2 laptop might not be the battery lover you would like, but it sure makes going to LAN parties a little easier. Of course there still isn’t really a laptop that can match the gaming performance of a nice desktop.
   
10. First Serious PC Killer: Apple’s MacBook Pro (2006)
    Now that this can run both Windows and the Mac OS (using Boot Camp), it is quickly becoming the notebook choice for many users.
    

So there you have it…the top 10 most important laptops that have ever been released. For the most part I would say that I agree with them, but what I’m really looking forward to is hearing what you have to say about your experience with the older-generation notebook computers.

Drop a comment below and let us know what your first laptop computer was and what you thought about it!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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You know the routine by now: Apple’s online Store goes down, the Engadget tips inbox explodes with caring netizens informing us of that fact, and a few hours later it sprouts back up with Cupertino’s latest hardware up for sale. We don’t know for a fact that today’s downtime is due to a MacBook Pro refresh, but then we also don’t know for certain that the sun will rise tomorrow. Call it highly informed guesswork.

Apple shutters online store to fill it up with new MacBook Pros originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Feb 2011 05:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know, last week we told you that Lenovo’s ThinkPad X120e wasn’t going to be available until March 8th, but we guess you could call us liars, since the new AMD Zacate-powered, 11.6-inch laptop is up for sale right now on Lenovo’s site. The base model with a 1.5GHz E-240 processor and three-cell battery starts at $399, but if you’re looking to go up to the 1.6GHz E-350 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a six-cell battery — the configuration of our review unit — it’ll set you back $569. According to the system configurator most systems will ship within eight business days. You’ve had a few weeks to decide at this point… so, are you going to get one or what?

Scratch that, the Lenovo ThinkPad X120e is on sale now originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 21:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, it was only about four months ago that Dell released its XPS 14, but unfortunately, those looking to snatch up the Core i5, NVIDIA GeForce 400M-powered laptop today will have a mighty hard time. Some keen-eyed tipsters noticed that Dell’s 14-inch mainstream system was out of stock, and a quick call to one of our friends at Dell confirmed that the smallest version of the series won’t actually be making a comeback. However, that’s not because the system didn’t sell well — Dell maintains that it actually exceeded sales expectations. Considering it was a very aggressively priced rig that doesn’t really surprise us, but why not bring it back? That’s where things get interesting, and we’ll give you Dell’s exact quote on this one…

“With the transition to Sandy Bridge technology, we chose to re-focus our efforts on incorporating this feedback into future thin and light products launching later this year. Stay tuned!”

Yep, it seems like Dell is gearing up to bring some Adamo qualities back in to the XPS brand, which is actually what were told last year when the company killed off the Adamo brand altogether. We’re staying tuned alright!

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Dell XPS 14 discontinued, will be replaced with something thinner and lighter originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Feb 2011 23:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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