Hasta La Gadget!

While ASUS is busy adding an optical drive to its Eee PC line, Dell is diving into the low-priced, optical-free, thin-and-light category with its new Studio 14z portable. The folks at Laptop Mag have taken the new laptop for a spin, and seem to like what they see. While its 4.4 pound weight isn’t quite best in class, the 14z outperforms most of its brethren thanks to GeForce 9400M graphics and a “real” Core 2 Duo processor — none of that weak sauce CULV stuff. The battery life isn’t bad either, and for $750 it’s easy on the wallet. You just have to ask yourself: can you live without instant access on-the-go to your limited edition set of Billy Joel hits on Compact Disc?

Filed under: Laptops

Dell Studio 14z hits the review bench, disc drive stays behind with few regrets originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Jul 2009 09:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD’s Neo ultra-portable platform was seen as something that just might rival Intel’s mighty Atom in the oversaturated netbook space when it debuted back in January, but up until now, the system has remained largely in the background. Indeed, it has only found its way into a select few machines, none of which have managed to gain any sort of traction beside the sea of Atom-based alternatives. Now, however, it seems as if the chips — which were originally engineered for ultraslim, thin-and-light laptops — may find themselves shoved into an array of nettops and all-in-one PCs. Here lately, a slew of underpowered SFF-type desktops and PC-in-a-monitor type units have found favor with bargain hunters, and Bob Grim, the outfit’s director of client marketing, isn’t looking to miss a golden opportunity. To quote:

“We’ve known all along that this type of technology would really work well in multiple platforms and multiple types of form factors. These CPUs perform better than the Atom processor, and the graphics are superior. These things… can play Blu-rays, they can play games.”

There’s still no word on who exactly plans on equipping their future machines with this here platform, but considering just how tired we are of Intel’s sluggish N270 and N280, we’ll take all the competition we can get.

Filed under: Handhelds, Laptops

AMD’s Neo to hit nettops, all-in-one PCs soon originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Jul 2009 06:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A month after Lenovo announced its new IdeaPad U350 the thing is finally ready for the prime time, and let us tell you: it wasn’t hard to spot. While in theory this is “just another thin-and-light” in a rapidly growing, CULV-aided market segment, the craftsmanship and materials used on the U350 make it our favorite bit of Lenovo design since the U110, and very well might set it apart from the budget-minded pack. We’re particularly digging the textured rubber back, but the ribbed metal palm rest also excellently avoids the glossy-plastic-of-death. Otherwise the laptop settles pretty nicely into a thin-and-light groove, with both of those particulars in spades and CULV under the hood. We would prefer some NVIDIA 9400M to Intel’s integrated graphics, but at least there’s HDMI out, and Intel’s chipset tends to be a bit better on the power sipping front. Check out the gallery for some head-to-head shots with Lenovo’s T400s — which is clearly superior in most regards, but goes for double the price.

Filed under: Laptops

Lenovo IdeaPad U350 thin-and-light hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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See that? That’s Dell’s Phil Bryant and Michael Tatelman briefly displaying what they described as an “entirely new model line” of thin-and-light laptops without any further comment at an event in Paris this morning. If that sounds like a replay of the poorly-received Adamo teaser at CES with old dudes instead of models, well, you’re right — Tatelman even referenced the negative Adamo reaction but said “we’re going to try this again.” Good plan. At least this time we don’t have to wildly guess at what we’re seeing: we’re almost positive that’s a pair of those Intel CULV-based ultraportables rumored to be released in August, and unless Dell’s foolishly keeping with the Adamo theme, we’d assume specs and prices will match up with Acer’s Timeline series. Keep a sharp eye, we’ll let you know.

Filed under: Laptops

Adamo redux: Dell teases new thin-and-light laptops in Paris with no specs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just like your mom keeps telling you, AMD thinks netbooks are a bit of a fad, and is laying down a roadmap for thin-and-lights while keeping its distance from any sort of “Atom killer.” The existing Yukon platform — featured in HP’s dv2 — just got an upgrade in the form of a dual-core AMD Neo chip, but things will really start to get exciting later this year with the introduction of Congo, which will pair a dual-core Neo with much better graphics and a more modern chipset. Perks in Congo, which is based on the M780G chipset and sports ATI Radeon HD 3200 IGP graphics, include hardware decoding for HD formats, DirectX 10 gaming, love for DisplayPort, HDMI and eSATA, and Hybrid Graphics potential for pairing the integrated chipset with discrete graphics. The hope is to compete well against Intel’s CULV and NVIDIA’s 9400M in the low-cost thin-and-light space, and if the price stays down and performance pans out, Congo just might.

Filed under: Laptops

AMD plans ‘Congo’ chipset for a future world of thin-and-lights, dodging netbooks for now originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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