Hasta La Gadget!

Every time we write about Intel’s flawed Sandy Bridge chipset and the need for it to be physically replaced, the financial costs go up. First Intel projected a $300 million hit to its bottom line, then it set aside $700 million to cover repairs and replacements, and now it’s estimating a round $1 billion loss in “missed sales and higher costs.” Those missed sales will be coming directly from guys like MSI and Gigabyte, two of the major motherboard makers, who have stopped selling their Sandy Bridge-compatible models until Intel delivers untainted stock, and also Dell, who has nixed availability of its Alienware M17x R3 gaming laptop. CNET did spot that HP and Dell were still selling laptops with the offending chipset in them yesterday, but we imagine both will get their online stores straightened out in due course. For its part, HP says it’s pushing back a business notebook announcement due to this news, much like NEC has had to do. Moral of the story? Don’t let faulty chips out of the oven.

Update: Dell says the M17x R3 is just the tip of the iceberg here: “This affects four currently-available Dell products, the XPS 8300, the Vostro 460, the Alienware M17x R.3 and the Alienware Aurora R.3, as well as several other planned products including XPS 17 with 3D. We’re committed to addressing this with customers who have already purchased one of the four products and will provide further details on this as it becomes available.”

[Thanks, geller]

Dell, Gigabyte and MSI pull products in wake of Sandy Bridge chipset flaw, HP faces delays (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Feb 2011 04:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI’s Wind Pad is finally on sale, hoping to have the same success it enjoyed with the MSI Wind netbook, only without the netbook’s low, low price. The Wind Pad will cost $710, which is at the high-end for a 10-inch tablet. But then, it’s not really a tablet in the modern sense. It’s much more like a netbook version of those bulky old tablet PCs we used to know and hate.

The chip is a single-core 1.6GHz Atom Z530 and the OS is Windows 7Home Premium. That right there should tell you all you need to know. You also get 32GB storage (remember that the full Win7 requires 16GB), 2GB RAM, HDMI, ambient light sensor and accelerometer, two cameras and a six-hour battery life. The 800-gram (1.76-pound) tablet is pretty much a netbook without a keyboard. It also uses MSI’s own Touch UI spread over the top of Windows, hopefully making it a little easier to use.

That might sound bad, but it is also a netbook without a keyboard, which should mean opportunities for hacking and installing more finger friendly operating systems. Available now.

WindPad 100W [MSI]

MSI 10-inch WindPad 100 [Simply Electronics]

See Also:

• MSI Wind-Pad, a Featherlight Multitouch Tablet
• WindPad: $500 Windows 7 Tablet Arrives September
• Asus, MSI Tablets Lead the Charge Against the iPad

There’s no question that AMD’s new Fusion Zacate platform is pretty killer when it comes to ultraportables or notbooks (as we like to call ’em), but there’s no reason the affordable, solid-performing APU couldn’t power a budget 15.6-inch system, right? Well, that’s certainly the way a few laptop manufacturers see it. Following in the footsteps of Toshiba’s Satellite C655D, MSI’s decided to cram its 15.6-inch CR650 with AMD’s latest Fusion APU. Equipped with a Zacate E-350 CPU with Radeon HD 6310 graphics on the same die (the same chip in the HP dm1 we just reviewed), there’s no doubt the rig can handle full HD and light games without a hiccup. We’re not exactly drooling over the design, but it does have the basics, including a DVD drive, six-cell battery, HD webcam, and speakers that claim superior SRS sound. It will also be configurable with 250, 320, or 500GB hard drive and DDR3 RAM. There’s no word on the price just yet, but our guess it should ring up at under $600 when it finally hits shelves.

MSI CR650 scores an AMD E-350 Zacate APU originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 06:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looks like that tease was more than just a tease. It’s a truism. Back at Computex, Bigfoot Networks’ CEO told us that his next major target was motherboards. The company already infused its Killer E2100 gaming network card into a GPU, and here at CES, it’s formally announcing three partnerships with major mainboard makers. MSI, ASUS and Gigabyte are all onboard, with the latter to offer a new line of G1-Killer mobos later in the year. ASUS will be dishing out a ROG Rampage III Black Edition (shown above) which will feature the E2100 on a combined LAN / audio called dubbed ThunderBolt, but your guess is as good as ours when it comes to specifications and CPU compatibility. Pricing and release information remain a mystery across the range, but it’s practically a guarantee that we’ll see more of these tie-ups in the coming months.

Bigfoot Networks intros Killer E2100-powered motherboards from ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 04:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI’s new tablets felt like prototypes, but the device pictured above is truly far out — it’s the MSI Butterfly, one of several whimsical concepts the company teased about a week ago. We actually ducked into MSI’s booth right before it covered the whole display with a giant plexiglass box and got some reasonable snapshots, but nothing remotely resembling a proper hands-on, so you’ll have to make do with the gallery below and whatever dreams may come.

MSI Butterfly and Angelow all-in-one PC concepts, eyes-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 22:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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