Hasta La Gadget!

Notbook (n.) — An affordable ultraportable laptop, typically with a 11.6-inch or 12-inch display that is not a netbook. It packs more power than a netbook (i.e. can handle 1080p video and Flash at fullscreen) and provides a more comfortable computing experience than the typical, 10-inch underpowered, shrunken Atom-based laptop. Most do not have optical drives, but do last for over five hours on a charge. Unlike pricey ultraportable laptops, notbooks are more affordable and start at around $400.

About six months ago, the 11.6-inch Dell Inspiron M101z arrived on my doorstep for review. The AMD Neo-powered system looked like a slightly enlarged netbook, but in a briefing with Dell, the product manager reinforced quite a few times that the system was absolutely “not a netbook.” I can’t remember his exact wording, but he made it crystal clear — the $449 Inspiron M101z was so much more powerful than an Intel Atom netbook that it could be one’s primary machine. Obviously, I started calling these sorts of laptops “notbooks,” and over the next few months, more and more of them started popping up. Some of them paired Atom with an NVIDIA Ion GPU (e.g. Eee PC 1215N), while others used AMD’s Neo chip and more recently AMD’s new Fusion Zacate APU. (Intel’s Core ULV-powered systems are frankly too expensive to be considered in this category, though some Pentium / Core 2 Duo systems, like the Acer Timeline X1810T, could qualify.)

Uh, so what? There’s a new crop of more powerful, affordable, and highly mobile laptops — what’s the big deal? Well, while many think tablets are what will ultimately cut the netbook market down to size, it’s the notbooks that will also seriously hit the Atom-based lilliputian laptops of today where it really hurts. Don’t get me wrong, ARM-powered tablets like the iPad and Motorola Xoom are going to impact netbook sales in a big way, too (heck, they already have!), but mark my words, notbooks or affordable ultraportables will take a noticeable chunk of both the netbook and the mainstream laptop market. There’s finally a class of laptops that provide a terrific balance between primary and mobile computing without breaking the bank. Think I’m crazy? Hit the break to understand what I’m talking about.

Continue reading Editorial: The rise of the notbook, the fall of the netbook

Editorial: The rise of the notbook, the fall of the netbook originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Jan 2011 12:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s hoping you don’t mind having your existing laptop made antiquated by this one. Just months after Maingear introduced its Clutch-15 and Alt-15 machines, along comes yet another 15.6-incher… and this one’s claiming to be the world’s fastest in its category. The eX-L 15 packs a 1920 x 1080 screen resolution (with glossy or matte options!), a variety of new Sandy Bridge chips (with the Core i7 2920XM capping things off), NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 460M (1.5GB) / GTX 485M (2GB), up to 16GB of DDR3-1333 memory, a 2x Blu-ray reader, HDMI / DVI outputs, gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports and a pair of USB 2.0 sockets to round things off. The starting tag of $1,579 certainly isn’t easy to swallow, but where else are you getting a powerhouse like this with a Full HD matte display? Exactly.

Continue reading Maingear throws Sandy Bridge, GTX 485M into eX-L 15 laptop

Maingear throws Sandy Bridge, GTX 485M into eX-L 15 laptop originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 02:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ah, NVIDIA, how far you’ve come. This time last year we were all wondering if your first Fermi GPUs would operate successfully without a nuclear reactor in our backyards, yet today you’re introducing a successor to one of the best value-for-money GPUs the PC gaming world has seen in ages. Yes, the GTX 560 Ti has mighty big shoes to fill, but it’s off to a good start with 384 CUDA cores running at 1645MHz, 1GB of GDDR5 RAM running at an effective rate of 4GHz, and an 822MHz graphics clock — each one a clear and pronounced upgrade over its GTX 460 predecessor. You’ll have to check out the reviews below for a detailed breakdown of what those numbers will mean on a game-by-game basis, but there’s another way in which this new card is proving its impact already.

ATI AMD has (conveniently) chosen to cut the prices of its Radeon HD 6870 and HD 6950 cards today, while also outing an HD 6950 with just 1GB of onboard memory to serve as a direct competitor to NVIDIA’s latest. Competition, ladies and gentlemen, it’s an awesome thing.

Read – HardOCP
Read – Tech Report
Read – PC Perspective
Read – techPowerUp!
Read – AnandTech
Read – Bit-tech
Read – TechSpot
Read – TweakTown
Read – Hot Hardware

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti: second-generation Fermi for the $250 mainstream originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Jan 2011 09:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Darn, we’ve barely started getting acquainted with Tegra 2, yet NVIDIA seems to already be preparing the stage for a sort of Tegra 2.5 — a 1.2GHz dual-core chip that’ll be marketed as a 3D-capable mobile processor. This T25 silicon is apparently set for mass production in the first quarter of this year, with availability coming up in the spring. Given the noises we keep hearing about 3D going mobile, this is one rumor that makes a lot of sense — and even if you’re a staunch supporter of the 2D creed, you can’t deny that a sped-up Tegra 2 CPU sounds pretty delicious. We’ve managed to also track down some technical chatter about adding support to Chromium OS for a 1.2GHz T25 from NVIDIA, seemingly corroborating the leaked image above. Oh boy, it’s gonna be a hot summer for mobile computing this year!

1.2GHz Tegra 2 3D chips suggested by leaked slide, coming ‘spring 2011’ originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 23 Jan 2011 15:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Got an old Dell, HP or Apple laptop sitting around with a defective NVIDIA GPU? The company’s finally ready to compensate you. That proposed class-action settlement from late last year has been approved by a California court, and the company’s taking claims for repairs, replacements and reimbursements at a specially-designated website until March 14th. If you’ve got an affected Dell or Apple MacBook Pro, you can get the faulty chips replaced free of charge, while HP owners get a whole new replacement computer, though considering the choices there are the budget Compaq Presario CQ50 or an ASUS Eee PC T101MT, you might be better off selling your old parts on eBay. Finally, if you’ve already paid to get your components replaced and have the docs to prove it, you might be able to get refunded — NVIDIA’s set up a $2 million pool to be divided among all such reimbursements. Find everything you need at the links below.

[Thanks, Kalyan]

NVIDIA’s faulty laptop GPU settlement starts paying out, file your repair and reimbursement claims now originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Jan 2011 14:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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