Hasta La Gadget!

As a rule, you could always wait to buy a laptop, and find a better, cheaper one later. But believe me, now is one of those times when you have to. Here’s why you should wait—just two months.

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A Way Better Operating System

We have been blunt about it: Windows 7 kicks ass, especially Vista’s. Sure you can upgrade a current Vista laptop to Windows 7 but there’s a hassle involved. Buy a laptop now and you get a free upgrade to Win 7, but the laptop manufacturer (not Microsoft) has to send you the install disc via snail mail after October 22. A clean install of the OS done at the factory is more likely to be hassle-free. On top of that, a number of laptops will be optimized for Windows 7, meaning they will have new hardware features that will take advantage of the new operating system which brings us to point number two.

More Power

If you have been looking for the opposite of a netbook and a high-end mobile machine, you’ll have your pick come November (actually, late October). That’s when Intel ought to roll out the latest edition of the Centrino platform, codenamed Calpella. This chipset is expected to feature a less power-hungry version of the Core i7 desktop processor we like so much, with perhaps mobile Core i5 and Core i3 versions on the way later. We expect a slew of these laptops to hit then. We already know that MSI will ship 15.4 and 17-inch notebooks powered by Intel’s new Core i7 7200M, Core i7 8200M, and Core i7 920XM with Windows 7.

Mac users take note: The Centrino platform is also found in all manner of MacBook—just without the Intel sticker—so this applies to you, too. And fans of the shiny white plastic MacBook know that it’s due for a cosmetic upgrade, so whether you want the faster processors in a unibody MacBook Pro, or a full makeover, inside and out, on the plastic MacBook, it pays to wait.

The arrival of 64-bit-savvy Windows 7 and Snow Leopard means that system builders will also be able to bump up the RAM. Now it will make sense to go beyond 4GB, pushing us out of the current RAM rut, though perhaps at an added cost.

Serious Weight Loss

The thin-and-light laptops that are coming are so thin they make me hungry. If you don’t care about the kind of horsepower needed for games and 1080p video, Intel is also shipping new dual-core ULV processors. Laptops that used to cost north of $1,500 now thanks to Intel’s ULV (once called CULV) are gonna be under a grand. The new dual-core chips are aimed at ultra thin laptops (those right in between netbooks and mainstreamers, like the Acer Timeline). MSI told us about the new Core 2 Duo SU4100 and SU7300 chips—it is our guess that these are the same chips that will be in Sony’s rail-thin X Series and Samsung’s X120.

Sweet Deals

It may still seem too early think about holidays but, hey, autumn starts in two weeks. Many of these new notebooks will be released at the end of October to coincide with Windows 7’s Oct. 22 official launch date, and a scant month later we hit Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the biggest sales days of the year. Retailers and manufacturers would be stupid if they didn’t mark down even the newest stuff, so if you hold out just a few weeks, you will not only get the best laptops out there but you’ll get them at some unbelievable prices.

Future Features

We don’t necessarily expect you to wait for GScreen’s dual-screen laptop, but some other pretty great new technology will start hitting notebooks before year’s end. SuperSpeed USB (aka USB 3.0) will be showing up soon, and after Windows 7 arrives, more and more laptops will be built with multitouch capability. Additionally, chances are good that the price of solid-state drives will start dropping, and that more laptop manufacturers will also start selecting the faster SSD models.

The future is upon us. So don’t buy anything right now. Save your money, handcuff yourself to a piece of furniture, and wait it out. Just two months, that’s it.

Sony wowed us this morning with its Vaio X Series, but details are now emerging. According to this video, the .55-inch thin system may be more netbook than notebook. And boy, do I want to hold it in my arms.

Thanks to its 11.2 inch display it looks really compact and that carbon fiber outside and keyboard, oh that keyboard, make my mouth water. As for what is on the inside, we don’t know much. The guys at NetbookNews say there is discussion of an Intel Atom processor (they seem to be hoping for the next generation Pineview CPU), but we won’t be surprised if they go with Intel’s new ULV offering. Either way it is something low powered since Sony has been touting crazy all day battery life (from the video though the battery doesn’t seem to be replaceable).

Now it would be typical Sony to jack up the price on this 1.5 pound baby, but I am thinking it might not be as high as some anticipate (crossing my fingers for under $750). Don’t forget Sony was saying a few months ago it wants to enter the low cost ultraportable space. Our sources tell us this sweet lappie will launch sometime in October with Windows 7. [Netbook News]

Now, details are slightly thin here (as well as machine translated), but we’re getting word of two new Samsung laptops on the horizon — the 14-inch X420 and the 15.6-inch X520. The X420 will supposedly boast a 1.3GHz Intel Pentium dual-core SU2700, Intel GMA X4500M graphics, 3GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive, with not an optical drive in sight. Similarly the X520 will also feature the ultra-low power consumption SU2700 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 320GB HDD. The X520 will weigh in at 2.09 kg with its 6-cell battery, while the X420 will supposedly weigh 1.7 kg. We’re hearing these bad boys are coming to European soil in mid-October, and while we don’t have any solid pricing information — both have been estimated to run somewhere in the €700 range (around $1,000).

Filed under: Laptops

Samsung X420, X520 CULV laptops outed originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is one of the first photos of an actual gScreen’s dual 15.4-inch screen Spacebook—two full screens (not just an extra 10-inch one like Lenovo’s W700. Really. There were renders before, but here are the photos.

The Alaska based company, started by Gordon Stewart (yep, that is where the G in gScreen comes from), is aiming its dual screen laptops at professional designers, filmmakers, photographers and really anyone who can’t live without a dual screen for everyday productivity. They have also been in talks with the military. The chassis (which we expect is at least 12 pounds) is built around the 15.4 inch screen (though the first units that come to market will have 16-inch or 17-inch screens) and its twin, identically sized screen slides out from behind the first using a uniquely designed sliding mechanism.

“We designed this knowing that many may not need the extra screen at all times,” Gordon told me. But when you do use both screens you’ll get about 30-inches of screen space. GScreen plans to release dual 13-inch models at some point.

Gordon plans to have the first Spacebooks being sold through Amazon.com by December of this year. Currently they are making tweaks to the power source (as you can see from one of the images) and to the screen slider.

They will run Windows 7 and be powered by Intel Core 2 Duo processors (we would love to see some mobile Core i7 love here), 4GB of RAM and high-end Nvidia GF900M GT discrete graphics. The plan is for fast 7,200 RPM hard drives and six or nine-cell batteries. It will also have a DVD player so you can watch a flick on one screen and refresh Giz on the other. “It is absolutely the opposite of a netbook,” he told us. Yea that is no kidding with a price tag that he is hoping to keep under $3,000.

Now we are skeptical about them meeting their end of the year production date considering this model’s power cord looks like more than a work in progress, but seeing as Santa is close by to gScreen’s Alaska headquarters we don’t see why he can’t just drop off some dual screen craziness in time for Christmas. [gScreen]

Now that it’s back-to-school season, an interesting accessory has popped up for college dorm dwellers who want to keep their laptops safe.

DormVault is a $80 nine pound “rugged steel” vault that can store a 17-inch laptop, accessories and maybe a portable drive or two.

It’s promise is that it can keep prying eyes and untrustworthy friends from getting to your personal papers or photos. The steel case can be attached to furniture and has bolts on the inside to keep the laptop secure. The entire box has a combination lock.

Props to the marketing ingenuity here, but wouldn’t any box with a lock work well enough?

Even better get encryption for your laptop so your files and pictures can be truly safe.

[via Gadget Review]