Hasta La Gadget!

Lenovo’s giving some of its ThinkPad flagships a nice little spec overhaul, specifically the X200 series of ultraportables and the spectrum-leaping W700 hardlyportable dual screen laptop. The new X201 and X201s start things off with a new option for touchpads on the 12.1-inch form factor, options for Core i7 and Core i5 processors, and sub-three pound weigh-ins on at least the 4-cell configuration. The X201s is slightly lighter and slightly thinner, and is limited to Core i7 procs, though neither version gets much under an inch thick. The X201t (pictured) is the well-leaked tablet version, adding on a bit more thickness in exchange for a highly configurable screen, which includes options for outdoor viewing, capacitive touch and of course pen input. All three laptops rely on Intel HD graphics and are rather extensively configurable, with batteries ranging up into the 12 hour ballpark with the 9 cell battery option on the X201 and X201s. Unfortunately you’ll still have to look to Lenovo’s consumer line for HDMI output — none of these machines are packing anything other than VGA.

Meanwhile, on the other end of town, the 17-inch, Wacom-equipped W701 and W701ds (dual screen) are making the leap to Core i7 as well, though the Core i7-920 Extreme and Core i7-820 QM Quad Core on display here is fairly desktop class. There’s also NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M / 2800M graphics, and an option for a dual SSD drive configuration to really break the bank.

All of these laptops should be available in the beginning of March, with starting prices of $1,199 (X201), $1,599 (X201s), $1,549 (X201t), $2,199 (W701), and $3,799 (W701ds). Can’t wait to find out more? We’ve got a review of the X201t all warm and ready for you. There’s PR after the break.

Continue reading Lenovo ThinkPad bumps bring X201, X201s, X201t, W701, and W701ds into the Core i7 fold

Lenovo ThinkPad bumps bring X201, X201s, X201t, W701, and W701ds into the Core i7 fold originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer was perhaps the biggest believer in Intel’s Core 2 Duo ULV processors, with its Timeline range running almost exclusively on Intel’s lower voltage parts, so it’s no surprise to hear that the Taiwanese vendor is investing heavily again in Intel’s 2010 ULV variants. We’re talking Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs here, so performance should get a nice boost, but the best news is confirmation of something we’d heard earlier: the final product’s profile will be an aggressively svelte 1.9cm (0.7 inches) in thickness, which will match the headline feature of Apple’s MacBook Air. The plan is to launch “this year,” and indications are that this hero machine will figure heavily in Acer’s push to oust HP from the top spot in global laptop shipments. To say that we’re looking forward to it might be an understatement.

Acer developing ‘ace in the hole’ ultrathin, putting MacBook Air on notice originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 03:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell is serious about its thin and light class of machines judging by its ability to churn out these lovely lappies from its Adamo design studio. Today we’ve got the Latitude 13. Oh sure, it looks almost exactly like the Vostro v13 for small businesses but this is Latitude brother, Dell’s mainstream business brand. As such, it comes fully IT-ified with a preinstalled Citrix client, easier virtualization options, and baked in know-how for system image and software update distribution. So it’s not really new, but it’s still “the world’s thinnest 13-inch commercial client laptop,” according to Dell and that’s gotta be worth a second look when it begins shipping in a few weeks.

Dell Latitude 13: a thin-and-light for big business originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 02:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Laptops

MSI X-Slim X620 keeps its ULV processor and ATI graphics, adds an optical drive originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jan 2010 20:02:00 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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