Hasta La Gadget!

When we received an e-mail from a very agitated reader detailing that the wireless card and the screen on his HP tx2000 stopped working just a convenient few days after his warranty expired we felt bad, though didn’t think much of it. But then we started doing a bit of research, and it turns out these issues go all the way back to the tx1000 and that there are thousands — if you can trust the petition numbers — that have been encountering these problems. The cause? Most likely the overheating NVIDIA graphics card and chipset that was used in both models, and which was actually the reason for Sony, Dell and other HP laptop recalls last year. So, what gives, especially after the warranty of these tablets has gone up? Not much, unless you are handy with a motherboard, some thermal compound and tinfoil like the guy in the video after the break (spoiler: he fixes his tx1000!) We wish we had better news, but if you’re an unfortunate owner of one of these txs your best bet is to hit one of the links and sound off. The more noise, the more likely HP will be to finally recall these puppies.

[Thanks, Artur T.]

Continue reading HP tx2000 suffering from dead screens and wireless, NVIDIA to blame?

Filed under: Laptops

HP tx2000 suffering from dead screens and wireless, NVIDIA to blame? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rambus, a company that has been in a long, drawn out legal battle with NVIDIA over five patents for what seems like ages now, had some good news delivered to it late last week. A judge at the U.S. International Trade Commission issued a preliminary determination finding that NVIDIA had indeed violated three of the five patents — ruling that the other two had not been violated. Now, NVIDIA says that the whole patent mystery continues to be a subject ripe for reexamination by the Patent and Trademark Office — which has consistently found the claims of infringement to be invalid. NVIDIA says it will take the claims to a full commission for a final decision. You’ll probably remember that these five patent infringement claims were part of a much larger suit that Rambus filed against NVIDIA — some of which were dropped earlier this month. Will it never end?

Court case shocker: Judge rules in favor of Rambus, not NVIDIA… sort of originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tired of waiting for the Eee PC 1201T to ship? Impatient, aren’t we? We’ve been wondering about the status of this here netbook since it came to light last November, and now it looks like the Germans are about to get a real, live taste of AMD’s Congo platform. Boasting a 1.6GHz MV40 CPU, the same look and feel that we’ve grown accustomed to on Eee PC netbooks, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, ATI HD3200 GPU and Windows 7 on the OS front, this is certainly one of the more unique machines in the sea of Atomized “me-toos.” The pain? €399 ($560), and the first batch is expected to ship out tomorrow. Here’s hoping the price dips somewhat when it makes its Stateside debut.

ASUS’ Congo-based Eee PC 1201T pops up on Amazon’s German portal originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rather than mongering yet another rumor, DigiTimes is apparently reporting as fact that an Ion 2-powered Eee PC will launch in April. It’s also expected to host a 12-inch display if we’re reading this report correctly. That NVIDIA boost is welcome news since the Pine Trail-only bump given to its Eee PC 1005PE didn’t offer much in the way of performance improvements and still can’t handle YouTube video in HD. While no direct prices were given, Atom N450-based Eees are expected to drop in price to NT$14,000 (about $439) in Q2 after ASUS depletes its stock of legacy N270- and N280-based Atom netbooks. DigiTimes also notes that its 10-inch Eee PC T101 convertible touchscreen tablet (the T101MT presumably) will launch in late February along with a 12-inch Eee PC built around AMD’s Congo.

ASUS’ Ion 2-based Eee PC to launch in April originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 02:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As long as Dell chooses to be stingy with the details of its upcoming 5-inch Mini 5 (codenamed Streak) MID we’ll just have to suss out the specs from more nefarious sources. And who better to fill in the blanks than the kids over at Tinhte — the original source of the leaked Android handheld that got official at CES? The Vietnamese site did the world a solid today by tearing into a Mini 5 sample revealing a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, two microSD slots, and a bigger 1,530mAh battery than the original 1,300mAh baby we saw back in October. The site also confirms the SIM slot with 3G radio and taste for faux 80s metal. See what we mean in the video (and bonus pic) after the break.

[Thanks, Tran Manh K.]

Continue reading Dell Mini 5 teardown reveals Snapdragon guts and 3G SIM (video)

Dell Mini 5 teardown reveals Snapdragon guts and 3G SIM (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jan 2010 05:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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