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The Vaio Z is Sony’s sculpted little reminder that companies besides Apple can make exciting laptops too. More »

Samsung has never really tried to court gamers with its laptops, but a glimpse its new Series 7 family indicates that may be changing. German sites, NewGadgets.de and netzwelt.de, scored the deets on this 17.3-inch behemoth and it’s safe to say the 700G7A is a force to be reckoned with. Pushing pixels to the 1,920 x 1,080 screen is a Radeon HD 6970m with 2GB of RAM, while a 2GHz quad-core Core i7 takes care of any non-graphical tasks. Not impressed yet? Well, you can also trick it out with up to 16GB of RAM and a Blu-ray drive, to compliment its USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, HDMI jack, and Bluetooth 3.0 radio. The most convincing sign this rig is squarely aimed at dedicated gamers is the backlit keyboard — the W, A, S and D keys are highlighted in red, while the rest of the spread glows a calming blue. The 700G7A will hit shelves in September for around €1,800 (about $2,600), though there’s no word if said shelves include those here in the states. Check out NewGadgets’ hands-on video after the break.

Continue reading Samsung Series 7 700G7A targets gamers with monstrous size and specs

Samsung Series 7 700G7A targets gamers with monstrous size and specs originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Aug 2011 02:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Smart Note is a kind of analog iPad

I have tried to use the iPad 2 as a classroom tool. In my ongoing quest to learn to speak Spanish at least as well as the average Spanish three-year-old, I go to classes a couple nights a week. I have used both iPads one and two (the 2 was bought to snap photos of the whiteboard, a task it utterly fails in), and they’re great. The problem is, they keep slipping off the table.

The neat little Smart Phone Note might be just the thing, though. With it I can press my aging iPod Touch back into action one last time, just like a tiny, electronic Rocky Balboa. The Smart Phone Note is a paper notepad with a slot up top to hold your iPhone (although it should work for the iPod Touch too). You can even leave the phone in there as you run from class to class or — in my case — from class to nearby bar. The slot will hold the iPhone in either landscape or portrait orientations.

Thus equipped, I could use a dictionary app and view photos taken of the whiteboard from previous lessons (with a proper camera, dammit) while writing on paper, all without anything slipping off the desk. There’s even a cut out for plugging in headphones, which frankly seems dumb, or at least pointless.

The Smart Phone Note is available now, for 30,000 Won, or around $27.

Smart Phone Note product page [Design Tag via Oh Gizmo!]

See Also:

• Shot Note Paper Pads Designed to Be Scanned by iPhone
• Paper Notebooks Mimic iPhone
• SPhone: A $500 Paper iPhone Clone

The Toshiba Qosmio F755 will deliver 2-D or glasses-free 3-D content on a 15.6-inch display

One of the biggest obstacles to 3-D adoption in the home is the requirement for uncomfortable, eye-straining glasses.

Now there is an alternative, at least in the laptop department.

Today Toshiba introduced the world’s first glasses-free 3-D notebook. The Qosmio F755 has an Intel Core i7 processor and NVIDA GeForce 540M graphics, as well as Harmon Kardon speakers, a Blu-ray drive and HDMI output. It can display content in either 2-D or 3-D.

To achieve a 3-D effect without glasses, the F755 uses an auto-stereoscopic display. This works by creating a double parallax image: Two images are projected simultaneously, and face-tracking technology (through the laptop’s built-in webcam) customizes the image based on the viewer’s position, delivering one image for the left eye, and one for the right.

This allows for a “broad viewing zone from which to view 3-D content,” according to the press release. But this may also mean two people won’t be able to watch the screen in 3-D at the same time.

In another effort to make 3-D more compelling to consumers, yesterday Panasonic, Sony and Samsung teamed up to announce their support of the “Full HD 3-D Glasses Initiative,” which would mean one brand of glasses could be worn to view all of their 3-D TV models. But so far, mobile devices, like the glasses-free 3-D Nintendo 3DS seem to be enjoying marginally more success than larger-displayed counterparts.

Although a glasses-free 3-D notebook may fare better than glasses-requiring models, stats from a March 2011 survey by research firm ABI Research still show consumers aren’t overly excited by the technology.

Forty percent of respondents said they have no interest in a 3D-ready TV, and only 8 percent said they are considering a 3-D TV purchase within the next six months. Approximately 1.76 percent of the total flat-panel TV shipments in 2010 were 3-D capable (that’s 3.5 million sets).

“Most 3-D HDTV purchases are being driven by other features, specifically screen size, price, display technology, refresh rate and internet connectivity,” said Jason Blackwell, Practice Director of Digital Home for ABI Research. “In addition, many of the current 3D-ready models have been discounted significantly and/or additional incentives have been offered including a free Blu-ray player, free glasses and even a free PlayStation 3. For the most part, consumers are not clamoring for 3-D-ready TVs and other 3-D devices.”

And the same seems to be true for notebook computers and other mobile devices.

“In our March 2011 survey, only 28 percent of people listed 3-D capability as an important factor in their purchase decision for a new notebook computer. Processor speed and memory came in as the most important factors with 88 percent choosing each of those,” Blackwell said. As for smartphones, 58 percent of respondents said they had zero interest in a 3-D capable smartphone.

The Qosmio F755 can be yours Aug. 16 for $1,700.

To include the iPad, or not include the iPad? It makes a big difference in notebook market shares. (Source: Deutsche Bank)

Most calculations of market share in the portable computing arena don’t include the iPad, which they consider a tablet and not a traditional computer. But because tablets seem to be cannibalizing computer sales, it’s not a stretch to include iPads in those tabulations.

Based on the line graph above, the notebook landscape changes drastically when iPad is included.

Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore calculated global notebook computer sales up until the second quarter of 2011 in a note to clients. Not including iPad sales, Apple ranks last, saleswise, as a manufacturer. Including the iPad, Apple soars to snag the top spot.

Whitmore’s note included stats about the top six notebook vendors: Acer, Apple, ASUS, Dell, HP and Samsung. The top two overall vendors for most of the time period, HP and Acer, have had generally downward trending market shares since second quarter 2010, which is right around when the original iPad debuted.

It’s been pretty clear that the iPad has been eating into laptop sales for a while, and this graph corroborates that. But compared to Whitmore’s calculations in 2010, Apple’s market share including iPad sales has actually gone down slightly, from about 25 percent to 20 percent. Does this mean that all those copycat tablets are actually edging in on the iPad’s market domination? Lenovo’s three recently revealed tablet offerings look to be pretty good Android contenders against the iPad, while others like the Samsung Galaxy Tab have had decent sales but still don’t make the mark. And according to Digitimes, iPad sales are expected to rise 55 percent in 2012, while non-Apple tablet shipments are expected to jump 134 percent.

“Within the tablet market, the iPad remains the gold standard as competitors struggle for mind-share and traction,” Whitmore says in his note — which must help explain why the iPad is the only tablet included in the second quarter 2011 calculation, when many of the vendors now have tablet models available. He also sees Apple snagging an even larger piece of the pie as the back-to-school season sets in and the Microsoft/PC ecosystem is “relatively stagnant.”

The iPad is very clearly still Apple’s prizewinning stallion in the portable computing department. Even with innovative competitors popping up, it’s going to take a lot to unseat Apple from its dominant position.