Oct 07

Sony X Series Hands On: It Feels Like Special Effects

Posted in: Laptops, sony, Today's Chili, top, vaio

How light is Sony’s carbon-fiber X Series, the “lightest notebook in the world”? It feels fake, like a trick.

That’s in part, because it is a trick, since it has netbook guts and Sony’s asking you to pay $1300 for it. But, in your hand, it makes you question how skinny is too skinny, how much weightlessness (1.6 pounds of it, to be precise) is an asset before it approaches nothingness. (The fatty VGA port very nearly destroys the illusion, though.) The effect, still, is remarkable, at least at first touch.

Sturdiness? It borders on feeling fragile, but never quite crosses that line. When you try to bend it, you definitely feel like there’s a breaking point that won’t require a ton of additional force on your part.

The keyboard layout is around 90 percent of full sized which is why it feels a little cramped, but I typed better than I expected, honestly, even with its tiny ticky-tacky keys that fit the fingertips of a small child. The multitouch trackpad only supports zoom gestures—no two-finger scrolling—which are janky at best, at least inside of Internet Exploder. (Sub-question: Why can’t PC makers do a decent multitouch trackpad?)

Considering it’s a got 2GHz Atom chip, notching it a 2.4 Windows system rating on the one I messed with, it moved pretty decently, more nimbly than I’d have expected, even with Windows Media Center. This is mostly because of Windows 7 I suspect—with Vista it probably would’ve been tortuous.

Knowing that it’s running Atom inside, when it’s wrapped in feats of material and sensory goodness, definitely creates a sense of ambiguity, like Sony’s repeating the Vaio P all over again. Like it’s special effects. Except that it seems like it sorta kinda works this time, which is the actually weird part.

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Oct 07

Sony VAIO X announced, starts at $1,299

Posted in: breaking news, BreakingNews, laptop, Laptops, notebook, Notebooks, sony, Today's Chili, vaio

Sony’s just started a laptop-oriented event in NYC, but we just got our hands on what look like unpublished web pages for the new VAIO X and VAIO CW and an updated VAIO L machines. All of ’em now run Windows 7, of course, but the big news is apparent confirmation that the VAIO X will indeed have a 2GHz Atom — although it’s listed at a “2GHz Intel Processor,” the 533MHz bus speed also listed pretty much gives it away. And no, you’re not getting an Ion in this deal to make up for that starting $1,300 price tag — it’s Intel GMA500 graphics all the way. You’re also getting an integrated Verizon 3G card and both the standard and extended batteries, however. Still is that insane? It’s probably insane.

We’ll keep you updated as the event goes on, stay with us!

Sony VAIO X announced, starts at $1,299 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 02

Sony outs pink Vaio W, Pocket Reader bundles for Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Posted in: Books, e reader, e-readers, Laptops, netbooks, reader, sony, Today's Chili

Sony’s announced it will support Breast Cancer Awareness month by outing two new bundles — and both of them are super pink. The first bundle will include a Berry Pink 10.5-inch Vaio W with an Intel Atom N280 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive, plus a matching sleeve and mouse. The second bundle will include the special edition Rose Pocket Edition reader with a gold clutch case, plus download codes for four e-books. Sony has said it will donate $110,000 to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation in conjunction with October sales for these bundles. The Vaio W bundle will run you $499, while the reader bundle is $199. Both can be ordered now at Sony Style.

[Via Slashgear]

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Sony outs pink Vaio W, Pocket Reader bundles for Breast Cancer Awareness Month originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sep 29

HP Envy 13 Review: The MacBook Imitated, Not Duplicated

Posted in: HP, Laptops, Notebooks, review, Today's Chili, top

You know what they say about knock offs; they’re never quite as good as the original. But HP’s Envy 13, which is clearly a rip of the 13-inch MacBook Pro (everything down to packaging screams Apple), comes pretty darn close.

It has an über attractive all metal build, compact design and eye-loving screen, and if it weren’t for the high price and its darn touchpad I’d say the MacBook should be scared.

Price

$1,800 (As configured with a 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor SL9600, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 Graphics, 3GB of RAM, 4-cell battery)

I Don’t Want Your Unibody

There is no denying that the HP Envy was built not with the original Voodoo Envy sitting next to it, but with a unibody MacBook to make design comparisons. Being carved out of a solid piece of metal wasn’t the way the Envy wanted to come to life since HP says it is heavier. Instead the 3.7 pound notebook, which is .8 pounds lighter than the 13-inch MacBook Pro, is made of an aluminum and magnesium bonded material. It has rounded edges and feels super solid because the metals are anodized layers deep. The Envy gives the MacBook Pro a good run for its money in terms of build quality, but there are still some areas where it can’t compete with the unibody structure. The bottom of the Envy doesn’t feel as solid and the pressing in on the lid while closed does cause some bend.

The Envy’s lid is metallic brown (it looks charcoal in certain lights) and the edges, brushed silver. Frankly, I could have done without the two-toned color scheme and the dotted etching on the palmrest, but neither detracts from the overall beautiful design of the Envy 13.

A word about how compact the Envy is for a 13-inch notebook: it is .2 inches shorter and thinner than the MacBook Pro. However, that comes with sacrifices. The Envy only has two USB ports and a HDMI port. It lacks an optical drive or an Ethernet port but comes with a USB dongle for the latter.

Head Turning Display

When powered off the 13.1-inch frameless display looks exactly like that found on the MacBook, complete with the silver frame surrounding the black flush bezel. But that all changes when the system is powered on and the 1600×900 resolution LED Infinity WS display is illuminated.

Dubbed the HP Radiance, the 410 nit display has an 82 percent color gamut (versus standard 45-60 percent). Not only are viewing angles good, but colors just pop and are incredibly bright. Compared to the 15-Inch MacBook Pro, the Envy looked crisper and more vivid, though the MacBook looked more natural. While my eyes didn’t hurt after about six hours of consistent use, I was warned that the increased dots per inch could be hard on the eyes over a longer period of time.

FrustraPad

HP stole another card from the MacBook with its multitouch trackpad, which they are calling the ClickPad. I‘d suggest another and more appropriate name: FrustrationPad. The buttons are built into the touchpad. While it works fine as a normal trackpad—the left and right mouse button work just like a normal one—the frustration arrives when you try the gestures.

Unlike the Apple touchpads, you have to activate the gestures by lightly touching two fingers on the pad. (I only learned this from reading the manual.) Once it is cued up, it responds to certain multitouch gestures, like pinching to zoom. Unfortunately, some gestures just seem to confuse the pad and it decides it doesn’t want to respond. Two-finger scrolling is a great example: it took me quite awhile to get the hang of trying to scroll down NYTimes.com, and when I did it was finicky. I missed the MacBook touchpad like a baby misses breast milk. And if you think I am just bad with my fingers, a number of people tried the trackpad and found the same problem. As for the island style keyboard, I love it. If it were only backlit, though, it would be total perfection.

Don’t Wait For Windows

I think instant-on operating systems are a dying fad, but the Envy 13 comes with its own version called HP QuickWeb. It took the system no more than 9 seconds to boot up the Linux environment. It was easy to navigate; I signed onto a Wi-Fi network and surfed to Gizmodo.com within seconds. I also logged into Skype and chatted with a German pal of mine. It is a nice trick but if I can wait another 50 seconds to boot into Windows—it takes the Envy about a minute to boot into Windows 7 Professional—why would anyone need the fairly limiting Web environment?

Internal Power

The HP Envy 13‘s 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor (along with 3GB of RAM) doesn’t quite have as much as power as the MacBook Pro’s 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, but it still keeps up with everyday tasks. When running Firefox with over 10 tabs open, iTunes and TweetDeck the system showed no performance hit.

When adding in playback of No Country For Old Men on Blu-ray (a $250 external Blu-ray optical drive is available) the system seemed to hold up thanks to the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics card. Instead of weaker, integrated graphics, like the 13-inch MacBook Pro’s Nvidia GeForce 9400M, the Envy is outfitted with the discrete ATI GPU. The proof is in the benchmarks: Not only did the Radeon HD 4330 beat out the 9400M on 3DMark06, but it notched better frame rates in Crysis. At higher resolutions the Envy should get about 30 fps, and the MacBook 22.8. On the Envy, you can also turn the discrete graphics off and switch the integrated Intel offering without having to shut down the system to save battery life.

The Envy 13 comes with a 4-cell battery (yes, it is swappable) which ran for about three and a half hours during my everyday usage (running Firefox, Pidgin, TweetDeck and streaming music on Playlist.com). You can order an extra 6-cell battery slice that magnetically clips to the bottom of the notebook, appearing as if it is part of the build. HP says that will add about another 10 hours of runtime.

Verdict

There is no doubt that the starting at $1,700 Envy 13 does some things even better than the $1,200 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro. It has a nicer screen, better graphics performance and a smaller build. However, $500 is quite the premium to pay for a frustrating touchpad, no optical drive and a missing Ethernet port. In fact, you can even snatch up a 15-inch MacBook Pro for the same price which will buy you an extra gig of RAM and more screen real estate. Those lusting after a premium Windows 7 machine will find the Envy 13 to be one of the best out there, but then again, you can always get the real thing for cheaper.

Stunning display


Very compact chassis


External optical drive only


Instant-on pre-boot environment


Drains bank account


Touchpad can be frustrating as hell

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Sep 29

Panasonic adds Windows 7 to laptop line, unveils Let’s Note N8 and S8

Posted in: laptop, Laptops, Panasonic, rugged, Today's Chili, WiMAX

Oy vey! Today must be some industry-wide Windows 7 announcement day, as Panasonic is hot on the heels of Dell and Toshiba with no less than six lappies set to sport Vista’s agile younger sibling. The Let’s Note (ToughBook, to you and us) F8, R8, T8 and W8 models are likely to take on the new OS without alterations to their hardware, but the hot news comes in the form of the brand new N8 and S8. Powered by Core 2 Duo P8700 chips, both machines will come with 12.1-inch WXGA LCD screens, 250GB HDDs, up to 4GB of RAM, WiMAX, WiFi, HDMI and SDHC connectivity. They also share a stonking claim of 16 hours of battery life, and the one feature that distinguishes between them is the internal DVD burner on the S8. All that goodness will be out come October 22, with expected pricing around ¥200,000 (about $2,230) for the N series. You’ll find a gallery of the unveiling event at the Akihabara News link below.

Gallery: Panasonic N8 and S8

[Via Akihabara News]

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Panasonic adds Windows 7 to laptop line, unveils Let’s Note N8 and S8 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 07:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sep 28

Dell Latitude Z Hands On: Kills Cords With Wireless Charging

Posted in: Laptops, Notebooks, Today's Chili, top

Someone at Dell must have tripped over some wires and after cleaning up the bloody gash came up with the $2,000 anti-cord Latitude Z: It has wireless charging and wirelessly connects to displays too.

Like we had heard, Dell made the Latitude Z for the suit wearing, briefcase toting, conference room type. Being .57 inches thin and weighing 4.5 pounds may make it the lightest and thinnest 16-inch notebook ever, but it’s still a full-sized machine. The design itself is a lot nicer than the typical business notebook, though. The soft-touch lid feels nice and the back of the magnesium alloy chassis has angled chrome plated hinges.

Similar to the Palm Pre but on a much bigger scale, the Z has power coils built in to the base of the notebook and so it charges wirelessly, through a magnetic inductive stand that’s an extra $200. Supposedly, it takes the same amount of time to recharge as a normal notebook power cord.

The love for no cords doesn’t stop there. You can also buy the $200 wireless dock and hook up all your peripherals (printer, monitor, mouse, etc.) to it rather than to the computer. It then communicates with the notebook itself which has Ultra Wide Band technology built-in so there is no need to add an extra dongle.

Beyond the love of wireless, there are a few other things that make the Z different from your average laptop. It has Dell’s Latitude-On which gives you access to email and a browser before actually booting into Windows. Lots of laptops have this pre-boot environment now (like the HP Envy 13 and Lenovo S10-2), however, the difference here is that it runs on a different processor. In addition to a Intel ULV processor, the Z has an ARM processor which will boot up the instant-on mode faster and increase battery life. Frankly, I don’t always see the point in these pre-boot environments when you can just wait a few extra minutes to get into Windows but my guess is some find it useful.

And because it seems like every notebook has to have some form of touch capability now, the Z has what Dell calls EdgeTouch. The right screen bezel has an LCD sensor that when tapped brings up shortcuts. Not sure how much the average person will end up using this thing, but it is a neat trick.

That guy that tripped over the wires probably has some sort of unfortunate looking scar, but at least we have the Latitude Z. Sure it will cost you a pretty penny when you add in all the wireless doodads, but it is chock-full of some kick ass tech. [Dell]

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Sep 25

Top 10 Worst Technology Achievements over the last 40 Years

Posted in: Apple, Gadgets, Laptops, Microsoft, Phones, Software, Today's Chili, videos, Windows

This article was written on July 23, 2007 by CyberNet.

Technology is something that has greatly evolved over time, but in order to find the good stuff we had to go through the bad stuff first. Computer World put together a great article today that details what they believe are the 10 biggest technology flops of the past 40 years. So I thought I would take a look at their list and make my own comments…

  1. Apple Newton – This device was created in 1993 as a $700 PDA. The handwriting recognition was awful, and often the aspect of the Newton that people made fun of. One of these bad boys will still run you a few hundred dollars (used) on eBay.
    Apple Newton
  2. DIVX – This is different from "DivX" which many of you know to be the popular video codec. DIVX is an abbreviation for Digital Video Express, which was an attempt by Circuit City to start a new video rental system. Customers would "rent" DIVX discs which they could keep and watch for two days, or pay a continuation fee to keep it longer. After the time was up the customer would just throw the discs away, and as you can imagine this didn’t last long because customers needed "DIVX enhanced DVD players" to watch the movies. Here’s a Circuit City commercial promoting the service:

  3. Dot-bombs – The dot-com bubble could only last so long. One website after another launched in the late 90’s, and as the new millennium hit many of these sites came crashing down. It almost makes me wonder if we’re entering another one of these "bubbles" with all of the Web 2.0 services popping up.
  4. IBM PCjr – This was a personal computer sold between 1984 and 1985, but it had several downfalls. It costed almost $1300 without a monitor, had no hard drive (it used cartridges), and the keyboard was different from what people were used to.
    IBM PCjr
  5. Internet Currency – This was started by sites like Flooz and Beenz with hopes of creating a type of money that could be used only on the Internet (much like frequent flier miles or gift cards). Um, yeah, we can just use credit cards to buy things online.
    Flooz
  6. Iridium – Motorola provided the technology and financial backing to launch 66 satellites into space to be used for voice and data communications. To make a call you would have to fork out between $3 and $14 per minute on one of the brick-sized phones. Try putting one of these in your pocket: :)
    Iridium
  7. Microsoft Bob – This is often considered to be one of the worst products ever created, and all it was intended to do was add a familiar interface on top of Windows 3.11. The problem was that cartoonish rooms were created for users to group applications and tasks, and it essentially made you feel like you were a two-year old trying to learn how to use the computer. Microsoft Bob is still floating around the file sharing networks, and is even said to run on Windows XP, but this gallery should be enough to keep you satisfied.
    Microsoft Bob
  8. Net PC – CNet covered the original announcement on these computers back in 1997, and said "Net PCs typically will have no floppy disk drive or expansion slots. Promoted by Microsoft, Intel, and Compaq, among others, the systems are supposed to reduce ownership cost for companies that currently use networked PCs. They will purportedly allow IS staff to maintain and update desktops from the center of the corporate network, instead of visiting each PC."
  9. Paperless Office – The dream that everything we read, send, and share is done only in a digital format does not appear to be true quite yet. A study by MIT Press in 2002 even said that email causes a 40% increase in paper use for most organizations. Sure we keep putting more and more things in a digital format (especially books), but we’re not ditching the paper copies quite yet.
  10. Virtual Reality – Being able to throw yourself into a game, or visit a place that you’ve never been to all in the comfort of your own house is an appealing idea. For some reason it hasn’t really taken off, but maybe some day it will be as good as this demo:

So those are the top 10 technology achievements that Computer World says are the worst from the last 40-years. It took me awhile to find interesting videos or images for each one, but it was fun writing this and taking a look back at how far we have come.

Drop us a comment below saying what you think is the worst gadget or application ever developed. It can be one that is on this list, or it can be something that just popped into your head. I can’t wait to hear what everyone comes up with!

For another interesting list read about the top 10 most important laptops

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Sep 16

Haiku Alpha 1 available now: BeOS lovers of the world rejoice

Posted in: desktops, Laptops, operating system, OperatingSystem, Today's Chili

A mere eight years in the making, the Haiku Project has announced the release of Haiku R1/Alpha 1, the first official development release of the low footprint open source OS formerly known as OpenBeOS. Since it’s an alpha release, you’ll be expected to do your part identifying bugs and reporting glitches and the like — but here’s hoping that they at least got Firefox to run in relative stability this time ’round. We know you’re too damned giddy at the prospect of installing this thing on your netbook for any more of our prattle, so why don’t you just hit the read link and get started, then?

[Thanks, Hawkje]

Continue reading Haiku Alpha 1 available now: BeOS lovers of the world rejoice

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Haiku Alpha 1 available now: BeOS lovers of the world rejoice originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sep 14

HP Envy Hands On: MacBook Pro Clone Better Than the Real Thing?

Posted in: HP, Laptops, macbook pro, Notebooks, Today's Chili, top

It looks like a MacBook Pro. It feels like a MacBook Pro—aluminum body, chiclet keys, even a buttonless trackpad. But the Envy’s got an HP logo etched onto its lid. And it might just be better.

Don’t act surprised that the Envy 13 and 15 have chiclet keyboards and buttonless multitouch trackpads because HP certainly isn’t hiding the fact that they absolutely stole their look and ergonomics from the Macbook Pros. The $1,700 13-inch Envy isn’t as powerful as the $1,800 Envy 15‘s mobile Core i7 processor, but it’s more like a MacBook Air at just over 3 pounds, and its beautiful screen has been in my dreams. Neither are as strong as the MacBook Pro’s unibody though—they’re a bit more flexy, but if unibodies rated a 9, these would be a 7 or 8.

Envy 13
The Envy 13 is almost more Air than Pro, at .8-inches thin and 3.74 pounds. (The Air is .76 inches thick and weighs 3 pounds.) Its screen, framed by the same style glossy black bezel as the unibody MacBook family, is absolutely stunning. Dubbed HP Radiance, the 410-nit display is apparently two times as bright as other LED displays and it looks it. Apple doesn’t list the MacBook Pro’s display brightness in nits, but the Envy’s display definitely looked brighter and clearer.

It pulls the dual processor trick the 13-inch Pros don’t, with switchable ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics and an Intel ultra low voltage Core 2 Duo processor inside. Its removeable battery promises 7 hours of battery life, however its add-on extra battery is sweet: It magnetically clips to the bottom of the notebook to make it look like it is part of the actual build. HP promises 18 hours of juice with that thing clipped on. Did I mention it has Dr. Dre’s fingers all over it with Beats Audio integration?

Envy 15
Where the Envy 13 leaves off in performance the Envy 15 picks up. The 15.6-inch version looks pretty similar to the 13, but is laser etched all around (on the palmrest and the lid) and lacks the flush glass display with the high-quality Radiance technology. But it’ll outperform pretty much any other laptop out there so far, since it’ll have Intel’s next generation mobileCore i7 processors, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830 graphics and support for up to 16GB of RAM. The beast will also have two hard drive bays, which you can fill with SSDs. But it’s still only an inch thick and 5.18 pounds, making it that much more impressive.

Both will be available on October 15, though it’s probably worth waiting the extra week for Windows 7.

HP Redefines the Premium Notebook PC with ENVY
Precision-crafted, high-performance notebooks are bright, thin,deliver superb experience

PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 15, 2009 – HP today redefines the premium notebook PC experience with the introduction of the HP ENVY sub-brand, which offers customers precision-crafted, high-performance models featuring HP Metal Etching and concierge service and support.

The new HP ENVY 13 boasts the brightest display in its class, and the HP ENVY 15 is the company’s fastest consumer notebook PC ever. “HP ENVY includes the latest in materials and technology inside and out and pushes the technological and performance boundaries of what can be done in sleek, powerful and lightweight notebook PCs,” said Ted Clark, senior vice president and general manager, Notebook Global Business Unit, Personal Systems Group, HP. “Discerning consumers will get a premium experience and performance.”

With HP ENVY, the focus is on designing an entire premium experience to satisfy the most demanding customers – from the products to the packaging to the service and support.

Breakthrough HP Metal Etching on the lid and palmrest of the ENVY 15, and on the palmrest of the ENVY 13, subtly signals luxury. The combination of materials provides exceptional mobility and a compelling metal look and feel, while
using energy-responsible manufacturing methods.

The HP ENVY line – building upon the Voodoo ENVY legacy – includes leadingedge components optimized to yield power and performance. HP partnered with Beats by Dr. Dre to develop a unique, high-performance subsystem tuned
for today’s music and available exclusively on the HP Envy: Beats Audio. Envy users will feel the music – not just listen – and enjoy music the way the artist intended.

The lightweight heavyweight: ENVY 13
The ENVY 13 balances style and substance. Carefully crafted details inside and out will satisfy the cravings of demanding mobile customers.

The HP Radiance display is twice as bright as other notebook displays in its class – 410 nit (a measurement of display brightness) – and provides an exceptional movie and photo experience, even in high ambient light conditions. With 82
percent color gamut (versus standard 45-60 percent), photos appear richer with amazing color depth. Additionally, with fast 8-millisecond response time, customers can view movies with TV-like performance.

The ENVY 13’s strong performance is delivered in a small frame – less than an inch thin and weighing 3.74 pounds.(1) The exterior’s aluminum and magnesium construction provides durability in a sleek design. An etched-metal palmrest
further sets the PC apart from others, and a VGA webcam(3) optimized for low light also is included.

HP placed the same focus on design into its optional Slim Fit Extended-Life Notebook Battery. Taking the form of a “slice,” it preserves the sleek look of the ENVY 13 while giving users up to 18 hours of battery life with the extended-life battery.(2) The standard battery is user-replaceable. ATI Switchable Graphics technology dynamically switches between ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4330 discrete graphics and the Intel® integrated graphics processor for either high-powered graphics processing or low power consumption for long battery life without booting the notebook. The Intel Core™ 2 Duo processor provides the power of dual processor cores while delivering extended battery life when the notebook is unplugged.

Designed with the most demanding mobile user in mind, the ENVY 13 notebook’s premium AC adapter is small and light. It draws minimal power, has built-in surge protection and includes a rubberized strap that keeps the cables
organized and the adapter from slipping off a slick surface. An optional HP USB Ethernet Adapter also is available.

The performance powerhouse: ENVY 15
This lean, mean, dream machine is HP’s fastest consumer notebook. The full metal case features a sleek, subtly crafted, laser-etched metal design on the lid that is repeated on the palmrest. The magnesium alloy casing provides
lightweight durability in a 1-inch thin, 5.18-pound package. (1)Customers have maximum speed and mobility with the future Intel Core i7 processor(4) and up to 16 gigabytes (GB) of DDR3 1,066-MHz system memory in four SODIMM memory slots. Versatile storage options include the ability to add two solid-state drives in a RAID-0 configuration to improve the overall speed of the ENVY 15 while providing excellent disk performance. Creative users will appreciate the ENVY 15 notebook’s performance and full versions of Corel® Paint Shop Pro® Photo X2 and Corel VideoStudio® Pro X2 for creating photo and video content.

Power users and gamers can take advantage of premium graphics performance via ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830 graphics with 1 GB of dedicated video memory for visually intense applications, DirectX® 10.1 games and highdefinition video playback.

A choice of two 15.6-inch HP Brightview high-resolution LED backlit displays, including the Full High Definition LED HP Ultra BrightView Widescreen Display with up to 300-nits brightness, provides a superb display experience for a
notebook in this class. A Nightvision VGA webcam that is optimized for low-light or zero-light conditions is standard on the HP ENVY 15, incorporating an infrared LED that assists the webcam(3) by providing the necessary illumination in dark environments.

The ENVY 15 has an optional Slim Fit Extended-Life Notebook Battery, giving users up to seven hours of battery life.(2)

Designing the ENVY experience
The HP ENVY line includes a 360-degree approach to product design – from the products to the packaging:
• Building upon HP’s success with instant-on technology, HP QuickWeb allows customers to access key applications without booting the PC. In less than 30 seconds, users can access the Internet, music, videos and photos, and
email.(3)
• HP Clickpad integrates the buttons into the touchpad and allows for fluid movements, while also allowing users to disable the clickpad if desired.
• The keyboard’s direct-action keys (versus typical function keys) allow users to quickly access often-used commands such as print and volume adjustment.
• Minimal desktop clutter and trial software adds to notebooks’ simplicity.
• An optional external optical drive complements the ENVY design and gives users the flexibility to carry the extra weight only when necessary. Two USB ports also transform the drive into a dock for additional capability.
• The ENVY 13 and 15 are presented in streamlined paper carton boxes using minimal ink. Included in the packaging is a simplified setup poster and documentation contained within an SD card.

Concierge service and support
The ENVY experience extends to premium service and support via the awardwinning HP Total Care program. This includes expert agents dedicated to addressing ENVY customers’ questions via phone, online chat and email as well
as next-day shipping for hardware customer service.

Pricing and availability
The HP ENVY 13 and ENVY 15 are expected to be available in the United States on Oct. 18 with a starting price of $1,699 and $1,799, respectively.(5) Register for availability notification at www.hpdirect.com/go/newfromhp.
Additional information about HP ENVY is available at www.hp.com/go/ENVY.

[HP]

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Sep 14

Lenovo ThinkPad T400s with Multitouch Review: Finger Flicking Fun

Posted in: Laptops, Notebooks, review, tablets, Today's Chili, top, windows 7

The Lenovo ThinkPad T400s looks like your boring tray-table business notebook. But what the flight attendant doesn’t know is that the Windows 7 14.1-inch capacitive touchscreen laptop is the first capable of four finger multitouch and it’s fingertastic!

Four Freakin Fingers

Up until now most notebooks with multitouch have pretty much blown (including the Dell XT2 and the HP Tx2). Most of that was because of the Windows Vista interface and sluggish screen technology. The Windows 7 ThinkPad T400s with its capacitive touch screen changes that and almost makes me forget about the all out brawls I once got into with older tablets. However, while the hardware is strong, the success of the T400s depends on it getting good software and applications to run on top of it.

The screen is pure beauty. Like a capacitive touchscreen phone, light taps on the display are responsive and you don’t have to think about positioning your finger in a certain way to open apps or rearrange windows.

Now, that doesn’t mean you can do everything in Windows 7 with your finger, which is why Lenovo put on its own widget style SimpleTap user interface. SimpleTap lets you control the volume or adjust the screen brightness with fat finger like controls. You get to the SimpleTap interface by either double tapping on the screen or selecting the red dot on the top right corner of the screen.

SimpleTap helps, but there is still a crapload that you can’t do with your fingers on the screen. So, the T400 keeps its notebook form factor with the wonderful ThinkPad keyboard, touchpad, and pointing stick in tact.

No one will ever complain that there aren’t enough ways to move the mouse around on the screen.

Unfortunately, these peripheral controls are so integral to the laptop that the T400’s screen doesn’t even rotate—it’s not a convertible as you may have thought. More than once, I just wanted to enjoy a clean tablet design while surfing the web or playing a game, though the screen does tilt all the way back. Which brings me to actually testing the screen with my fingers.

With two fingers you can do the typical mutlitouch stuff you are used to. Pinch to zoom in or out, drag two fingers down the screen to scroll and twist to rotate images. But you can also add another two fingers into the mix. And using Windows 7’s touchpack applications (which are preloaded), you can even have another person’s two fingers on the screen to help edit photos or play a game. This is the kind of thing that is better seen in video so check out the video of me playing a game with a friend and editing photos.

Yeah, it’s more than freaking cool, but what the hell are you really going to use that for? Beyond the picture and games I showed you, the answer is “not much right now.” Lenovo will remind you that there are more programs like Space Claim coming soon, which lets designers use multiple fingers to move around objects (you can see the app in action here). But those programs are going to be few and far between until multitouch starts to take off on PCs.

Performance

Like most ThinkPads, the T400s can handle some pounding. Multitasking (watching a 1080p video, with 7 tabs open in Firefox, while running three IM clients and editing photos in GIMP) was smooth and I wasn’t waiting around for things to load. Also boosting performance is the 128 GB SSD which boots Windows 7 in less than 40 seconds. It also launches Photoshop damn fast.

However, its battery life leaves more to be desired. This thing isn’t going to make it through my flight next week from New York to San Fransisco. On a Wi-Fi battery test (it is the LAPTOPMAG Battery Test) that cycles through the top fifty sites on Firefox the six-cell battery pushed out 4 hours. The battery life isn’t unbearable, though it will be interesting to see what other multitouch laptops provide in terms of juice.

Actually Good Speakers

The ThinkPad T400s nails both touch and performance, but it also makes a decent phone and music player. Apparently the model has been super popular for making VoIP calls so Lenovo upped the quality of the webcam and the speakers. The speakers are actually excellent for a business class notebook; Black Eyed Pea’s “Ive Got a Feeling” sounded seriously full on the speakers that straddle the keyboard.

Price

$2,479 (as configured with a multitouch display, 2.53 Intel GHz core 2 Duo P600 processor, 4GB RAM, 128 GB Toshiba SSD)

Verdict

The ThinkPad T400s has always been a solid notebook, and now it’s the world’s first to have a screen capable of recognizing four fingers at once. But in my mind, the T400s’ screen is a lot like the Etch A Sketch I got when I was six: it’s fun to play with, but you aren’t going to use it all that much (at least until we have more compelling applications). And keep in mind, $2,000+ is a lot to pay for a Etch A Sketch.

Seriously responsive capacitive display


Recognizes not two, or three, but four fingers on the display


Superfast solid state drive that opens programs quickly


Meh, battery life


Kind of wish the screen rotated

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