Hasta La Gadget!

We’re sort of loving Acer’s new bad-boy vibe — not only have company execs recently gone on record saying that US PC manufacturers will be dead within 20 years and that they want to “change the Microsoft-Intel environment” with Chrome OS, but now they’re standing firm while everyone else races to do a tablet. At least that’s the word from Acer Taiwan president Scott Lin, who told Digitimes that while Acer can certainly produce a tablet device, it doesn’t fit into the company’s business model. What’s more, he doubts that other companies can simply copy Apple’s hardware and succeed — instead, Acer’s going to focus on ultra-thin laptops, a category Acer expects to account for 20-30 percent of its business this year. Lin also said Acer will introduce some new models that are less then 2cm (.7 inches) thick — assuming there’s an ARM-based Chrome OS netbook in that mix, we can certainly see the super thin and light laptop category and the tablet category aligning as direct competitors in the near future.

Acer not making a tablet, will focus on ultra-thin laptops originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When a manufacturer picks AMD or Intel chips for a particular model, it’s often a bit of an exclusive marriage. Toshiba, however, is going Big Love for its new 11.6-inch T115 and 13.3-inch T135 ultraportables, which can both run AMD Neo, AMD Turion or Intel Pentium SU4100 processors. Nothing absolutely blazing, but at the $450 starting point (for AMD) you’re hardly past a netbook cost for something considerably peppier. The laptops, which measure less than an inch thick and weigh 3.5 and 3.9 pounds, respectively, offer up 9 hours of battery on Intel and 6 hours on AMD, with the ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics in the latter providing some decent low-power video decoding (including Blu-ray, if you have an external drive). Prices scale up to $700, with a 320GB hard drive and 4GB of RAM at the high end.

We played around with both models, and while there’s nothing specific to gripe about, we can’t say we’re super impressed by Toshiba’s heavy handed, ultra-gloss approach. It feels a little last gen and cheap, particularly in comparison to the refined mini NB305 — whose chiclet keyboard is almost preferable to the slightly mushy keys on display here. The price point and feature set makes these certainly worth a further look, but we wish Toshiba would get over its plastic fetish and make something a bit more desirable.

Toshiba’s T115 and T135 thin-and-lights start at $450, offer Intel and AMD flavors originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI has been quite the snake of late. Just over the past fortnight alone the outfit has slyly rolled out a new Wind Top all-in-one PC, a revamped X-Slim X600 Pro and now a brand new CULV rig that promises up to 9 hours of battery life and weighs just 3.31 pounds. The 13.4-inch X-Slim X350 doesn’t deviate from the design mantra established in earlier X-Slim models, and within you’ll find an Intel CULV Core 2 Duo processor, a ‘chiclet’ keyboard, LED-backlit 1,366 x 768 resolution display, an integrated HDMI socket, GMA 4500MHD graphics set, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, gigabit Ethernet, optional Bluetooth, WiFi, an SD / MMC card reader, audio in / out, a couple of USB 2.0 sockets and Windows 7 Home Premium runnin’ the show. There’s also an optional external optical drive available (DVD or Blu-ray), your choice of a 4- or 8-cell battery, VGA output and a pair of inbuilt speakers. Mum’s the word on pricing and availability, but we suspect the firm will be showcasing this shortly when CES kicks off.

MSI slides out 13.4-inch X-Slim X350 CULV laptop originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re lucky enough to live in the US, buying the super slim Adamo XPS is just a matter of hitting up Dell’s website — and then ponying up nearly $2,000, of course. Those in the UK, however, have been sorely out of luck. Luckily for them, we’re hearing that the much lusted-after laptop will be available at John Lewis department stores in time for holiday shopping. That’s right, this hinged baby — which boasts a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo SU9400 processor, a 128GB SSD, a 13.4-inch WLED panel, a 2 megapixel camera, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, and GS45 integrated graphics — will be available there as of today, for the base price of £1750 (that’s about $2,800). For a better idea of what this bad boy looks like, check out our hands-on impressions video after the break.

Continue reading Dell Adamo XPS: Exclusive to John Lewis in the UK for the holiday season

Dell Adamo XPS: Exclusive to John Lewis in the UK for the holiday season originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You had to know Dell’s comically secretive product launch strategy would eventually break down, and here we go: although the company is teasing an “unnamed $450 Vostro” to US media, Dell Singapore has just gone ahead and launched the thing officially as the Vostro V13, complete with specs. Oops. While Dell PR tries to put out that fire, we can dance in the rubble and tell you that Dell’s putting everything it learned building the Adamo XPS to some more practical use in the .65-inch thick, sub-3.5-pound V13, which packs either a 1.2GHz Celeron, 1.3GHz Core 2 Duo or 1.4GHz Core 2 Solo with integrated X4500MHD graphics under that 13.3-inch screen. Sure, the design isn’t as wild as the Adamo XPS, but the extra thickness means that it can accommodate an Ethernet port, along with eSATA, USB, an SD card slot and even a freaking ExpressCard slot. All this for just a confirmed US$450 on the low end? Okay, sign us up. Hit the Dell Singapore link for more pics and a nice 360-degree view.

Update: Added a video after the break so you can hear Dell pitch the V13 direct.

Update 2: It’s now official in America, starts at $449 and can be had “worldwide” starting today.

[Thanks, Daniel]

Continue reading Dell Vostro V13 is $450, .65 inches thick, available ‘worldwide’ today (update: video!)

Dell Vostro V13 is $450, .65 inches thick, available ‘worldwide’ today (update: video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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